What? "Created" is not a valid operator

EDIT: I see the above poster is of the same mind.

These two ideas are non sequitur. Time is not a river that flows in one direction. According to the Lorentz Matrices, time, strictly speaking, is invariant, it has no direction and there is no reason it should. This is demonstrated by the light-cone experiments, which can be causal-chronological or chronological-causal. Time is not a thing unto itself, being relative to the observer, but absolute space-time is. The concept of time as we understand it is quite simple to begin with. In a 2D Euclidean manifold, with two vectors, the square of the displacement of a body will be equal to the squares of the sum of the vectors. This is Pythagoras' theorom: x^2+y^2=h^2. This can be extended to incorporate a Z axis: x^2+y^2+z^2=h^2. Minkowski realized that if a 3D body displaced a 3D Euclidean manifold, than (and this fit perfectly into the contradiction Einstein found between Maxwell's equations and the Galilean Transformations), time could be included as being displaced as well, along a 4D manifold called Minkowski space. In this scenario, time simply becomes another unit of measurment, the same of length, width and breadth, which can be displaced. THe equation derived for this simply follows the same rule of transformation: x^2+y^2+z^2+(ict)^2=h^2. This works tidily since c is constant in all frames of reference, although it needs some righting since it is unhelpful to vector something to an imaginary number, i which is formally r(-1), and since squared, becomes: x&2+y^2+z^2-(ct)^2=h^2. In this scenario, time has no direction, although it still has causality (since it is a part of a topological structure instead of an abstraction), that causality, described by the causal manifold, an extensive topic in Relativity, can go, as the experiment demonstrated, both ways.

No it doesn't. Redshift shows the universe had a beginning. Entropy was at a lower probability state at time zero than it is now.

All the Big Bang theory states is that the universe expanded outwards 13.7 billion years ago from a very dense, extremely low entropy prior state. Many theists miscontrue the Big Bang as ex nihilo, "out of nothing". It is not the case. There are certain models postulating pre-Big Bang occurances, the boundary condition in Hartele-Hawking, brane cosmology, etc. But the BB itself says nothing about the creation of the universe. It simply describes an expansion occurance 13.7 billion years ago from a prior state, and the model describes occurances from the Planck time onwards from this prior state, that we can describe events from the Planck Time until the end of BB nucleosynthesis.

The laws of General Relativity break down as you approach the prior entropy state, until Planck Time. According to BB theory, nothing can be known about the pre-Planck Time existence, all we know is that the universe expanded outwards from some prior very low entropy state when presumably the symmetry in the four disngaged forces were unified. There was no matter, it would have been too excited and broken down, due to Planck's Constant. This system was extremely unstable and collapsed into our present system. Remember, when one intuitively speak of "time" you are speaking of time as a progression. I am referring to the Lorentz Manifold, the causal structure. This applies to Minkowski and Non-Minkowski space. So, it is unhelpful to say that time "did not exist" before BB.

The gist is that all the BB says is that the universe expanded from a symmetrical low entropy state which may have been a false vacuum which inflated, via which the force disengagement could have been created and matter could form since it is no longer too excited below Planck temperature. This circumvents SLOT because the system in question was lower entropy than the current one.

According to this formula: Tp=mpc^2/k=r(hr)c^5/Gk^2, matter breaks down at the Planck Temperature, 10^32K. It is nonsense to speak of matter being "hotter" since temperature is a measure of particle kinetics. In the low-entropy state, there wasn't any matter, it becomes interchangeable with energy.

 Since the prior state was lower entropy, the original pre-Planck constituency was symmetrical, as opposed to the arrangement after Time Zero.

