Pissing off the atheists/naturalists

[Will Bouwman]

The Truth is not a theory.

It's not? So many truth-theories, which one is The Truth?

Either you have forgotten the context, or you didn't understand it in the first place:

There's THE determined theory.

Unless you are talking about something like The Truth, no there isn't.

And that capital "T". Tell me again about your atheism? Why do you reject things with capital "G"s but accept things with capital "T"s?

That was in response to your "THE determined theory". If you don't understand the use of capitals, why use them?

But it might be The Truth.

That would be an overdetermination for sure.

No it wouldn't. Clearly I was aiming too high with an analogy a 5 year old could understand.

If it could've come from nothing it could've come from anything. No way of knowing because principle of equifinality.

I hadn't heard the term before, but it seems that the difference between overdetermination and equifinality is that a finality is overdetermined if more than one of the ways of reaching an end state is actually the case. So, even though it's asking a lot of you, to use the example a 5 year old might understand, equifinality means that a lollipop might be broken because you bite it, or a truck drives over it. Overdetermination means both happened at the same time.

You did smuggle in another theory. The metatheory that consecutive underdetermined theories approach The Truth as an upper bound.

Wrong.

Which left out all of the overdeterined theories which might approach The Truth as a lower bound.

Not even wrong.

If it helps you understand the difference between underdetermimation and overdetermination, does it matter?

You seem to be in the habbit of explaining things you don't understand. You can't determine which causes were "necessary" and "unnecessary" to cause a universe, never mind detrmine which causes were necessary and unnecessary to cause this particular universe. With you in it.

That would require omniscience.

Gibberish.

So tell me about your atheism again.

I don't believe in God with a capital, nor gods without.

[Gary Childress]

So tell me about your atheism again.

I don't believe in God with a capital, nor gods without.

I'm agnostic. I started out life as an atheist watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos and other things on TV, however, my studies of Philosophy and other subjects in college left me agnostic. At this point, I'm still agnostic.

According to IC and others, Christians have been "left out" of the sciences because of no other reason than they are Christians. IC thinks that's not fair. So I guess it's necessary to let more Christians into the sciences. I mean, let them see what's going on for themselves too. Maybe it will instill some sense into them and turn them into agnostics too? Is that possible?

I mean, I'd hate to wake up tomorrow and find out that I'm a "heretic" because they don't agree with my agnosticism, however, maybe IC is right and science has been shutting Christians out of the process?

[Skepdick]

The Truth is not a theory.

It's not? So many truth-theories, which one is The Truth?

Either you have forgotten the context, or you didn't understand it in the first place:

There's THE determined theory.

Unless you are talking about something like The Truth, no there isn't.

And that capital "T". Tell me again about your atheism? Why do you reject things with capital "G"s but accept things with capital "T"s?

That was in response to your "THE determined theory". If you don't understand the use of capitals, why use them?

Because it's called THE Big Bang (singular). Not The Big Bangs (plural). No competing hypothesis remain on the table. It's determined.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth...

The Big Bang is a unifying term, a singularity, that can represent any and all origin theories. So how many possibilities does it represent?
N.B I am not talking about the Planck epoch: <10^-43 seconds. I am talking about. The singularity at Time(0).

Then there is the discontinuity....

Starting at 0 going forward you never get to 10^-43 seconds. Because the reals are uncountable.
Starting at 10^43 seconds you never get to 0. Because the reals are uncountable.

You never get to 0 by raising 10 to ANY negative power.. Unless it's 10^-infinity.

Discontinuous story is discontinuous.

No it wouldn't. Clearly I was aiming too high with an analogy a 5 year old could understand.

Clearly you don't understand it any better than a 5 year old. There are an infinite number of variables between 10^-43 and 10^-infinity.

Assuming 10^-43s is 0 on this picture. Can you pin-point exactly where you think "The Truth" is?

Wrong.

Oh, goodie! I love being wrong. It means I learned something new. Look, I am not even going to attempt to read your mind.

See the time-map above. Assuming that the Planck epoch (10^-43) starts at 0, and The Big Bang is at the bottom of that vortex, where is The Truth?

Can you pin-point it on the map for us?

Not even wrong.

Oh goodie! So The Truth is NOT TIme(0) ?!?!? Good to hear.

Can you locate it for us on the Time-map please. Thank you.

Gibberish.

You can't even understand it in English. Now imagine if I tried to explain it to you in Mathematics...

I don't believe in God with a capital, nor gods without.

The words are just grammar. We are talking about semantics. What does "god" mean?

if you believe in Truth and God means the same thing as Truth, then you believe in God.
If you believe in The Big Bang then you believe in the God of Time. Atheist my ass.

Time doens't exist. It's always NOW.

[Gary Childress]

It's not? So many truth-theories, which one is The Truth?

Either you have forgotten the context, or you didn't understand it in the first place:

Unless you are talking about something like The Truth, no there isn't.

And that capital "T". Tell me again about your atheism? Why do you reject things with capital "G"s but accept things with capital "T"s?

That was in response to your "THE determined theory". If you don't understand the use of capitals, why use them?

