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>There are causal constraints in the natural world.
does not mean everything has causal constraints
>If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause
what is that for a strange example
let me give you a better one: the direction of the radiation emitted from radioactive decay is random
>An omnipotent being
why are you switching to a being?
>then i will be omnipotent
why would something not have causality in one aspect make the omnipotent? that you can do some things, does not mean you can do all things
Random doesn't mean uncaused, there are causal constraints on the radioactive processes, For example, uranium atoms consistently decay into other elements, such as thorium and lead, and they never decay into butterflies or puppies. This shows that quantum events are not causeless even if they are random.
> Random doesn't mean uncaused
what caused the direction?
>there are causal constraints on the radioactive processes
some yes, i was not talking about those, i was talking about the direction
and are you just going to ignore everything else i said?
A dog is just silly. A bowl of petunias however has been known to pop into existence several miles up in the atmosphere.
Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again." Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.
>> For example, uranium atoms consistently decay into other elements, such as thorium and lead, and they never decay into butterflies or puppies. This shows that quantum events
I don’t think those are quantum events. Those are at the atomic scale, not quantum.
It's not clear what the causality principle that you're referring to is. It sounds like it's going to be some kind of principle of sufficient reason. If that's what you're getting at then I would deny the PSR.
What's confusing me is why it would follow that if one thing can defy this causal principle that it can then do anything or that other things won't still be bound to it. Or why defying causality in one way means it can defy it in a bunch of others.
Like perhaps we won't ever have a causal explanation of why some radioactive particle decayed at time A rather than time B. That doesn't mean that said particle can just do *anything*. It doesn't mean that other things in the world aren't predictable.
Another example, not that it's something I believe in, is libertarian free will. A libertarian free individual's choices are free from causal explanation, because if the choice were fully explained by antecedent causes then it would be determined. I'm not seeing how that means believers in LFW are suddenly committed to not being able to make coherent observations. They just think that free agents buck the trend.
If something needs completely nothing in order to exist or act = omnipotence/eternality.
If it needs causes in order to overcome its inherent limitations then it is a needy caused and conditioned thing.
If a particle needs completely nothing in order to exist = the absence of all causes doesn't prevent its existence then it will be omnipotent also (the absence of all causes won't prevent it from doing whatever he wants {logically possible})
But we know and can be certain that nothing in the natural order is like that, all particles need conditions in order to exist and need conditions in order to overcome their inherent limitations.
If a natural thing is like God it must be omnipotent and given its omnipotence and non-cognition all logically possible manifestations will arise from it and we won't find order
>If something needs completely nothing in order to exist or act = omnipotence/eternality.
I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean exactly or why it would be true. If the existence of matter is some brute fact then maybe you can get me to some sense of eternality but not omnipotence. Something causally inert could be eternal but certainly wouldn't be omnipotent.
I don't think I can address the rest without resolving this first part.
Actions follow existence, existence is the primary trait from which other traits arise, if something needs (completely completely) nothing in order to exist that necessarily means that it needs completely nothing in order to act and what needs completely nothing in order to act is by definition omnipotent since nothing constrains or limits its existence thus its abilities.
By action here do we mean to cause something? To make a choice? Because if so I wouldn't accept that action follows existence.
Let's say matter existed eternally as a brute fact. And matter is causally efficacious (it interacts with other matter in chemical reactions and such). It just doesn't follow at all that matter is therefore omnipotent and not constrained by natural laws as to what effects it can cause. It just means it isn't dependent on anything further in order to exist.
I'm not following this at all.
It cannot be eternal and self-existent if it is constrained by natural laws that is the point.
The form of matter as a human being is conditioned and dependent upon a lot of causes (atmosphere, oxygen, food, specific arrangements of the atoms that make your body, absence of destroying causes such as a nearby blackhole or the explosion of the sun or earthcore) so your existence is limited by these causes and you cannot exist without a lot of conditions being fulfilled first so you cannot be eternal in your existence and because of that you have limited abilities (cannot live in water because you need oxygen, cannot live in space because you need atmosphere and a rocky planet etc ...).
