DEFINITIONS
-Agreed upon
1. Exist - to have objective being in reality.
2. God - an omnipotent, eternal being.
3. Motion - Actualization of potential. Change. (I think "change in a physical state" is a more accurate definition since that is what my opponent's examples describe.)
-Those my opponent neglected, which I will now supplement.
1. Reality - The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them [1].
2. Being (used in two ways in this debate) - (1) mass noun; Existence. (2) noun; A real or imaginary living creature or entity, especially an intelligent one [2].
3. Objective - Not dependent on the mind for existence; actual [3].
4. Universe - All existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos (spacetime and its contents) [4].
5. Evidence - The available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid [7].
6. Fact - A thing that is known or proved to be true [8].
BOP
My opponent's stance on the resolution necessarily entails the burden of demonstrating how mere change in physical states is indicative of the existence of an omnipotent being that has objective existence in reality. This demand for objective existence in reality necessarily entails the burden of providing evidence of that objective nature. Otherwise, this claim may be dismissed as unfounded in any observable fact. Since the claim of putting the Universe into motion is necessarily a scientific claim about Cosmic Origins, it must also include some method of falsifying the claim, lest it be committed to the category of pseudoscience.
REBUTTALS
1. CLAIMS TO KNOW WHAT NOBODY KNOWS.
In an attempt to meet this burden, my opponent has brought out one of the cosmological arguments. Specifically, a Thomistic argument. I would like to precede this series of rebuttals with a simple one: arguments =/= evidence. In order to address this particular Cosmological Argument, we will start with the core syllogism:
"1. There exist in the world entities in motion (i.e. things which have potentials actualized)
2. Whatever is in motion is set in motion by another. (i.e. whatever potential becomes actual is actualized by another, that "another" is something itself actual, as mere potential cannot actualize anything.)
3. An infinite regress of movers carries with it no explanatory power for how any entity was set in motion. Therefore this chain of movers must terminate with a prime mover, in other words, an entity with the principle of motion in itself. An unmoved mover, or, more specifically, an unactualized actualizer. "
The first glaring problem is that this syllogism alone is not an argument for a god, only an unactualized actualizer at best. Even if we accept the premises, it makes no suggestions that this actualizer is a being, let alone omnipotent or eternal.
"A being that is pure actuality is, as we saw, eternal and omnipotent. We may call this being God."
We could replace the word "god" with any other noun and it would be equally unconvincing as indicative of that actualizer's nature, qualities, or existence. One cannot simply define God to be the explanation and then assert he is the explanation without evidence.
The current scientific understanding for the Universe as it exists is that it began expanding from a hot, dense state a few Billion years ago, and is expanding uniformly in all directions [5]. I'm assuming that for the purposes of this debate, my opponent does not dispute these well established facts of the universe. My opponent claims that this initial expansion was started by an omnipotent being, and that he calls this being "God."
Now, my opponent's claim is that an "unactualized actualizer" started the initial expansion of the Universe. This is a claim that flies in the face of our current breadth of human knowledge, for the simple fact that nobody actually knows what started the initial expansion. Furthermore, his idea of causes and effects (actualizers and actualizations) is a temporal concept. Since time didn't exist before the initial expansion, my opponent must demonstrate how his temporal argument makes sense when time words don't necessarily mean anything. Essentially, asking what came before the initial expansion is like asking what is North of the North Pole: the question is meaningless. And unless my opponent can demonstrate that time existed before time existed, then his core concept is meaningless in the context of how he is applying it. Spatial-temporal concepts are necessarily within the scope of the Universe, and without space-time (the universe), these concepts are incoherent.
Also, we cannot apply classical physics to the quantum realm, whose quantum laws would have dominated the Universe in its extremely hot, dense state. So the idea of dominoes needing a domino-pusher is incoherent in the quantum realm, where physics is not so intuitive.
" One does not arrive at an explanation for their motion unless one appeals outside the chain. "
The problem is that my opponent has not, and cannot demonstrate any precedent to suggest there is an "outside" the Universe. This is wholly conjectural and applies irrelevant concepts of cause and effect to a non-temporal realm.
This argument also refutes my opponent simply because, If god is outside the universe, then he does not have objective being in reality.