Because it's called THE Big Bang (singular). Not The Big Bangs (plural).

It's a unifying term, a singularity, that can represent any and all origin theories. So how many possibilities does it represent?
N.B I am not talking about the Planck epoch: <10^-43 seconds. I am talking about. Time(0).

Starting at 0 going forward you never get to 10^-43 seconds. Because the reals are uncountable.
Starting at 10^43 seconds you never get to 0. Because the reals are uncountable.

You never get to 0 by raising 10 to ANY negative power.. Unless it's 10^-infinity.

Discontinuous story is discontinuous.

No it wouldn't. Clearly I was aiming too high with an analogy a 5 year old could understand.

Clearly you don't understand it any better than a 5 year old. There are an infinite number of variables between 10^-43 and 10^-infinity.

Assuming 10^-43s is 0 on this picture. Can you pin-point exactly where you think "The Truth" is?

Wrong.

Oh, goodie! I love being wrong. It means I learned something new. Look, I am not even going to attempt to read your mind.

See the time-map above. Assuming that the Planck epoch (10^-43) starts at 0, and The Big Bang is at the bottom of that vortex, where is The Truth?

Can you pin-point it on the map for us?

Not even wrong.

Oh goodie! So The Truth is NOT TIme(0) ?!?!? Good to hear.

Can you locate it for us on the Time-map please. Thank you.

Gibberish.

You can't even understand it in English. Now imagine if I tried to explain it to you in Mathematics...

I don't believe in God with a capital, nor gods without.

The words are just grammar. We are talking about semantics. What does "god" mean?

if you believe in Truth and God means the same thing as Truth, then you believe in God.

If you believe in The Big Bang then you believe in the God of Time. Atheist my ass.

Time doens't exist. It's always NOW.

Wow! I don't understand the math demonstration but I think I follow the logic to a degree. I'd have to dust off my old logic book to verify though.

[Skepdick]

Wow! I don't understand the math demonstration but I think I follow the logic to a degree. I'd have to dust off my old logic book to verify though.

Logic won't help you, Gary. This is not deductive reasoning. This is not even inductive reasoning.

This is coinductive reasoning. Time-bound reduction(ism).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinduction

[Gary Childress]

Wow! I don't understand the math demonstration but I think I follow the logic to a degree. I'd have to dust off my old logic book to verify though.

Logic won't help you, Gary. This is not deductive reasoning. This is not even inductive reasoning.

This is coinductive reasoning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coinduction

Well, whatever it is. It's something out of my league. I just know some classical logic and the existence of fallacies. I know how to take something apart but I don't know how to put anything together.

¯\_(*_*)_/¯

[Will Bouwman]

So tell me about your atheism again.

I don't believe in God with a capital, nor gods without.

I'm agnostic.

In fairness, I'm what most people call an agnostic, in that I don't know whether God (or gods) exists. I just don't call myself an agnostic in deference to the guy who invented the word:
Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.
— Thomas Henry Huxley
I have no scientific grounds for not believing in God, I just happen not to and don't mind saying so.

I started out life as an atheist watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos and other things on TV, however, my studies of Philosophy and other subjects in college left me agnostic. At this point, I'm still agnostic.

Well, if agnostic is taken to mean not knowing if God exists, that is the position of everyone.

According to IC and others, Christians have been "left out" of the sciences because of no other reason than they are Christians. IC thinks that's not fair. So I guess it's necessary to let more Christians into the sciences. I mean, let them see what's going on for themselves too. Maybe it will instill some sense into them and turn them into agnostics too? Is that possible?

Any Christian who professes the importance of faith doesn't 'know' that God exists; they just happen to believe so. Christians are not left out of science. The problem that some Christians have is that they wish to believe that Biblical stories like Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark are literally true. The evidence strongly suggests they are not.

I mean, I'd hate to wake up tomorrow and find out that I'm a "heretic" because they don't agree with my agnosticism, however, maybe IC is right and science has been shutting Christians out of the process?

Insofar as science is a process of finding out what is true, the more one insists that the Bible is true, the more they shut themselves out of the process. Waking up tomorrow branded a heretic by some won't be any different to all the other days you have woken a heretic.

[Will Bouwman]

See the time-map above. Assuming that the Planck epoch (10^-43) starts at 0, and The Big Bang is at the bottom of that vortex, where is The Truth?

Can you pin-point it on the map for us?

Can't you see Skepdick? It's right there next to THE determined theory.

[Skepdick]

In fairness, I'm what most people call an agnostic, in that I don't know whether God (or gods) exists. I just don't call myself an agnostic in deference to the guy who invented the word:
Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe.
— Thomas Henry Huxley
I have no scientific grounds for not believing in God, I just happen not to and don't mind saying so.

That's so funny. Do you have any scientific grounds to believe in The Big Bang? Mathematically known as time @ 10^-infinity seconds.

I know you have grounds to believe in Time DOWN TO 10^-43 seconds

But below that ?!?! You are making shit up.

Well, if agnostic is taken to mean not knowing if God exists, that is the position of everyone.