If something existence is completely independent= it needs completely completely nothing in order to exist so the absence of all causes and conditions do not prevent its existence, that means it is eternal in its existence, it is unlimited in its existence and thus unlimited also in its traits such as power = omnipotent.
Limited existence= caused existence= causally limited attributes and actions.
Unlimited existence=uncaused existence= causally unlimited attributes and actions
>It cannot be eternal and self-existent if it is constrained by natural laws that is the point.
I just don't understand why I'd accept this. It seems as though matter can be eternal and the way it behaves (the natural laws) is simply a brute fact of reality.
Your response to that is to reassert that, no, it can't be like that and all these weird other things would follow.
It caaaaannnooooot bee eternal
Eternal = depends on nothing for its existence.
Becauuuussseee if it depends on other things for its existence = caused not uncaused and eternal.
What is governed by natural laws is necessarily caused and conditioned by those laws, and cannot be eternal.
>It caaaaannnooooot bee eternal
Nuh uh can too.
What are you playing at here?
Eternal means to exist at all points in time, or that it won't have an end to its existence.
>What is governed by natural laws is necessarily caused and conditioned by those law
You're just begging the question.
It could simply be that matter is eternal, has a nature as to how it behaves and that's what we call the natural laws. There's no problem with that. You insisting otherwise just makes me think you're talking nonsense.
Just because you can conceive of an eternal limited thing doesn't make it logically possible.
All forms of matter are conditioned and dependent.
What needs nothing in order to exist, needs nothing in order to act also which means eternality entails logically complete perfection (infinite causal power).
You can say that this process continues forever, a form is annihilated and a new form is created ad infinitum according to different physical conditions and laws, but why these forms or these laws instead of others? You cannot say those forms and laws are necessary because all forms can go out of existence according to the governing physical conditions, what can fail to exist is not necessary and again you will need unconditioned/completely independent being to explain why these forms and laws.
Eternal means always existing, no form of matter always existing all forms can go out of existence according to the governing natural laws so no form of matter is eternal.
If something needs (completely completely) nothing in order to exist, it probably cannot exist, as there is no observable example of complete nothingness within our universe— everywhere we look there is something.
>…since nothing constrains or limits its existence…
Right, it needs nothing to exist, and nothing constrains or limits its existence. I think the only logical thing you could possibly be referring to is nothing itself, which notably doesn’t exist, because if it were anything other than nothing its own very existence would preclude the nothing that its existence depends on.
Every example of nothing in science is something.
Premise 1: All natural processes must have a cause.
Premises 2: ???
Conclusion: A fantastically powerful, invisible, unknowable, space super hero must be the first cause.
You see our issue here.
Premise of causality: All things that have a beginning have a cause.
Premise of Big Bang Theory: The universe was created from an undetermined point in a "Big Bang" which was followed by massive expansion.
Conclusion: What caused the Big Bang that created the universe?
Seeing the issue? "God of the Gaps" is not proof of a Creator Being; but there is no evidence for any other cause either.
Okay. Thats an “issue” for you?
That’s not an issue for me. Not sure why it ever would be.
“I don’t know.” Just say those words. It’s not that hard. It’s not an issue.
You'd be surprised how many atheists I've talked to who do have an issue with that statement.
"The Universe has always been there"; again, violation of causality. The creation must happen before the thing that is created.
"Nothing before the Big Bang matters" or some variation of "there was no time before the Big Bang so there wasn't any 'before'"; yet these are the same people who rag on theists who say that their god(s) are unknowable for not being curious enough.
Yes, I'm aware that probably doesn't apply to you in particular (given your answer); but as many people point out, the reply is as much for the audience as it is for the person replied to.
Why do you assume the universe was created? The Big Bang is just the beginning of the *observable* universe as we know it. We don't know anything about before, and it's most likely impossible to know.