A symmetry in physics equations is generated by the ability to interchange expressions in an equation. Thanks to Weinberg and Salam, we can interchange all three leptons in an electric field, which gives it SU(3) symmetry. The ruling of the universe is dictated by SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) symmetry, regarding the simplest particles that make up the universe. In the singularity during the Planck era of the universe (10^-43 seconds), the collapse of the false vacuum led to the breaking of the symmetry from SU(5) to what we see today. Symmetry breaking is not properly understood, and very difficult to solve. We think it was a "virtual quantum event" that caused it via tunnelling (The Heisenberg Uncertainity allows it, since it is extremely small and only occurs for about 10^-45 seconds. This caused the false vacuum fluctation, and the symmetry broke. Gravity was the first force to disengage, giving a SU(4) x U(1) symmetry. The breaking off of the other three, including electromagnetism, generated the asymmetry we see today, which explains why the electron has a negative charge (the electromagnetic force). There was no charge in the symmetry. None at all. Being that the universe iwas orignally in a state of symmetry, there is no charge in the entire universe. The electromagnetic force works both ways, it attracts and it repels (unlike gravity, which is purely attractive). It's attraction/repulsion is very, very precisely balanced, to the tune of 10^-32 electron volts difference, which is probably experimental error. This is good because the electromagnetic force is tremendously powerful, almost 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000 times more powerful than gravity (this explains why you can cancel the entire gravity of the Earth by picking up bits of paper with the static electricty of your comb). And that means that if the electromagnetic force was any less balanced, you would be ripped to shreds instantly.

This is an argument from ignorance. Also, the word "supernatural" is still unclarified.

Now, I get to rewrite your, er, syllogism, into a fallacy:

Those who have read Joseph Heller’s famous novel will know of what we call in logic a Catch-22. The idea behind it has been understood for quite some time, simply put:

C=>(A^B)

(A =>~B)

(B =>~A)

This is basic logic notation. Preconditions A and B are both necessary for outcome C, but if A, then B cannot occur, and conversely, if B, then A cannot occur, hence, C can never occur. In Joseph Heller’s book, the Catch-22 was that to leave the air force, you had to be insane and you had to request to leave. But if you are genuinely insane, there is no way you can request to leave, conversely, if you request to leave, there is no way you can be genuinely insane. So, you are stuck. It’s also known as a no-win situation.

We have a similar situation here. There are two necessary preconditions that make God a necessary and coherent postulate that the Cosmological Argument may work.

A: Cause requires time (which there cannot be an infinite regress of)

B: The universe (of which time is a physical component) was caused

C: The Universe was caused by an entity outside of time

The a posteriori observation for the argument comes from the necessity of time for cause, such that infinite regress is impossible, the other postulation is that the universe was caused under the proposition that all things need a cause. This is a Catch-22.

If causality requires time, then it is impossible that time was caused. If time was caused, then it we cannot speak of causality requiring time, therefore the Universe being caused by something outside of time cannot occur, because A cannot occur if B and nor can B occur if A. C (the outcome) cannot occur since it necessarily postulates that there cannot be an infinite regress of cause because cause requires time, without that proposition we could not speak of the necessity of the God being, because these are the grounds on which the Cosmological Argument is being propagated! We cannot reference regress without referencing time, ergo, we cannot reference regress of cause without referencing regress of time. Yet postulation B specifically states that it is necessary to postulate the Prime Mover on grounds that the universe of which time is a component was…caused. If this proposition were not true, the Primum Movens would not be a sensible proposition. But it cannot occur if A occurs, since A postulates the opposite and A cannot occur if it occurs, but both of these postulations are necessary for C (the outcome), being the universe being caused by an entity outside of time.

The paradox here is “cause of cause”. Cause, per se, requires time as a substrate (the idea of the “cause of time” is insurmountable, like “north of the north pole”. When we speak of cause we are speaking of a correlation between two events A and B where there is temporal sequence between such events that A may “cause” B. Hence, what precisely does it mean to say that an entity outside of time could be the cause of such an event as what is essentially the beginning of cause itself? Surely, we have set up a greatly insurmountable paradox. We cannot reference causality without referring to time, and hence the notion of an atemporal being as the cause of cause is inherently absurd. An atemporal being, by definition, cannot cause anything or indeed execute any action since both notions necessarily refer to the substrate of time in which they may occur. Furthermore, the notion is essentially appealing to “cause of cause” which is inherently absurd. How do we intend to reference causality by the invocation of an atemporal entity?’

