I need some answers from Atheists...

?

?paradox?

Registered Member
Hello...im new here

I wanted to know the atheist responses on some argumens, some are popular/corny ...(im new in this)..

1- on the designer argument: I saw hundreds of debates between theists and atheists on this, and actually I found niether of them 100% convincing..

the argument usually goes around How "the universe and its laws cant be running so strictly and perfect and complex without a designer, but then the usual followup question that the creator will have to created too for the complexity of such a beeing who created this complex universe will be even higher , and we go to an endless spiral of creators, but then the theists come up with the usual one about that god was never created and was always "there" ...then comes up the atheists to say why cant we say the same about the universe? and theists will say about the point on the endless creators spiral that its not logical that A god would creat another god to creat the universe, So it must be only one there who was always there and was not created.


Also on the designer Argument, that everything Has a first cause, And all the complex things around us have an intelligent desinger ...

I saw an atheist once uses the development of things such as oil, gas , and some rocks getting formed in a certain shape by chance without an intelligent designer but just randomly , and a theist said that these things Doesnt match up in complexity with things such as biological beings, Though he failed To explain his idea of "complexity", and whats the standard to say that "x" is complex and have to be craeted By an intelligent designer and not by chance...


I will follow up more Questions on other arguments after I hear the atheist comments on these and we discuss it..

:m:
 
Not sure what your question is. Do you want general opinions on intelligent design vs no creator?
 
Originally posted by Jaxom
Not sure what your question is. Do you want general opinions on intelligent design vs no creator?
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yeah thats what i meant opinions and comments on such arguments....cause i find both sides rather equal...
 
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IMO, these arguments stem from the human need to explain things in a neat and tidy manner. When the human brain can't wrap itself around something because it is counter intuitive(universe creating itself) or vast(billions of years of cumulative evolution) it encounters a error and returns the value "God". This is a failing of the human mind rather than an insight into the nature of the universe.

Do you want actual critiques of the arguments?
 
I'll start with a simplistic statement then.

Nature has certain "rules" it follows. Physics, chemistry, etc. These are models that we have developed to explain the world around us, but they are consistant, so we can pretty much say that most of them are set rules throughout the universe. Given that, the structure of things in the universe does not need a creator to designate order and design, this comes from the interactions of the parts of the universe itself.

A theist would have to show how the structure of the universe and things in it need guidance to show the order and complexity that it does. Otherwise a creator is an extra part that is not needed to make it all work.
 
For something to come into being without a creator, time must be a constant that always existed and will always exist. That cannot work, since if we have an infinite time in the past we would never have arrived in the present. If there were infinite time in the past, there would take an infinite time for us to arrive in the present. Therefore, time must have been created (or made, you can argue...). But how can you make time out of nothing? How can time be created? To create or make something you need time in order to do it. If you don't have time, how can it happen at all? For this reason, time should be seen as an illusion of the mind, as "if" the brain would create it in order to be able to work.

Time had to be "created" by a timeless being. Somenone that is not under time, but above it. In truth, there is no time. In the same way God is not under time, neither we are. Our brains are under time because that is how it works. Without time, the brain could never regulate anthing. But with a better consciousness we can bring this awareness to ourselves.

Time is a paradox...:rolleyes:
 
For something to come into being without a creator, time must be a constant that always existed and will always exist. That cannot work, since if we have an infinite time in the past we would never have arrived in the present
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this i don't understand. the present doesn't arrive, it's always there.
so use the time line metaphor. the line is of infinite length. so you could say that if I name a point (A) on the line and call that the pesent, that we may never reach that point because the line is of infinite length. but i could also say that we have to be at some point on the line, and whatever point that is, is the present, and it has an infitite lenght of line behind it that is the past.
 
So let's try something new although I doubt this is new but I have not seen this argument before, but then I don't read much. However, I'm sure though that someone will correct me, if I'm wrong. Although the argument could be gibberish.

The assumption is that the existence of something complex requires an intelligent designer to have caused its creation. The only example we have of an intelligent designer is man. And there are plenty of examples of the complex mechanisms that man has built, and which of course could not have arisen by chance.

But there is a major flaw to that assertion. Man has never designed anything complex. It is true that we see complex artifacts that man has built but he didn't design them, at least no single individual designed them.

Every complex item that man has built was the result of his ability to use simpler building blocks and principles devised by earlier people. Take for example the very complexity of the modern microchip. If complexity were the result of intelligence alone then we would have to conclude that a cave man could have designed the microchip. Modern man (homosapien) has been around for about 200,000 years, and in that time his intelligence has not changed in any significant manner. Clearly the early caveman could not have built or designed a microchip.

Perhaps we could argue that the intelligence of a single man is just not enough. What if we combined the intelligence of 1 million cavemen could they together have designed the microchip? The answer must still be no. Without the knowledge of electricity even the most intelligent being could not have built the microchip.