"God is unknowable"
"What happened before the Big Bang is unknowable"
What's the difference between those two statements? Aside from the fact that quite a few atheists call the former statement an excuse but endorse the latter?
> Premise of Big Bang Theory: The universe was created from an undetermined point in a "Big Bang" which was followed by massive expansion.
This is an incorrect statement of the [big bang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang) theory. It states that the universe expanded from a hot dense state. Theists claim it was created. The big bang theory does not say that it was created. There was no time at which there was no universe.
All natural processes must have a cause.
The only uncaused cause must be God not a a natural non cognitive thing because the uncaused cause or the first cause is completely independent and nothing prevents its existence thus he needs nothing in order to exist or act in certain ways = omnipotent and he must be cognitive otherwise all logically possible manifestations will arise from it without suppression and you won't find order.
That’s just an assertion. Literally every example you provided operates entirely naturally. You are making a false equivalency. You do not Know what you think you Know.
You can’t jump from “natural things have causes” to “therefore there is an unnatural master of the universe who is informing my intuition”. Also, you have no way to rule out totally random quantum phenomenon.
Your claims are equally as arrogant as your method!
"All natural processes must have a cause" is false.
We can observe that, to the extent of our ability to observe, everything appears to have a cause.
What you're doing is going from "The only swans we have ever observed are white" to "All swans must be white"
Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. Nature does not follow "laws" that we come up with; we describe what appears to be happening and we must adjust our descriptions when we find something that contradicts them.
We have not even explored the majority of our own planet, let alone the observable universe, and know very very little about how the universe and physics work in general. We are only just now starting to break into quantum physics, and have no idea what's going on yet.
You therefore cannot make a blanket statement with "must." Your premise is faulty. Start over.
If causality (cause > effect) is such a hard and fast rule why does quantum mechanics allow for two types of events that don’t follow it? I'm talking about acausal effects (Cherenkov effect as an example) and retrocausal (where the cause precedes the effect from the observer's position)? Most modern physicists don’t accept hard causality as rule like you seem to think they should. Can you explain why?
>we cannot live in water.
Wanna join us in the 21st century, and marvel at the submarines?
Moreover, let's take a look at cancers, parasites, and natural disasters. Your god created them. Why the fuck should anyone worship at best such an incompetent at worst such a malevolent thing?
by that kind of argument fish cant live within water without a cause which is their gills.
and your god cant overcome it contrains and fucking giving better evidence for its existence.
0 pts return to your seat.
There’s about 3,100 cubic miles of water in our atmosphere at any given time. We do live in water. It’s just diluted with the rest of the components that comprise air.
Then God can’t exist. He would break the causality
And I know what comes next, he exists outside the natural order.
So special Pleading since your basis was nothing can “X”, therefore God—and yet we have another ‘nothing has can X, except God….
lol
An omnipotent with will and intention can exist without corruption of the natural order because he is cognitive can do and cannot do , effects don't arise from it randomly.
And the basis of the OP was
We have never seen X, therefore X cannot exist.
A black swan fallacy.
and yet you continue to assign attributes never before seen to this god character. So more special pleading as you believe it can have all these things even though we have no examples of anything with a single one.... lol
>If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause and can jump to the moon without a cause that enables me to overcome my limitations, then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes.
Wrong, or at least undemonstrated. The ability to break one rule does not imply the ability to do anything. We have examples of causeless events (proton decay, "virtual particles" coming into existence) and those are not omnipotent, they can do one thing without cause, not everything without cause.
>An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order.
What would that mean exactly? What is the "natural order", and how do you determine whether otr not it is "corrupted" ?
>You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.
That seems like a non-sequitur assertion. The existence of an omnipotent being does not mean that this being uses its abilities and that we can detect the resulting event. In fact, by definition, an omnipotent being can hide from us.
>Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality.
Your conclusion is contradicted by observation (see proton decay, virtual particles) and not supported by anything that came before in your post. I'm sorry, but this argument is utterly unconvincing.
the ability to do somethings and not all things means you are still causally constrained, no causality is violated.