No. The ad ignorantium is what you are doing.

The fallacy is double edged:

X is true because it has not been proved false

X is false because it has not been proved true

THat question I am preparing a response to since I am writing a 27 part lecture on molecular evolution, the first three parts of which I have already completed. It is lectures 9 and 10 that are devoted to Abiogenesis. However, to understand lectures 9 and 10 presumes the knowledge in lectures 1-8.  

hmmmmm

putting arguments for god in the form of a syllogism

this is new and will definitely convert many atheists 

Acknowledged. I've attemtped a correction in a later post. 

It'll take me a while and lot's of research to even begin to understand the rest of your response. I will go through it though.

To me though this whole attempt to explain how natural things came about through natural processes is a no-win situation. Natural processes rely on the existence of natural things which must come about through natural processes. Hmmm.

It is far more logical, surely, to say that processes which we cannot explain using natural science, brought the natural things into existence. It had to be an extraphysical process, this is obvious surely.

Does't the law of biogenesis back that statement up? Or have a misunderstood something?

So you have a hypothesis based on data that you have that life arose from inanimate matter? Do you have any idea, in layman's terms, how such a thing will be reproduced? How will you prove this?

Hypotheses for this have been around for a while. THe problem is not that it is impossible, the problem is that we don't have enough information. Big difference. 

 To some degree, there are experiments in vitro that can demonstrate some of the principles I am working with. These experiments are simple, and are done en masse. THe purpose is to find as many ribozyme structural RNA sequences as possible. It begins with an enormous number of DNA molecules, randomly generated sequences, then transcribed in vitro to leave us with an enormous pool of RNA molecules. These will fold by themselves into conformations based on complementary base pairing. In doing this, we add a vast number of substrates to each test tube, for example, Adenosine triposphate, or Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. Once an RNA can catalyse the transfer reaction, they incorporate the reactive subunit, and since the glass is lined tightly with binding agents that will capture only the reactive group, the ribozyme will fall through, whilst the ones without catalytic ability will be sifted out, such is called elution. The purpose of this is to build a databank of known RNA sequences with autocatalytic abilities, although the number must surely be enormous. After that, if any RNA molecules manage to catalyze anything, they are reverse transcribed back into DNA. The DNA is amplified several billion times by the Polymerase chain reaction, and then the RNA is forced back through the step of elution again (and again). This is a simulation of chemical natural selection, and is a useful information-gathering step in learning of how RNA catalysis constructured pre-cellular metabolism, although the experiment can be done on a much wider scale using lipid bilayers, since those form by themsleves and certainly preceded the dawn of cellular life. 

Exactly. I had forgotten about this. Thank you for pointing it out to our interlocutor. Biogenesis is directed against the old doctrine of spontaneous generation. As Jeremiah pointed out, people used to believe, for example, that maggots were generated by rotting meat, called spontaneous generation. A long and complex process of chemical evolution to lead to the first cells is not something that biogenesis comments on. 

A theist who is genuinely interested in educating themself?

Careful, wzedi.  That is exactly how a lot of us lost our belief in our old religion.

Heh. I've heard many who went the other way - got educated and found themselves convinced of the reality of God. Departing from the (seemingly pointless) effort to rationalise this, God is Spirit. He who worships Him must worhsip Him is Spirit and truth.

 I know that's dogma but that doesn't make it false. I know God is real. I know it. I cannot articulate it to you but that doesn't make it false. The thing is, a man has to make an effort to open himself to God. He has to allow God to breath life into his spirit otherwise he cannot understand these things. Man has a spirit and this is what physics cannot describe. This is what atheists scoff at. You cannot know God unless your spirit is given life. It is dead until you allow God to bring it to life.

