God proving his existence

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On Mon, Feb 15, 1999 at 10:22:00AM -0800, Thomas Dervartanian wrote:

> TOM:

> Each syllogism would be different for each argument.  How about the 

> following two (based on a previous post):

> 

> 1. Nothing comes from nothing.

> 2. The universe is something.

> 3. All things that begin to exist come from something.

> 4. The universe began to exist.

> 

> Therefore:  Something brought the unverse into existence.  By nature 

> that something must be timeless (to bring time into existence), all 

> powerful (to be able to do so), changeless (to invoke physical law), 

> intelligent (to fine tune the aspects of the big bang, etc...


I can't parse this as a valid syllogism, sorry.  Where do the terms "all
powerful", "changeless", "intelligent" appear in the premises?
Furthermore, there is serious doubt for several of your claims.  For
instance, quantum fluctuations create something from nothing, so 1, 3 are
doubtful.  Furthermore, if it turns out that the universe has existed for a
finite duraction (i.e., for some length of time X, it is true that "the
universe has existed for less than X") this does not mean that there was a
first moment of the universe, just as there is no "smallest rational
number greater than 0".

Thus, I must deny the premises of your argument.

Furthermore, why does the "something" in the conclusion of your
argument find itself immune to another application of the same argument?
You seem comfortable with the idea that an infinite regression can start
(stop?) with a creator, I am comfortable with the idea that an infinite
regression can start (stop?) with the universe itself.


> 1. Irreducibly complex things require a designer.

> 2. The cell is irreducibly complex.

> 

> Therefore;  The cell was designed.


I deny 2---In computer simulations, similarly (but obviously not
irreducibly) complex organisms composed of machine instructions have
evolved---even in systems whose designers thought before the experiment
might just require "fine tuning" but turned out not to. (to return to a
point you made in another message)


> As with all syllogisms the premises are debatable.  The arguments are 

> valid.


And the premises, or at least 4/6 of them, are ones that I see no reason to
accept.

While we're here, though, I wonder if you have read Michael Martin's paper
"The Gap in Theistic Arguments"[1] I ask because I would take pleasure
in being directed to other papers you think refute his points---in my
experience, they're glossed over, just as in your exposition of the
argument above.  (I looked for, but couldn't find, my favorite
anti-design paper on such quick notice; also, infidels have recently added
three new papers by Adolf Gruenbaum[2,3,4] in response to arguments for
divine creation.  I'm wading through these, they're heavy reading)

Jeff
[1] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/gap.html
[2] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/adolf_grunbaum/explanation.html
[3] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/adolf_grunbaum/problem.html
[4] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/adolf_grunbaum/theological.html
--
\/ http://www.slashdot.org/                      Jeff Epler jepler@inetnebr.com
I'm changing the CHANNEL ... But all I get is commercials for "RONCO
MIRACLE BAMBOO STEAMERS"!

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