"To put it another way, suppose I have a chain of mirrors all with the reflection of a bear in them. The mirrors have no power in themselves to produce the image of the bear, no matter how long the chain. Therefore there must be a "principle of bearness" which actualizes the mirror's potential to reflect a bear. "
This is patently false. It is not the "principle of bearness" that is reflected in a mirror, it is whole bunch of photons [6]. Aquinas was not aware of the existence of photons, and so could not have known this. The ignorance of the Middle Ages of the nature of the world around us bleeds through the cracks of this argument. The mirror is simply a reflective medium, that bounces photons back, allowing for reflections.
2. VIOLATES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.
" The atoms and the subatomic particles of said entity could have been arranged in another fashion, or simply not have existed at all. Their potential to exist however, was actualized by something actual, as we saw in premise two. "
The universe can be thought of as a closed thermodynamic system. One way we know this, is that the second law of Thermodynamics is a linear process. It is the only law of physics that doesn't look the same in reverse as it does going forward; this gives us our dimension of linear time. If the universe was not a closed system, we could observe the entropy decreasing, and our flow of time would not necessarily be linear. But instead, entropy only increases in our universe, and this gives us a clear linearity to our temporal dimension.
Since we established that the Universe is a closed thermodynamic system, then we may apply the first law as well: that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; energy can only be transferred or changed from one form to another [9]. In other words, the initial energy for all the matter in the Universe was already existent at the moment of initial expansion. Therefore, our atoms do not have the potential to not exist, they must necessarily always exist in some form of matter or energy.
At the crux of this contention, my opponent ignores models of the Universe that include matter and energy always existing. In the early Universe, the energy state would be so high that all the matter would be pure energy, and theoretically, any amount of energy can fit into any size. According to one model of the infinite universe [10], "Proper time ceases to be a useful concept for physical time if particles become massless." Which would have been the case in the state of the Universe we are discussing.
3. GOD OF THE GAPS FALLACY.
Fundamentally, my opponent is claiming that the explanation for why things are moving at all, is god. I have demonstrated that the actual explanation of why the Universe started expanding is unknown. My opponent attempts to fill this gap with a "being" called "god". However, he has not provided evidence that this is the case. It clearly does not follow that a being started the Universe simply because objects change physical states. This is supplementing one unknown for another, and simply begs the question of the existence of the supernatural and how that would affect experimental results.
4. MISC. PROBLEM AND CONCLUSION
" A being with no potentiality to actualize is to say that such a being cannot change (immutable)"
There is no difference between a being with no potentiality and a being that doesn't exist. Being unable to change, this being would be unable to make a decision to create the Universe. Furthermore, if it cannot change, then it is not omnipotent.
In conclusion, there is no need to invoke a being to explain why the Universe began expanding. This is a non-explanation, asserted without evidentiary backing, and is fallacious at every turn.
out of space
First of all, way to drop the main point, second off no that example isn't analogous, why not? I do not claim that the universe as we know it is infinite, I claimed that is is possible that the universe prior to time is infinite... except, you should notice something, how can something without time be infinite, as in exist infinitely? It couldn't because there would be no time for it to exist in - you see- before the big bang our understanding of physics breaks down, you cannot apply logic to that pre-big bang or whatever you want to claim caused spacetime to exist, as you can now - it is simply not valid.
Thank you for voting.
A god of the gaps argument is any argument that attempts to answer a question we don't know the answer to, like, "what caused the big bang," or "what causes lightning." We used to say it was zeus that caused lightning. If your claim is that god caused either, then that is a god of the gaps since there is no evidence to suggest that corresponds to reality. The fact that we know what causes rain replaces the former gods of rain that we would pray and sacrifice to in order to bring the rain. You're just substantiating the point that it's a god of the gaps fallacy.
God was defined as a being. You can't prove that the universe was put into motion by a being. And my opponent failed to prove that.
Your categories are just incoherent. You can't prove god exists, or that the supernatural is even possible, therefore you can't use god as a category of things that exist. It's a non-starter if you can't indicate it even exists.
You contest that unicorns are post hoc but cede that FSM is also equally post hoc as saying it was god that started the expansion. I should've specified, magical unicorns, who necessarily exist to create the universe. It's the exact same argument. It's just a unicorn of the gaps.
Imagine you have a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. All of the rooms are occupied.
From every room with an odd number, the inhabitant leaves. Now, you have an actual infinity minus an actual infinity. The result? infinity-infinity=infinity.
