Is Jesus Christ a man or a god?

[Immanuel Can]

I think I said, "eternal", not "infinite"

If "eternal" doesn't mean "time-infinite," what does it mean? Can you explain?

[uwot]

Just because we're dealing with questions science can't answer, it's not unreasonable to continue trying to figure these things out. And since an infinite regress is metaphysically absurd, the alternative of a First Cause is both reasonable and plausible (perhaps even necessary).

The thing is, if you insist on a first cause, for which there is no empirical evidence, you cannot rule out an indefinite numbers of causes between anything you take to be the last link in a causal chain and the 'first cause'. There is something you feel you can explain. Then there isn't. Then there is god. There is simply no way of knowing what is in the bit you don't know other than looking for evidence. It doesn't matter at which point you invoke god, it is arbitrary.

Theists obviously want to call this "God" (with good warrant) but that's not to say there's no other possible explanation (perhaps the quantum vacuum is this First Cause).

Throughout the history of science, the only constant has been god. People have always tried to staple their metaphysical tail to whatever body of science was current. The point Henry Drummond was making when he coined the term 'god of the gaps' is that god is not to be found in the workings of the universe you don't understand. God, if it exists, is not a scientific issue.

Here's some points I've made before:
When Thales started all this philosophy and science business, his express purpose was to explain the world without reference to gods. It is still the case; the minute you attribute a natural event to a supernatural being, you are no longer doing science.

Anybody can be a scientist. Yes indeedy. All sorts of nutjobs and cranks have made perfectly good scientists: Pythagoras, the first person to study the universe as a mathematical object (bonkers enough in itself) was better known in his time as an expert on reincarnation. He once stopped a puppy being beaten, because he recognised the soul of a recently dead friend in it. Kepler's laws of planetary motion are several strokes of genius, but he started out by trying to prove that the orbits of the planets could described by fitting one Platonic solid inside another. Newton was obsessed with alchemy and had some unorthodox religious views that he kept to himself, but even he said: "When I wrote my treatise about our Systeme I had an eye upon such Principles as might work with considering men for the beliefe of a Deity and nothing can rejoyce me more then to find it useful for that purpose." Today, you don't have to dig too deep into theoretical physics to find beliefs that are quite possibly the ravings of lunatics. But what all these people do is communicate some of their ideas in mathematical terms that are consistent with the observational data. That's what makes them scientists. But, just because some of what they say is science, doesn't mean everything is.

It is just that eternal theories of the universe don't require a first cause. This is not a denial of causation, it is just a denial there was a first cause.

Ah, then what you're unfamiliar with is the mathematical and rational proofs against the idea of an actual infinite universe, not the idea of causality. Got it.

I think you made the point, Immanuel Can, that you can't prove empiricism empirically. True. But nor can you prove the size or duration of the universe mathematically or rationally.

Finally: I would like to apologise to thedoc for my insensitive use of the E word. I shan't do it again.

[Ginkgo]

I think I said, "eternal", not "infinite"

If "eternal" doesn't mean "time-infinite," what does it mean? Can you explain?

I'll answer this question at a later date. I don't wish to dominate this thread because others have raised some very good points that have largely gone unnoticed.

[Immanuel Can]

I think you made the point, Immanuel Can, that you can't prove empiricism empirically. True. But nor can you prove the size or duration of the universe mathematically or rationally.

Of course not. But that does not mean it has NO size or duration, does it? And if science can't show what caused the universe does not for a second imply it didn't HAVE a start, and hence a cause.

First Cause again!

One area where science can help us is in reversing the chronology to locate a Singularity at which the universe must have begun. We can do this quite simply, by measuring the speed at which things in the universe are moving away from each other -- a basic mathematical move. Back that up, and we get to the initial point, right? That's how we calculate the age of the universe.

We can't say how long it WILL go on, of course, but we can easily estimate how long it HAS BEEN going on. And we can identify the trajectories at which it is moving away, and figure out the locational center of the Singularity. So then we know where and when things began. And we know time is linear, and that the universe did have a beginning...

...and that things that begin ALL have causes.

First Cause again.