In everything man has built there has been a long trail of ever simpler principles and discoveries that preceded it. The best that a single man can do is put several simpler building blocks together and this is the extent of his intelligence. But then apes and chimpanzees have been seen to do that and some birds and other animals.

I can take and explore this line of reasoning a lot further but I'll end it here for now with this conclusion.

The justification for claiming an intelligent designer must have designed something complex like life is that everything else we see as complex was designed by men. However, I hope you can see that that is incorrect. All that man has done is to adapt something slightly simpler and made it slightly less simple. But to reach that point requires a long previous chain of equally simpler steps. This is the nature of evolution.

Without the example of man being an intelligent designer then the basis for claiming that an ID designed the universe is invalid because there is no precedent or evidence for the claim.

The modern computer was not designed, it gradually evolved with the help of an external agent known as man.
 
Time

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
For something to come into being without a creator, time must be a constant that always existed and will always exist. That cannot work, since if we have an infinite time in the past we would never have arrived in the present. If there were infinite time in the past, there would take an infinite time for us to arrive in the present. Therefore, time must have been created (or made, you can argue...).
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Simply magicking your way out of the paradox is not really an answer though. Fortunately, there are several problems here so we don't need to. The primary one is in the understanding of the nature of time. Einstein's theory of relativity put an interesting twist to our common sense understanding of time. Time, it seems, cannot be separated from space. Time therefore, began with the inception of the Universe. Before the 'Big Bang' time itself did not exist.

Viewed from a perspective outside of our 4 dimensions (outside of our 'Universe') time would be simply another static dimension. Now perhaps the 'Metaverse' that contains our 'Universe' and from which it originated has it's own temporal dimension and causal direction, but any view from this perspective of our Matter Space Time continuum would perceive a static object in the same way that we perceive 3 dimensional objects as static.

The apparent paradox is simply a problem of mixing a temporal frame of reference with a non-temporal one.

But how can you make time out of nothing? How can time be created? To create or make something you need time in order to do it.
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Once again, your mixing up your frames of reference. If time does not exist 'outside' of our Universe then our temporal understanding of causality simply does not apply there. The words 'before' and 'after' have no meaning in this reference, causaility would not be linked to time.

For this reason, time should be seen as an illusion of the mind, as "if" the brain would create it in order to be able to work.
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Unsupported conclusion. If time doesn't exist then how can the brain act to create it?

~Raithere
 
Personally, I do not believe that there is an intelligent designer. I do believe that it is certainly possible, but it is not something I believe is actually true. If definitive evidence were found proving otherwise, then I would certainly revise my beliefs.

However, for now, Atheism is good enough for me.

I'd like to know more about Proto-Indo-European religion, but nobody seems to want to write books that actually document what is known in that field, but rather very specialised books or vastly incomplete works. *pout*
 
Originally posted by ?paradox?

And all the complex things around us have an intelligent desinger ...[/B]
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By what criteria might one deem the 'design intelligent'?

When I design something, it is based on a specification driven by requirements and conditioned by constraints. Presumably, constraints would not be high on the list of some Deity's concern. Why, then, is the cosmos characterised by a gross lack of parsimony while human males have nipples? Why billions of years to produce heavy elements, only to waste most as interstellar dust. Why billions of years dedicated to bacteria only to 'design' a creature plagued with sinus problems because s/he adopted an upright stance?

Were I to design like this, I would be fired.
 
spacemanspiff,
this i don't understand. the present doesn't arrive, it's always there.
so use the time line metaphor. the line is of infinite length. so you could say that if I name a point (A) on the line and call that the pesent, that we may never reach that point because the line is of infinite length. but i could also say that we have to be at some point on the line, and whatever point that is, is the present, and it has an infitite lenght of line behind it that is the past.
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What do you call "present"? What do you call "past"? Is there really a time? Even if my reasoning is wrong, don't we know that time began with the Big Bang? Then time has a beginning...

What we define as time is only a concept. We cannot make the concept something really real. Time is only the way we use to organize things. Beginnings and ends make no sense. Time just IS.
 
Time is on My Side

Originally posted by TruthSeeker
For something to come into being without a creator, time must be a constant that always existed and will always exist. That cannot work, since if we have an infinite time in the past we would never have arrived in the present. If there were infinite time in the past, there would take an infinite time for us to arrive in the present.
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What we define as time is only a concept. We cannot make the concept something really real. Time is only the way we use to organize things. Beginnings and ends make no sense. Time just IS.
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I'm not sure these two statements are consistent.

If time is a conceptual measurement, then it is arbitrary, man-made, and not "real." To turn around and use it in an argument dependent on its inherent reality is contradictory word-play.