Another scenario is that all rooms with a higher number than 3 are left by their inhabitants. In this case, infinity-infinity=3
In other words, such a hotel can never exist, because the same equation (infinity-infinity) gives us different results (infinity or 3 or any number)
This clearly is logically absurd. An infinite hotel with an infinite number of rooms could never exist.
Now, swap the hotel with spacetime instances, and the same problem emerges: if infinite, a universe becomes logically absurd.
We already have a definition for both words: God and a universe - a god is always a being - a universe is evidently not - therefore even if we were to subject that definition to the universe it would necessarily require you to assert that the universe is sentient, is an agent - that is evidently not the case - therefore you are either ad hoc claiming it is, or you are using an insufficient definition. Furthermore, if you do not make the argument yourself, I don't find it worth my time to check it
I assure you that my definition is correct.
If the universe is the word for God, then matter warps God, and God is expanding, and God is composed of other things.
Honestly, asserting that the universe has innate existence contradicts all logic, as an eternal universe is ABSURD.
Watch this video to learn why a universe cannot be infinite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybNvc6mxMo
My definition of God is sound. You claim it to be nonsense, please elaborate.
The problem with that argument is that you are defining god into existence, if I were to define a unicorn as a "Mammal on four legs with a horn", then of course I could prove the existence of a Unicorn, we have all sorts of animals with those properties. The same goes for god, you are asserting a definition arbitrarily that way, "Of course he exists" the problem is we already have a word for it - the universe, your definition is nonsense.
Just the part of the vote that is written directly is enough to make the vote valid, on par with your vote.
Please elaborate on what went wrong in my vote, I thought the entire point of voting was using your own reasoning to analyse the debate.
Regardless, my vote still fits the criteria, and I analyse it thoroughly. I
Wrong. God of the gaps is using God to satisfy our seeking for knowledge when in reality God did not fill those holes. For example, I could claim "God sends the rain", but we know the sun drives the rain, not God. It is a God of the gaps theory, it contradicts rather than being supported by, loci. With creation it is different. God can be defined as "the thing that exists by necessity rather than contingency". Therefore, God existed eternally by definition. And anything that starts to exist has a cause. Therefore, the only logical conclusion I will now present.
Any existing thing falls into the following categories:
1. God
2. Things caused by God
3. Things caused by things from category 2 or category 3
Therefore, if something starts to exist, it must by definition exist BECAUSE of God.
Now, one can complain about the religious view of God, but his logically necessary nature makes "IT" an unavoidable conclusion.
The fallacy of comparing God to unicorns is that they, by definition, fit into categories 2 or 3, not category 1. If they truly fit into category 1, they would not have the properties of what we popularly attribute to a unicorn, it would just be to exchange the WORD God with unicorn.
In other words, a better wording of you complaint is this:
"Calling the immaterial creator God is equally uninformative as calling him Zeus, Allah, or even ofajieojfaoifmdwcqoiqoiwqeoicewuq"
God's nature is up for dispute. His existence is not.
It is evident that your vote is employing your own reasoning, not the reasoning of the debater, which is reportable - why not just have a debate - you and Sum1hugme?
Claiming it's an immaterial creator is equally post hoc as claiming it was unicorns or the flying spaghetti monster.
Spacetime came into existence at the moment of initial expansion.
In this debate, it was more my claim that my opponent had not touched his bop with any empirical data to suggest his proposition is correspondent to reality. He accepted the framework of cosmic origins being big bang inflation by not contesting that framework, and therefore he has to prove a creator initiated the first movement. He couldn't do that, and I drilled that point over and over.
Personally, I reject the idea because it's a post hoc rationalization that makes no testable predictions and is the definition of a god of the gaps.
If time didn't exist before BB, then why do you reject the existence of an immaterial creator? Nothing else could create the universe.
If the universe is not created, it must have existed before the BB. In other words, spacetime is either infinite or it has an external cause.
The geodesics coming out the back are part of the hypothetical model of cyclic cosmology.
It's not baseless. We are talking about temporal causality in a unidirectional time geodesic. Time is relative to the observer, which we know from general relatuvity. Following back the geodesics that represent relative timelines, then they will converge to a point where they do not go past; where Time=0. At which point, causality as we understand it, breaks down. Time didn't exist before time existed. Your objections are mute.