[ReliStuPhD]

I don't have a major problem with what you are saying. I would also agree that a metaphysical principle doesn't necessarily mean it has a "gap". The "gap' occurs when we claim that such principles are actually scientific principles. This leads to pseudo-science. I am more than happy with Creationism and ID, so long as people don't call it a science. Sure, both science and metaphysics are committed to an ontology, but this doesn't mean they are committed to the same ontology.

Ontology is a branch of metaphysics, and like all ontologies, it designs a set of definitions for a specific purpose. The purpose being to draw out a distinction. For example, a philosophical zombie is an imaginary being that lacks experience. This metaphysical concept is designed to draw out the distinction between the "hard" and "easy" problems of consciousness. Obviously, science is not going to investigate philosophical zombies.

When it comes God the most likely possibility is that, he is either real, or he is imaginary. The concept of God can be useful for drawing out the distinction between things (universe for example) that are caused and uncaused. However, metaphysical first cause arguments automatically rule out any type of uncaused universe. After all, the purpose of this metaphysical exercise was to draw out this distinction.

Science can, and does propose both caused and uncaused explanations for the universe. But, we cannot simply say these uncaused explanations are not science because they provide non-casual explanations. After all, everyone knows first cause arguments tell us the universe must be the result of a cause, so we falsely draw out a distinction between science and non-science on this basis. It may well turn out to be the case that the universe was caused by someone or something. It may well turn out this cause was God. All of this is beside the point. The point being that scientific ontology is not the same as metaphysical ontology.


Edit: Grammatical error fixed.

Works well enough for me.

[ReliStuPhD]

Just because we're dealing with questions science can't answer, it's not unreasonable to continue trying to figure these things out. And since an infinite regress is metaphysically absurd, the alternative of a First Cause is both reasonable and plausible (perhaps even necessary).

The thing is, if you insist on a first cause, for which there is no empirical evidence, you cannot rule out an indefinite numbers of causes between anything you take to be the last link in a causal chain and the 'first cause'. There is something you feel you can explain. Then there isn't. Then there is god. There is simply no way of knowing what is in the bit you don't know other than looking for evidence. It doesn't matter at which point you invoke god, it is arbitrary.

No, it is only arbitrary to invoke in the intermediate steps. To invoke "God" as the First Cause is quite reasonable. Certainly, there may be an indefinite number of causes in the chain, but that doesn't undermine the necessity (?) of a first one. Heck, it could be as simple as First Cause > universe. The point being that it is quite rational to posit the existence of a First Cause, though claims to what that First Cause is might themselves be irrational.

Theists obviously want to call this "God" (with good warrant) but that's not to say there's no other possible explanation (perhaps the quantum vacuum is this First Cause).

Throughout the history of science, the only constant has been god. People have always tried to staple their metaphysical tail to whatever body of science was current. The point Henry Drummond was making when he coined the term 'god of the gaps' is that god is not to be found in the workings of the universe you don't understand. God, if it exists, is not a scientific issue.[/quote]
I'm not sure about others, but I'm not arguing for what Drummond is critiquing. That is to say, it is neither logically nor metaphysically absurd to suggest that God is somehow "behind" all of the physical laws, etc we hold to be true. One could very well say that God is responsible for the Big Bang (the why) and science will one day figure out the how (one could obviously be wrong, but until such was shown, one would not be irrational to think such a thing). Science and religion routinely make the mistake of thinking they can answer each others' questions (at least in my opinion). That there are theists who posit God as the answer to unsolved scientific mysteries is certainly true. That does not mean, however, that they are "good" theists (I certainly don't think they are). A "good" theist should be fully aware that God is not a scientific explanation, even as scientists understand that a scientific explanation of this or that doe snot disprove metaphysical claims.

But, just because some of what they say is science, doesn't mean everything is.

I agree. Very much.

[Ginkgo]

I don't have a major problem with what you are saying. I would also agree that a metaphysical principle doesn't necessarily mean it has a "gap". The "gap' occurs when we claim that such principles are actually scientific principles. This leads to pseudo-science. I am more than happy with Creationism and ID, so long as people don't call it a science. Sure, both science and metaphysics are committed to an ontology, but this doesn't mean they are committed to the same ontology.