 All nonsense to an atheist mind I know. Not necessarily fallacy though.

My understanding is that the universe is physical. Everything we observe in the universe and can understand through physics could not have come about through physical processes. The laws of physics appear to support those (though apparently it's not that simple). So time as we know it, that applies to physical things, is not something that need be a constraint on a process that is not physical. 

Ever heard the term "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing"?

This is a special pleading fallacy. The entity in question you are invoking as a solution implies certain attributes which presuppose physicality. You’ve already suggested it can cause things, that would imply it is within a causal manifold. I’ve already pointed out your logical error in my first post. The essential point is that you are playing “pick and choose”. You need a certain set of attributes to be able to make your solution sound sensible, even though it only exacerbates the problem. The juxtaposition of “well, its outside time” and “physical laws don’t apply to it” with “it has causal powers” and “it caused the physical universe” and “it is a process but it isn’t physical” Huh? The concept of process presupposes the concept of temporality, which in turn by virtue of that presupposes spatial location, and so presupposes physicality. You are speaking gibberish. Absolute gibberish.

How did you know?

What's to say you won't turn around in 30 years and say 'I "knew" God didn't exist for 30 years.'?

Edited to add: Your whole presupposition argument is about semantics and has no bearing on finding the truth. When I say process I am not speaking of a process as we know it. I use the term for alack of a better one (or at least my inability to articulate the idea another way). Maybe a different term is preferrable but that does not change the reasoning nor the validity of my argument.

The entity in question cannot be described by physics, that is the point. You are using physics to place limitations on a super natural entity.

Let's define the super natural entity (or process if you will) in question. The entity/process has the ability to create matter and energy. We know for a fact that matter and energy are not created or destroyed in nature. Any process or entity that brings about the creation or destruction of matter and energy must by definition be super natural (or the laws of conservation need to be revised).

There is no presupposition of physicality. Your understanding of a causal manifold is limited to natural physics. You are attempting to apply natural physical laws to something which necessarily operates outside of those laws. It has to in order to create matter and energy. By defintion the entity operates outside of natural physical laws.

No matter what our physics shows us about the beginnings of natural things, natural things cannot have been the beginning of natural things. That is impossible. Physics cannot explain how natural things came about becuase physics relies on natural things to produce evidence. One then has to assume that natural things always existed in some form or another. Hmmm, starting to sound more like conjecture by the second. Where is the evidence? If it exists it contradicts the current laws of physics and to claim something like "the laws of physics did not apply at Plank time 0" is tantamount to saying "The laws of physics do not apply to God (or the spaghetti monster if you like)". You must apply your constriants for argument consistently.

No-one can assert that there is no God. To make such an assertion places the burden of proof on such a one. The fundamental laws of physics point to some super natural entity or process that we cannot describe using physics. All attempts at explaining this away using physics are laughable.

You might argue that the Bible is fallacy and the God of the Bible is not the super natural entity or process we are talking about. You cannot seriously argue that there is no such entity or process.

There are recognised physicists, cosmologists and other scientists that have faith even with all their knowledge of science. That in itself shows that science does not prove there is no God.

Most Christians are taught that their god (the Abrahamic god) is All-loving, All-knowing, and All-powerful.

If god knew everything, could control everything, and loved everyone, no one (or extremely few) would go to hell, there would be no accidents involving maiming or death, and there would be no birth defects.

Such a god would see someone doubt his existence and directly intercede.  I know a lot of people that died not believing in god. 

Such a god would see an accident about to happen and intervene to prevent it.

Such a god would see a birth defect beginning to form and correct it.

Such a god would not allow deadly cancer, heart attacks, anneurysms, etc.

But all these things happen every day.

Therefore either A) the abrahamic god does not exist.

or

B) He's not all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful.