The video you sent me, that I also watched yesterday, says that the geodesics come out on another side, in an earlier universe. This continues the impossibly long chain of causes that my video debunks as logically possible.
The inflation model goes like this:
1. Energy exists very densely
2. Spacetime starts to expand rapidly, then slowly
3. Current physical laws starts explaining the universe
I see no reason to baselessly assert that causality didn't exist before BB simply because our perception of time falls short of describing it.
Tell me, if we define "time" as the rate at which change occurs, did time exist before BB?
No, in the Big Bang Theory, the Big Bang is the initial expansion. There is no claim as to what the cause was, but it is evidently incoherent to ask "what came before the Big Bang." There is no evidence to suggest that this or that "caused" cosmic inflation. Inflation is when time began. Energy isn't a "cause". It would've been just compressed where all energy is in the same point.
How can something whose existence is independent, have a beginning? In BB, you claim spacetime started to exist so that expansion and causality could happen. Doesn't that mean that the existence of spacetime is dependent on a real event, BB, and a real cause, energy?
I replied the dependency argument by pointing out that there is no precedent for a dependent universe like there is for dependent ceiling fans.
Logic doesn't govern the Universe. We use logic to describe aspects of it. You can't apply temporal causality where time doesn't exist.
I have already watched that video. It doesn't account for the problem of infinity. Even a cyclic universe breaks basic logical laws by proposing infinite change.
If the fan doesn’t need any external support but can support other things, then that fan is indistinguishable from the roof. However, if the universe can change and be altered by its environment then it cannot have this property of being eternal, as PRO proved. Thus, any objection against the "illogic" of God/first cause would apply even more so to a universe that doesn’t need God.
This is a better video : https://youtu.be/K8gV05nS7mc
And no, I didn't say the energy compressed into the "singularity" caused the universe. I didn't call anything god, you're just applying that term post hoc
The law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created only changes from one form to another. Any closed system would be eternal.
If something like a multiverse is where the energy before BB comes from, then that only widens our closed system.
To truly create energy out of nothing, aka initiating a closed system, one would need a cause that could release energy while still not changing.
Theists believe that thing to be God, but one cannot simply discard the idea as absurd because of the association with religion.
Where do you get your assumption from? Nothing cannot create something. Only something can create something.
You assume that the only way something can happen is by causality.... the problem there is that before causality, something necessarily would have to be for something esle to happen, in this case, that something else could be nothing. Nothing could cause something. This is unintuitive yes; however, that is where our case leads us logically.
IF there was no causality, THEN the big bang could have popped into existence, randomly began, a number of things - see that's where "we don't know" comes in handy. Asserting that it is a god, is literally a textbook god of the gaps fallacy.
Any future voters, I implore you to ignore this comment section in its entirety, only use the debate itself to inform your views.
But,,, isn't that realm the same as "god", in that it is
1) timeless,
2) unchanging,
3) causes the universe
You are merely asserting God is the energy before BB.
You can't apply temporal causality to a realm where time doesn't exist and doesn't apply. So eternal universe models are compatible with the big bang inflationary model. My opponent implicitly agreed to the framework by not contesting that we can extrapolate back the first movement, cosmic inflation. In the framework of inflationary cosmology, the above statements are true.
Reading your debate led me to watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybNvc6mxMo
It claims that an infinite number of events cannot possibly have happened.
Ok, you assume time doesn't exist, neither does causality, before BB.
In other words, nothing *happened* before BB?
"I find it strange and meaningless to assume that energy is eternal, but then also reject causality and time before the BB. Is energy older than spacetime itself?"
Classical time is not applicable when particles become massless. When the universe is condensed into a point of infinite curvature, then all the matter would be just energy. So classical time doesn't apply. So I was not contradicting myself.
"CON’s last statement on this matter was that “An important objection to raise is that there is precedent that ceiling fans need support to hang on the ceiling” This argument is counterintuitive, but also not evidently true or logical. If the universe is not reliant on god for its existence, and “all that exists” exists BECAUSE of the universe, isn’t CON making the argument that the universe is the same as God? Indeed that is the case."
No I was not arguing that the universe is god lol.
Thank you for a brilliant debate.
Thank you for voting
Thank you for voting.
your bump has been answered
Very interesting debate indeed. I think of voting in the near future.
Vote bump
Vote bump
Hope you didn't quit the site.
Yeah np
Huge thank you for the debate, looking forward to your rejoinders!