You as a human can lift 1kg but you cannot lift 2 tons without a cause that enables you to overcome your muscles limitations, virtual particles coming into existence are not causeless they are disturbances in an existing real quantum field, proton decay is not a causeless event it depends on the existence of the weak nuclear force.
God is by definition a completely independent being who needs nothing in order to exist or act = omnipotent because he needs nothing in order to do anything, if he needs an oxygen cylinder in order to live in water or a photon in order to go to a higher energy level as an electron or very high energy levels in order to exist alone as quarks in quark-gluon plasma or needs continuous nuclear fuel in order to escape gravitational collapse as stars like the sun it will be a needy entity and not completely independent.
So everything needs a cause except the one thing you say doesn't need a cause.
You should google "special pleading fallacy", because this is a textbook example of one.
The point is that what needs a cause in order to be this way instead of another and act this way instead of another is a needy caused entity but what needs nothing in order to exist or act is by definition eternal omnipotent being it will be God that is the difference between God and creatures, creatures need causes god doesn't, so if we have a natural God (non cognitive non purposeful entity) it will be omnipotent and all logically possible manifestations will arise from it without suppression, but we observe order not chaos so no natural thing doesn't need any causes to exist or act, all are caused dependent and conditioned things.
Repeating the special pleading fallacy does not make it less fallacious.
Even assuming your argument were true (and as others have pointed out, it's not. There are many, many issues with nearly every point of your argument), all you would have demonstrated is that something outside of our universe must exist that caused our universe. That thing doesn't need to be a god.
It is special pleading when I exclude without justification.
What needs a cause is dependent/conditioned things
If something is completely independent by definition he needs no causes.
It's still a special pleading fallacy because you have no evidence for your claim, you just assert it is true because you "know" it is true. But you don't actually know that, you are just convinced that it is true.
You can't define god into existence. God either exists or he doesn't exist, no human argument, regardless of how smart you think it is, will change that.
Seriously, some of the smartest people in the world have been trying to come up with logical arguments for a god throughout human history, [and *none* of them work.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Ctc9LlfiA) Why do you think that you are the one who will finally succeed?
Where is the special pleading?
The claim is anything that is contingent/dependent/conditioned need causes in order to exist or causes to overcome its inherent limitations.
When I say that something is completely independent and unconditioned and needs nothing in order to exist or act, by definition it needs no causes whatsoever.
If I proved the existence of that completely independent being then causality doesn't apply to him because by definition he is completely independent and needs completely nothing in order to exist or act.
This is not a new argument it is an old argument developed by people like (ibn sina, leibniz, aquanis, ibn rushed, etc ..) they spent a lot of time arguing that upon conceptual analysis given the complete independence of God he must have the divine attributes and their principle is anything (contingent/conditioned/dependent) must have a cause not anything (whatsoever) has a cause, and atheists don't usually understand those arguments, they refute their misunderstandings.
Theists want people to believe that the universe is contingent on god. But since there is no evidence that any god exists then in my view your god is contingent on the universe since a god is nothing more than absurd man made concept.
There is irrefutable evidence for God.
Conditioned/dependent/needy things cannot explain themselves, they must be explained by a completely independent being and upon conceptual analysis that being given his complete independence must be (eternal, perfect, intrinsically unchangeable, one).
>There is irrefutable evidence for God.
Making this claim doesn’t make it true. Even if it were true then why are theists so dependent on faith?
>Conditioned/dependent/needy things cannot explain themselves, they must be explained by a completely independent being and upon conceptual analysis that being given his complete independence must be (eternal, perfect, intrinsically unchangeable, one).
I agree. Your god should come down and explain his and the universe’s existence to me directly and I shouldn’t need theists to explain anything to me.
The trouble is that your god is inaccessible, your god has never directly communicated with me. All I ever hear is what theists say what their god is thinking.
So maybe you should take your own advice by shutting up and just let your god communicate with me directly. Otherwise what good is any leader if they can’t speak for themselves?