This can easily be said by a person of Jewish faith, Muslim faith, etc.  They will all say in their own particular way that their god has told them how to avoid hell.  I have stood in foreign countries where the Muslim faithful knelt on prayer rugs praying to Mecca clogging the streets.

Most christians would say they are going to roast in hell forever.  Most muslims would say christians are going to roast forever.  If you were born in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, etc. you would most likely be Muslim and die believing as a muslim.

So...how do you reconcile that?

So you are saying that god is not all-loving?  His love is "conditional"?  You have to be a believer for god to prevent the accident?

So this means no christians die in car wrecks?  Really.  Point to the statistics that say christians are less likely to die in accidents.

...

An All-loving god, and therefore a god that gives his/her love non-conditionally would protect everyone.

He has interceded.  Allah was given so that we would believe.  The prophet has been given to give us unwaivering faith which has real world results.  The Koran is recorded to show us the truth.  It is up to us to accept it.  If Allah were to simply show Himself and give some undeniable...

Wait, free will would be gone?  Why?  If I knew for a fact that the abrahamic god existed it would not remove my choice whether to follow him or not.  It would simply show me that god is real and that the consequences for obeying him or not is real.  I could still refuse to follow god just like Satan did.

Without faith we can't be saved?  So the Virgin Mary, the disciples, etc...well they didn't need faith.  They saw Jesus ressurected.  So they are in hell now because they had proof and not faith?

Once again conditional love not all-loving.  I can give you a testimony how a lucky rock landed me a job I really wanted.

Does this mean my rock has magic powers?

Right.  So we have to please the all-loving god before he will not allow a baby to be born with their spinal cord on the outside of their body.

Hmmmm...god works in mysterious ways, eh?

Yes, that baby must be born defective, in pain, and a high chance of not surviving childhood because of what Adam did.  That makes perfect sense.

Praise God!

Yes, science is destroying the world.

Yeah, humans have never lived shorter lifespans or been in fewer numbers than we are today...

Uhm....reverse that.

Oh really? Then what are you speaking of? Some vague and meaningless gibberish that you cannot articulate because there is nothing to speak of. Your argument presupposes that cause requires time, which is true a priori, but that in turn supposes that it is impossible to speak of something "outside time" causing. You are setting up an insurmountable paradox. You are trying to suggest that something is the "cause of cause". This is absurd. End of goddamn story. Either admit that you are setting up a Catch-22, or get out. But do not waste my time with meaningless nonsense like "well, God is "just different" and making a vague and meaningless special pleading fallacy.

That is utterly ridiculous. Validity of an argument necessarily depends on the coherency of a proposition. If you cannot articulate it, it isn't an argument!

No I am not. You are giving it attributes that require physicality under the premises of your own argument.  I do not know how to make this simpler. You are suggesting that such a being has causal powers. By the premise upon which you build your argument, that would require physicality. There is no way out of this. You cannot defend your proposition. It is absurd. You are observing

(A) That the universe has causal efficiacy

and (B) That cause is temporal 

And using these to propogate a hypothesis that contradicts both of these statement. Being this, do not even think about suggesting that such a solution is "good" or even "possible". It is a Catch-22, a paradox.

You've contradicted yourself. You've suggested a "supernatural process". Gibberish. By virtue of its meaning, the concept of process depends on causal efficiacy, hence time, hence space, hence physical existence.

That is impossible. Matter and Energy cannot be destroyed. You obviously know nothing about the Big Bang theory, which does not purport to state that matter and energy have been created. What you are postulating is called ex nihilo, which is completely and utterly ridiculous. I have already refuted this within my first response. But you have ignored this. Your argument is based upon a false premise, that the universe was created out of nothing. Nowhere in cosmology or physics is such a thing dictated or even possible.