Here is another way to look at it: "If the space available to the universe is infinite, then we would have had an infinite amount of space to cross before reaching our current position, which is absurd. Either that or we aren't moving. Therefore, we aren't moving."

Also, what is the deal with infinity? Why is it impossible, just because it's not as discrete and easy to comprehend as normal numbers? The space between three and four is infinitely divisible within the set of rational or real numbers, but we see no contradiction in an object sliding from the three-meter mark to the four-meter mark, or in a stopwatch clicking from three seconds to four. Theoretically that sliding object would have to pass through an infinite number of points before arriving at its destination; the stopwatch would have to wait through an infinite number of moments before reaching the fourth second.

In short: why is an infinite amount of past absurd?
 
"Lao Tzu",

In short: why is an infinite amount of past absurd?
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To say that a definite amount of time is equal to an infinite amount of time is the absurd. Or time is infinite or not. Or it never ends, or ends at some point far away. If it never ends it is infinite. If it ends far away is finite. Therefore, if you say there is an infinite amount of time in the best, you are looking at a timeline with no beginning. That is a paradox. Why? Because if time began in an infinite amount of time in the past, the present wouldn't have arrived. Look at the timeline:

<------------------------------------------------------------------+-------???
no beginning... infinite amount of time passing....present???

If there was no beginning, we would need an infinite amount of time to arrive in a point infinite time away. It is like saying that someday we will arrive in the "infinite future", what we call "forever". We will never arrive there, to the end. Therefore, if time began in an undefinite infinite amount of time in the best, the "forever" would be seen as our "present", and it would never be reached, which is the contradiction.
 
Truthseeker, you have a few choices here. They all are "absurd" by your definition, but some are less "absurb" than others.

The universe has existed forever, and what we see of the big bang is more localized than we think.

The universe began existing 13-15 billion years ago, and sparked that birth itself.

The universe began 13-15 billion years ago, sparked by a god, who we now have to ask which applies to him, existence forever, or self-birth?

I myself find it easier to believe that the big bang is a localized phenomenon in a larger cosmos that just exists, and always has. One can throw a god into the mix, but unless it's a needed variable, why?
 
Thinking about Infinity

truthseeker,

Can you conceive of a time 1 year ago, I expect you can, Now imagine a year before that. Now do that again, and again and again. How far back can you go? No one knows. Perhaps if there was no beginning to time then you could keep going back forever. But notice that you are still in the present. What you have now done is achieved a perception of infinite past.

Imagine an infinite line of cookies. Eat one of them. What is it that remains? You now have either an infinite line with a gap in the middle, or you now have two lines, one that stretches in one direction and which never ends and another line that stretches in the other direction that also never ends. Are these lines infinite or not? Well partly. If you start at the beginning of one of the lines then you can safely say it is infinite in one direction, i.e. it has no boundary at one end.

The same is true with time. Think of the present as a gap in the line. You can then safely talk about time going back infinitely, and you could look forward and talk about an infinite future.
 
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Truthseeker,

<------------------------------------------------------------------+-------???
no beginning... infinite amount of time passing....present???
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Or try -


<----------------------------------+-------------------------------->
No beginning.............................Present.................................No end.

Where is the problem?
 
Jaxom,

The bigger universe would have the same paradox as our smaller one.


Cris,

In an infinite timeline, what is the definition of present? What is present anyways? Now? Or a second before you read that? Or now that you are reading it? Does it make sense? What you call past and future are simply concepts that your mind uses to differentiate between the moment that is lived now and the moment that was lived and will be lived someday. It is just a concept; it has no reality in it. You will never live the past nor the future, all that you will experience is the present.
 
I see no paradox in an infinite universe. I do see a problem with creation or birth or whatever ex nihil.

How can you see a paradox in this, and none in a infinitely old god? What's the difference?
 
truthseeker,

In an infinite timeline, what is the definition of present?
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The present is just a point on the line, and can have zero size. Basic geometry. But the granularity of the point can be as small or as large depending on your perspective.

In geological time the present could mean the relatively insignificant time that man has existed, i.e. 200,000 years. In an Olympic race the present is measured in milliseconds. If the universe does have an infinite number of big bangs that came before and after this one then we can see this current big bang bubble as the present.

The duration of the present is relative to the subject being discussed.

What you call past and future are simply concepts that your mind uses to differentiate between the moment that is lived now and the moment that was lived and will be lived someday. It is just a concept; it has no reality in it.
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Before the shuttle was built it was a concept. In your reasoning and your implications the shuttle is not a reality because it was once a concept. The terms 'past' and 'future' are just labels that we assign respectively to reality that was and reality that we expect.

You will never live the past nor the future, all that you will experience is the present.
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Well of course unless we develop time travel. You seem to be trying to apply 'present' to past and future. We have experienced the past, we are experiencing the present, and we expect to experience the future.
 
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