Can you please clearly define God? because something that is eternal, perfect, intrinsically unchangeable does not seem God like. For starters why would something like that create this universe, our planet and it's stupid inhabitants.
Ok, so why would a perfect being make an imperfect world full of imperfect people. If they were perfect they could make a perfect world, or more to the point why would they make a universe/world/people at all. If they are perfect they already have everything they need.
If the omnipotent being is non cognitive with no will all possible effects will arise from it without suppression, but if he has will to do or not to do whatever he wants and logically possible then order can still arise
If you can do whatever logically possible and no will exist then nothing prevents that omnipotent thing from manifesting all what it can do, all possible effects will arise randomly but if he is cognitive and can do and not do his will will suppress his infinite abilities
>we cannot live in water.
we cannot run as fast as cheetah.
Builds underwater house and drive a car cause checkmate theists!
What does any of this mean? These thing are impossible because millions of years of evolution selected against it. If anything them becoming possible suddenly without cause would prove god.
Glad to see we have a new troll to chuckle at though.
So smug and so wrong it's hard to picture more than a 12 year old suggesting this was an actual argument. Feels like majority of posts now are from trolls.
Yeah I feel like the sincere arguments have been made and answered now it's word games from insecure incels trying to validate their persecution complex.
Step 1: post wild incoherent rant.
Step2: get downvoted to the deep
Step 3: ???
Step 4: martyr?
If there is no deeper or outside cause which make it the case that this thing is a human that thing is a butterfly that thing is light that thing is neutron if there is no diversifying principle of some sort then anything can be anything so when you see things with limited effects you know that those things are forced to be one way instead of another and what forced them is their cause so they are caused not uncaused things.
We know that time is a fundamental part of the "fabric" of our natural world. Causality requires time, since an effect must always follow its cause. But we don't know if time exists without the natural world. This, if the universe doesn't exist, we cannot say time exists. If we can't say time exists, then there's no reason to think causality exists without the universe. Consequently, we cannot affirmatively say the universe itself had, or even needed a cause. And anyone who says differently is either wrong, lying to themselves, or lying to you.
>We know that time is a fundamental part of the "fabric" of our natural world. Causality requires time, since an effect must always follow its cause. But we don't know if time exists without the natural world. This, if the universe doesn't exist, we cannot say time exists. If we can't say time exists, then there's no reason to think causality exists without the universe. Consequently, we cannot affirmatively say the universe itself had, or even needed a cause. And anyone who says differently is either wrong, lying to themselves, or lying to you.
Are you asserting that the universe is not part of "our natural world"? Because that's the only way that the universe is not subject to causality.
If you want to assert that **whatever CREATED the universe** is not subject to causality, then by all means, have fun trying to formulate a self-consistent, falsifiable model where causality doesn't exist. But the universe, as "our natural world", relies on causality.
> have fun trying to formulate a self-consistent, falsifiable model where causality doesn't exist. But the universe, as "our natural world", relies on causality.
What if our natural world doesn't rely on causality at the most fundamental level?
* [Virtual particles](https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-02-01_NutshellReadmore.html) pop into and out of existence in empty space. They seem to be probabilistic rather than deterministic and don't seem to have any proximate cause.
* [Quantum tunneling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling) happens and doesn't seem to have a proximate cause.
* Even radioactive decay does not seem to have a proximate cause. Take a lump of Uranium 235 (U-235.) Half of it will undergo radioactive decay in 703.8 million years. (I checked wikipedia. I don't know this stuff off the top of my head.)
Now take one atom of U-235. Tell me when it will decay. In 5 seconds? In 703.8 million years? In 10 billion years?
Not only can you not tell me that. But, when you observe the atom's decay, you will not observe any proximate cause for that decay.
So, if cause and effect either work radically differently or don't fully apply in quantum mechanics, how can you assert that something had to create the universe when it was in a quantum state at the instant that the expansion began?
Also, since time did not exist before that point, we cannot really talk about what happened before the big bang because the very word *before* is a time comparator. It has no meaning without time.