The laws do not need to be revised, and you cannot specially plead for this supernatural entity, because you are still giving it attributes that entail physicality under the premises of your damend argument. You are making up ridiculous nonsense that is in no way supported by anything in physics: The premise that matter or energy are created. Nothing in Cosmology states this, and  your understanding of Big Bang is horribly misguided.

You are still giving such a thing attributes which are physical under the discussion at hand. You are giving the agent causal powers. By your own premise, this necessitates a causal and physical manifold. Cause cannot be caused. Your argument is completely useless. It solves nothing. It sets up a paradox.

Furthermore, your argument is ontologically incoherent. You are simply giving this entity negative description, it means nothing to ascribe the ontological lack of quality "supernatural" onto an agent any more than it is meaningful to describe a boat as "not a boat". You are appealing to vague, meaningless, ad hoc nonsense. The description of the agent you appeal to makes no sense.

YOur entire argument, furthermore, is based on views of time that are absurd and naive, as I showed above. Your premise is based upon time being an arrow that moves in one direction, such that it all comes back to one cause. Nothing in physics supports this proposition. Absolutely everything points to the opposite: Time is invariant. If you can demonstrate something which indicates the opposite, please contact the Nobel Foundation. If your ideas about the first cause were sensible, it would be perfectly coherent to speak of "anti-time". But it is not. So, something is very wrong with your argument.

My, you're a handsome shade of black, Mr. Kettle.

This is a fallacy of false dichotomy. Your bifurcation sets up two possibilites:

(A) All things had an uncaused cause

(B) Infinite regress of cause

I have a better suggestion: Your understanding of time as a function is not supported by modern physics, and both suggestions are garbage.

The fact that you appeal to the pop-science concept of "The laws of physics" shows how desperate you are getting. I said the laws of general relativity breaks down at the Planck units. This is demonstratable. I did not say the "laws of physics" (whatever that means) breaks down at the Planck units.

This is a fallacy of argument from ignorance. You are suggesting that negative propositions cannot be made on grounds that do not exist. There is no such thing as a burden of disproof. You are furthermore making a fallacy of conflation between strong and weak atheism, the former holding that they have deductive arguemnts against the existence of God, and if such arguments were valid, they would have the right to make that assertion, provided it was backed.

This is false. Your understanding of physics barely goes beyond first grade. Physics does not predict ex nihilo creation, even though you seem to to think it does. You have no understanding of modern physics.

Actually, what's laughable is you getting into arguments you have no idea about the discipline upon which your argument is ground.

Yes I can. The concepts you attempt to apply depend on descriptors that you excise from your description of this "God". I can just as much say that the idea of supernatural process is nonsense as I can say that electromagnetism cannot exist without magnetism. To contradict either statement is to be destroyed by reductio ad absurdum

Not many. See the developmental biologist Sean Carroll's Why Nearly All Cosmologists are Atheists.

It's amazing how many things you can demonstrate ignorance of in a few paragraphs. The job of science is to investigate and gather facts about the empirical world. No scientist would claim that science could disprove God, just as none would claim it could prove it. The concept of God can be hammered to pieces by the application of a proper philosophical methodology.  

Actually, it is one of the most well established principles in physics. Ever heard of this insignificant little scientist called "Einstein" and his "Conjuecture" of relativity.

Oh, wait...it's a law. 

Start with this:

Ein who? 

I'll do some reading and get back. So if time is invariant can I speak to my grandmother that passed away a while back? What's that? No you say. Why not if time is invariant? Ah hang on, I'm still in the first grade. So because I don't understand I can't travel through time? Either that or time invariance is nothing more than theory.

Sarcasm is not going to get us anywhere really. I'm keen to learn so I will do some reading and I appreciate your tolerance of my ignorance and your feedback.

The law component simply refers to the law that describes it. Most principles in physics are "theories" with accompanyting laws", like gravity and the inverse square law. Splitting hairs, I know, but the distinction is important.

You are quite right, and it's a worthwhile clarification, I think. Thank you.