Ontology is a branch of metaphysics, and like all ontologies, it designs a set of definitions for a specific purpose. The purpose being to draw out a distinction. For example, a philosophical zombie is an imaginary being that lacks experience. This metaphysical concept is designed to draw out the distinction between the "hard" and "easy" problems of consciousness. Obviously, science is not going to investigate philosophical zombies.

When it comes God the most likely possibility is that, he is either real, or he is imaginary. The concept of God can be useful for drawing out the distinction between things (universe for example) that are caused and uncaused. However, metaphysical first cause arguments automatically rule out any type of uncaused universe. After all, the purpose of this metaphysical exercise was to draw out this distinction.

Science can, and does propose both caused and uncaused explanations for the universe. But, we cannot simply say these uncaused explanations are not science because they provide non-casual explanations. After all, everyone knows first cause arguments tell us the universe must be the result of a cause, so we falsely draw out a distinction between science and non-science on this basis. It may well turn out to be the case that the universe was caused by someone or something. It may well turn out this cause was God. All of this is beside the point. The point being that scientific ontology is not the same as metaphysical ontology.


Edit: Grammatical error fixed.

Works well enough for me.

A pity it doesn't work for IC

[Immanuel Can]

A pity it doesn't work for IC

Oh, don't cry for me, Argentina...

[Ginkgo]

Of course not. But that does not mean it has NO size or duration, does it? And if science can't show what caused the universe does not for a second imply it didn't HAVE a start, and hence a cause.

First cause again!

No, this is know as the argument from ignorance. You are promoting a fallacy with your statement.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Oh. don't cry for me, Argentina..."

One area where science can help us is in reversing the chronology to locate a Singularity at which the universe must have begun. We can do this quite simply, by measuring the speed at which things in the universe are moving away from each other -- a basic mathematical move. Back that up, and we get to the initial point, right? That's how we calculate the age of the universe.

We can't say how long it WILL go on, of course, but we can easily estimate how long it HAS BEEN going on. And we can identify the trajectories at which it is moving away, and figure out the locational center of the Singularity. So then we know where and when things began. And we know time is linear, and that the universe did have a beginning...

...and that things that begin ALL have causes.

First Cause again.

I fee like crying when I read this type of interpretation of science.

The initial singularity did not have a location because there was no time and space prior to the Big Bang. You need time and space to identify a location.

There were no trajectories because the Big Bang wasn't an explosion to create trajectories. The expansion of space occurred everywhere at the same time.

Things in the universe are not moving away from each other. The space in between things is expanding. And no, it isn't the same thing in scientific terms.

If you want to fill in the details then you can research it yourself. I know you won't believe me but this is standard interpretation.

[uwot]

...if science can't show what caused the universe does not for a second imply it didn't HAVE a start, and hence a cause.

First Cause again!

That's a leap of faith.

One area where science can help us is in reversing the chronology to locate a Singularity at which the universe must have begun. We can do this quite simply, by measuring the speed at which things in the universe are moving away from each other -- a basic mathematical move. Back that up, and we get to the initial point, right?

Wrong. There's a page in my blog that explains why: http://willibouwman.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/intro.html

That's how we calculate the age of the universe.

That bit is true.

We can't say how long it WILL go on, of course,

Well, if you apply a bit of thermodynamics, you get a figure of several trillion years. One way to think of it is that the universe is like a very tightly wound spring that is madly unwinding. All the particles that make us up are like knots and twists, but eventually, the spring will unwind so much that there is no useful energy left, it will just wobble about, pretty much forever. It's called heat death; bit dreary, but a very long way off.

but we can easily estimate how long it HAS BEEN going on.

Current estimate 13.78 billion years.

And we can identify the trajectories at which it is moving away, and figure out the locational center of the Singularity.

No we can't. The universe is not like shrapnel from an exploding shell. Have a look at the link I provided: any point can be considered the centre. I see that since I started writing this Ginkgo has made exactly that point.

So then we know where and when things began. And we know time is linear, and that the universe did have a beginning...

Well, the Big Bang theory is extremely well supported by the evidence. Incidentally, it was first thought of by a Belgian priest, Georges Lemaitre, that's in my blog too: http://willibouwman.blogspot.co.uk/2015 ... e-was.html

...and that things that begin ALL have causes.

As I have already said, not according to the most widely accepted interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

First Cause again.