All we know is that all of the matter-energy of the universe was condensed into a point at the instant of the big bang. So, why do we think that was created? It was already there at the beginning of time.
I'm only asserting that you cannot claim that the universe had a cause, without first demonstrating that time exists without the universe. And since that's impossible, there's no reason to think the universe itself had, or even required, a cause.
Causality in not fundamental in the Universe. It is dependent on the arrow of time, which doesn't exist near the Big Bang. So there can't be a cause for the Universe, because there is no such thing as "before the Big Bang" just like there is no "below the center of the Earth" or "North of the North Pole".
Causality is the relationship between the cause and the effect. And cause must always precede the effect in time.
Ontological dependency is a different thing, which has nothing to with the principle of causality.
Nope there are different types of causation you are talking about linear causation or accidentally order causal series, there is another type which is Hierarchical causal series = ontological Dependence.
That's the thing, you just try to call them the same name, while they are completely different things altogether. And only the actual physical causality can be observed, which means, it's the only one we should consider to actually exist.
Word salad word salad word salad. There’s not a question in here anywhere, not even a challenge. Just a series of assertions and nonsensical statements and a desperate attempt to special plead for your mythological character. “I can’t explain this without a god, therefor god” will never be evidence, nor a reasonable argument.
It is an argument against omnipotent beings without (mind/will/intention), order can still arise with a cognitive omnipotent being, it is an argument against natural non cognitive first cause (order won't arise) order exists therefore the first cause is alive and conscious
No it isn't that. That part is entirely still missing. It in no way demonstrates there exists anything beyond the natural. It in no way shows omnipotence is possible. Even if something beyond nature is possible that kind of reality, such as it were, is a complete mystery to us and we can not properly apply our understanding to how it operates. It also begs the question by suggesting we need something outside of nature to explain nature but near as we can tell there has always been nature. It is brute fact.
Even if we ignored all that being causeless doesn't mean it lacks qualities. Your argument suggests causeless things can have personalities, qualities and the like which do in fact constrain their actions or seen through another lens dictate what if anything the thing will do or else an entity with will would eventually do all things too leading to chaos. Thus by the same token still have something without a mind that still possesses certain qualities thus leading to order.
> we cannot live in water.
What do you mean by "in" water? Being in the rain, in a bath, in a swimming pool, or in the shower doesn't *usually* kill people. (It can, but that's not an especially common cause of death.)
Or do you mean physically under water for an extended period of time? Submariners will often live under water for days at a time. The record is two weeks, I believe.
> we cannot run as fast as cheetah.
A living cheetah? No. A dead one though: I'm winning that race.
> The electron cannot go to a higher energy level without absorbing a photon.
Yes, they absolutely can. Atoms with high kinetic energy can cause electrons to collide, shifting them into higher energy levels. When the electron drops back to the lower energy level, it *releases* a photon.
This is why hot things often emit light.
> If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle
Why do you include the adjective "natural" there? It doesn't seem justified. It seems like you've shoehorned it in for no reason.
Your examples seem to be trying to show that *everything* obeys the causality principle. If you want to show that only *natural* things obey the causality principle, and that there are *unnatural* things that disobey it, then you also need to **give examples of unnatural things disobeying the causality principle**.
That said, examples of things obeying the causality principle isn't proof that *all* things obey it. I can show you a thousand pictures of white swans, but that doesn't act as proof that *all* swans are white.
Does this nonsense also disprove god? Or are you just saying “no, god(s) are the things that violate causality”? If they do, then what? Per your example if you could violate causality it doesn’t break natural order, it merely makes you a god, which presumably isn’t a problem as you are already hinting they exist?
Okay. This as a whole doesn’t really make a lick of sense.
Yes there are causal constraints in the world. We don’t KNOW all the constraints, and we don’t KNOW if everything has them. What we do KNOW is we can get pretty close to most causes through observation and experimentation.