Nobody who believes in The Big Bang is agnostic. That's God.

It's the exact same concept. The Uncaused First Cause that caused everything else.
The First Miracle of the contemporary paradigm, only Lacking all the folklore and anthropomorphism.

If you believe The Big Bang is true, then you necessarily believe there is a direct path from that event all the way to you. Right here. Right now.

All you have to do is glance over a few infinite, ordinal time gaps in the continuum. Gaps that are conceptually so damn large (from the lens of time)

Any Christian who professes the importance of faith doesn't 'know' that God exists; they just happen to believe so. Christians are not left out of science. The problem that some Christians have is that they wish to believe that Biblical stories like Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark are literally true. The evidence strongly suggests they are not.

Idiot. Christianity is an ancestor of modern Cosmology. Always has been.

In the beginning God created...
In the beginning The Big Bang caused...

And if you are going to insist that Philosophy is story telling: in the beginnig...

Insofar as science is a process of finding out what is true, the more one insists that the Bible is true, the more they shut themselves out of the process. Waking up tomorrow branded a heretic by some won't be any different to all the other days you have woken a heretic.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning The Big Bang created the Universe.
In the beginning The Programmers created the Infinite Ordinal Time computer.

It's like we keep adding a new beginning to the old beginning. Keep re-writing Genesis.

Welcome (back) to Creation(ism).

https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9808093

[Skepdick]

See the time-map above. Assuming that the Planck epoch (10^-43) starts at 0, and The Big Bang is at the bottom of that vortex, where is The Truth?

Can you pin-point it on the map for us?

Can't you see Skepdick? It's right there next to THE determined theory.

Could you be a litle bit more specific? Assuming X marks THE determined theory (which you haven't marked) do you mean next as in X+1; or next as in X-1?

Is it overdetermined or underdetermined? Do you need me to explain measure-spaces to you; or are you happy to consult wikipedia?

Fucking philosophers. How are you going to start a story if you don't even know WHERE in time the story begins?
If you think it starts at 10^-infinity seconds then you are no atheist.

You believe in the Mathematical God

No one shall expel us from the paradise which Cantor has created for us. --David Hilbert

Infinities don't exist.

From the fruits of knowledge you have now eaten - out of the Garden of Eden you go!

[Will Bouwman]

Do you have any scientific grounds to believe in The Big Bang? Mathematically known as time @ 10^-infinity seconds.

That doesn't follow. You are either stupid or dishonest.

Infinities don't exist.

Stupid it is then.

[Skepdick]

Do you have any scientific grounds to believe in The Big Bang? Mathematically known as time @ 10^-infinity seconds.

That doesn't follow.

I agree!

10^-(N+1) follows 10^-N for every Time-scale.

Planck time starts at 10^-43.
10^-44 follows
10^-440 follows
10^-4400 follows
10^-44000 follows
10^-440000 follows
10^-440000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 follows
....
10^-4400000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 follows

You know what NEVER follows by inductive reasoning no matter how long you keep going?
10^-infinity. 0. The Big Bang.

We have proven a negative. Contradiction! Theory falsified.

Time of The Gaps fallacy. This is the infinite version of Zeno's paradox. Take as big steps as you need.

You are either stupid or dishonest.

Infinities don't exist.

Stupid it is then.

Contradiction! I am neither stupid nor dishonest.

Stop speaking falsehoods about me, Philosopher. It is objectively immoral.

[Will Bouwman]

I am neither stupid nor dishonest.

Well, if you're not dishonest, you are deluded. As for stupid, what level of genius does it take to understand that not believing P does not commit you to believing not P? It's not complicated. You don't understand it. Ergo, in that respect at least, you are stupid.

[Skepdick]

I am neither stupid nor dishonest.

Well, if you're not dishonest, you are deluded. As for stupid, what level of genius does it take to understand that not believing P does not commit you to believing not P? It's not complicated. You don't understand it. Ergo, in that respect at least, you are stupid.

I can only explain it to you. I can't understand it for you.

Either you believe that P is true, or you believe that P is NOT true.

If you don't believe that P is true, then you believe that P is NOT true.
If you don't believe that P is NOT true, then you believe that P is true.

It's really fucking simple.

Either you believe The Big Bang is true; or you believe that the Big Bang is NOT true.

If you believe neither of those then you neither believe that the Big Bang is true; nor believe that The Big Bang is NOT true.

You believe a contradiction. What I understand is that you don't understand anything.

Learn some fucking logic, stupid. And if you reject the laws of reason, then say so - stupid. Admit that you don't give a shit about Truth.

It's quite hip to be intellectually dishonest (especialy with yourself) in 2023.

[Will Bouwman]

Either you believe that P is true, or you believe that P is NOT true.

Or:

If you believe neither of those then you neither believe that the Big Bang is true; nor believe that The Big Bang is NOT true.

By Jove, I think he's got it!

You believe a contradiction.

Then again, maybe not.

Learn some fucking logic, stupid. And if you reject the laws of reason, then say so - stupid. Admit that you don't give a shit about laws or reason.

Are you sure it's atheists who are getting pissed off?