Leap of faith again.

[uwot]

...it is only arbitrary to invoke in the intermediate steps.

The point I was making is that the choice of when to invoke god is arbitrary.

To invoke "God" as the First Cause is quite reasonable.

You can invoke anything you like for something you have no evidence of.

Certainly, there may be an indefinite number of causes in the chain, but that doesn't undermine the necessity (?) of a first one. Heck, it could be as simple as First Cause > universe. The point being that it is quite rational to posit the existence of a First Cause, though claims to what that First Cause is might themselves be irrational.

Depends how literally you mean 'rational', but generally no, it's not irrational, just unfounded.

I'm not sure about others, but I'm not arguing for what Drummond is critiquing. That is to say, it is neither logically nor metaphysically absurd to suggest that God is somehow "behind" all of the physical laws, etc

The same is true of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

we hold to be true.

By 'we' you mean all the people who are not pragmatists, instrumentalists or anti-realists.

One could very well say that God is responsible for the Big Bang (the why) and science will one day figure out the how (one could obviously be wrong, but until such was shown, one would not be irrational to think such a thing).

Maybe so, but in the meantime:

Science and religion routinely make the mistake of thinking they can answer each others' questions (at least in my opinion).

Some scientists and some religionists, yes. I think if religionists got their act together and actually made the effort to understand Quantum Mechanics, there would be some who would argue that some of the behaviour at the quantum scale, that does not appear to have a physical cause, is evidence that some god like thing is conducting it in its 'mysterious way'. Personally, I'm more inclined to agree with Einstein and suspect that there are hidden variables. That, curiously, puts me in the same boat as yourself, ReliStuPhD and Immanuel Can, in that I suspect there are causes for everything, albeit non-local, given Bell's Theorem. But that's just a hunch, maybe it really is a god. It's a bit like Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The same is true of science.

[Immanuel Can]

I fee like crying when I read this type of interpretation of science.

Please don't cry.

The initial singularity did not have a location because there was no time and space prior to the Big Bang. You need time and space to identify a location.

Tommyrot. An explosion always has an epicentre. You've posited a Big Bang. Epicenters are very easy to calculate by the rate and trajectory of the particles thus dispersed. It's as good an example of basic science -- basic physics, specifically ballistics -- as you will find. But you beautifully anticipate my next question. For the existence of a Singularity requires the question, "a singularity in what, using what materials or causes?" And again, you are forced to posit a prior Cause.

There were no trajectories because the Big Bang wasn't an explosion to create trajectories. The expansion of space occurred everywhere at the same time.

Magic! The universe just popped into existence in the process of an explosion that never actually happened? Dandy.

Who was defending science here? You'll need to remind me.

Things in the universe are not moving away from each other. The space in between things is expanding. And no, it isn't the same thing in scientific terms.

it's not that the distance is so great, it's that negative space is getting so big? Classic. Lovely doublespeak. Orwell would be so proud.

If you want to fill in the details then you can research it yourself. I know you won't believe me but this is standard interpretation.

You're quite right: I won't believe you, for there's nothing actually scientific about your description. It's pure determined evasiveness.

Now let's take stock of what you've told me so far...

You've told me you are scientific, but that you don't believe in causality.
You've told me you do believe in contingent causality, but not in First Causes.
You've told me the universe is scientific, but made itself exist.
You've told me that Locke did not instantiate human rights, then that yes, he did, but that it doesn't matter that he did.
You've told me that governments make human rights happen, then that we have no human rights....

What new wonders are soon to come? And all for what? That you might avoid the simplest of scientific principles, because it implies the existence of a Supreme Being -- a thing which at all costs is simply not be conceded.

I cannot help but be reminded of what that consummate wordsmith G.K. Chesterton once wrote...

This began to be alarming. It looked not so much as if Christianity was bad enough to include any vices, but rather as if any stick was good enough to beat Christianity with. What could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves?…

This is the last and most astounding fact about this faith; that its enemies will use any weapon against it, the swords that cut their own fingers, and the firebrands that burn their own homes. Men who begin to fight the Church for the sake of freedom and humanity end by flinging away freedom and humanity if only they may fight the Church…I know a man who has such a passion for proving that he will have no personal existence after death that he falls back on the position that he has no personal existence now. He invokes Buddhism and says that all souls fade into each other; in order to prove that he cannot go to heaven he proves that he cannot go to Hartlepool. I have known people who protested against religious education with arguments against any education, saying that the child’s mind must grow freely or that the old must not teach the young. I have known people who showed that there could be no divine judgment by showing that there could be no human judgment, even for practical purposes. They burned their own corn to set fire to the church…But what are we to say about the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred for the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God…The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world.

G.K. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith.

[Ginkgo]

Tommyrot. An explosion always has an epicentre. You've posited a Big Bang. Epicenters are very easy to calculate by the rate and trajectory of the particles thus dispersed. It's as good an example of basic science -- basic physics, specifically ballistics -- as you will find. But you beautifully anticipate my next question. For the existence of a Singularity requires the question, "a singularity in what, using what materials or causes?" And again, you are forced to posit a prior Cause.

Magic! The universe just popped into existence in the process of an explosion that never actually happened? Dandy.

"Main articles: Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric and Metric expansion of space wikipedia Big Bang

The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe. Instead, space itself expands with time everywhere and increases the physical distance between two comoving points. In other words, the Big Bang is not an explosion in space, but rather an expansion of space.[4] Because the FLRW metric assumes a uniform distribution of mass and energy, it applies to our universe only on large scales—local concentrations of matter such as our galaxy are gravitationally bound and as such do not experience the large-scale expansion of space.[38]
HorizonsExpansion of Space

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang

It says it twice. The big bang was NOT an explosion.

Now let's take stock of what you've told me so far...

You've told me you are scientific, but that you don't believe in causality.
You've told me you do believe in contingent causality, but not in First Causes.
You've told me the universe is scientific, but made itself exist.
You've told me that Locke did not instantiate human rights, then that yes, he did, but that it doesn't matter that he did.
You've told me that governments make human rights happen, then that we have no human rights....

When you finish building strawmen then perhaps we can talk about Locke.

What new wonders are soon to come? And all for what? That you might avoid the simplest of scientific principles, because it implies the existence of a Supreme Being -- a thing which at all costs is simply not be conceded.

At no stage have I ever said a Supreme Being does not exist. If I did then it would be easy to point out my relevant post(s). Shouldn't be that hard for for you and Mr. Chesterton

[uwot]

Tommyrot. An explosion always has an epicentre. You've posited a Big Bang.

I've said it:

The universe is not like shrapnel from an exploding shell.

Ginkgo has said it:

The big bang was NOT an explosion.

Wikipedia has said it:

The Big Bang is not an explosion of matter moving outward to fill an empty universe.

We can only give you the facts, we cannot furnish you with the intellectual apparatus to appreciate them. You are wasting your time by insisting that the Big Bang was an explosion.

...the existence of a Singularity requires the question, "a singularity in what, using what materials or causes?" And again, you are forced to posit a prior Cause.

The details are still being worked out, but all the evidence suggests that the universe is made of Big Bang stuff. No one really knows what to call it, inflaton field, quantum vacuum, whatever, and there are different ideas about whether or what caused it, or what the conditions were prior to it happening. About the only thing that is agreed on is that it was not an explosion. It was called The Big Bang by Fred Hoyle, an atheist, precisely because he wanted to ridicule what looks suspiciously like a moment of creation, conceivably by some 'supreme being'.

Magic! The universe just popped into existence in the process of an explosion that never actually happened? Dandy.

Well, yes, that's one possibility.

What new wonders are soon to come? And all for what? That you might avoid the simplest of scientific principles, because it implies the existence of a Supreme Being -- a thing which at all costs is simply not be conceded.

At no stage have I ever said a Supreme Being does not exist.

Nor have I. What I have said is that there is no scientific evidence for any god and that first cause is simply not science. In fact, since Hume and especially Quantum Mechanics, nor is causation.

[David Handeye]

I don't know if Big Bang was or not an explosion, but recently I have heard and read about studies and discovers of the "sound" of the primordial explosion, the Big Bang. These scientists affirm to have heard in such a far and remote regions of universe the sound of this explosion, right a bang. So are they telling us only a lot of lies? I'm asking, as I am not a scientist.