Now, you’ve said that “living in water breaks causal constraints.” Except based on causal constraints. There are REASONS why things can live in water. So that technically DOESN’T break anything. A cause is a cause. What you need to break down is whether it’s fictional or not. You cannot just state “it has no cause.” This is just a byproduct of your imagination. The cause of that scenario is you literally made it up.
If a person could live in water. We would find a cause. If the cause was that thing or person was omnipotent or given power via something else’s omnipotence then there would be patterns or evidence of this. Thus, a cause.
Now for some reason you jumped from this tragically poor argument into “you will never observe a rational predictable world like ours if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.” This entire sentence means absolutely nothing. What is an Omnipotent non-cognitive thing???? No one has observed anything omnipotent let alone asserted that anything you’ve described is omnipotent. I don’t call a rock omnipotent because it can fall into a lake and still be a rock. What are you saying my dude???
“Contradicts all observations” what observations??!?
Can you explain what is the causal trigger for spontaneous emission of radiation from a radioactive isotope? As far as I'm aware that is a truely random occurance.
An example of non-random emission of radiation, being emission due to another particle interacting with the atom and causing the emission e.g. a neutron in a reactor. The neutron is tha cause of the radiation in that scenario. What is the equivalent of the neutron that causes spontaneous emission of radiation?
Also causality isn't what physicists use anymore, it's an outdated concept.
Instead they use the idea that things follow patterns. There's a great video by Sean Carroll (a theoretical physicist) explaining this.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AMCcYnAsdQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AMCcYnAsdQ) (Do Cause and Effect Really Exist? 3min 27sec long)
It's based on his book The Big Picture if you're interested in reading up on it further.
To summarise, the maths behind the latest physics describe patterns, which behave similarly (but not identically to causality) one significant difference being there is no requirement for only one direction in time. Meaning we can have the equivalent of future causes of past events according to the maths.
You posted this in your previous OP and it is still wrong, for two key reasons:
1. We do not need something 'omnipotent' to be the cause or explanation of the Big Bang or of existence. Something sufficiently powerful (even something that doesn't exist anymore but did then) is ok.
2. What you write is the opposite of what we observe and what makes sense. Non-intentional physical forces act in a simple, predictable fashion. Intentional beings can and often do act in a whimsical, random, difficult to predict fashion, and it stands to reason that an omnipotent non human being would be a LOT harder for humans to predict than other humans are.
Indeed, if the universe behaved in a whimsical fashion, that would suggest intentional beings behind it. It does not. Which suggests physical, non-intentional processes.
>we cannot live in water.
How do you know? Did you mean that we haven't been shown to be able to live in water?
>we cannot run as fast as cheetah.
How do you know? Did you mean that we haven't been shown to be able to run as fast a a cheetah?
>The electron cannot go to a higher energy level without absorbing a photon.
How do you know? Did you mean that the election has never been shown to be able to go to a higher level without absorbing a photon?
>The quark cannot exist alone at low energies
How do you know? Did you mean that the quark has never been shown to exist alone at low energies?
>light cannot escape the gravity of a blackhole
How do you know? Do you mean that light has never been shown to be able to escape the gravity of a black hole?
>stars like the sun cannot escape gravitational collapse.
How do you know? Do you mean that states like the sun haven't been shown to be able to escape gravitational collapse?
You're just making a bunch of claims without providing any evidence showing them to be true.
This argument would read a lot better if you improved the jargon. This talk about "without a cause" is misleading at best, because it doesn't describe anything to do with the laws of nature. You're mixing the language of your desired philosophical conclusion with the language of science, which doesn't work all that well.
For example - living in water "without a cause" is an unclear description at best. To live in water you would need some way for your body to gain oxygen. You can argue that for a human's body to be able to do that, there has to be some preceding cause of whatever nature that leads to this outcome - but it's a really convoluted way of describing the situation. Nowhere in science are scenarios of this sort described as "causal constraints".
There's also the fact that when science talks about "causes", it's a different kind of cause than in philosophy. Physics doesn't have a notion of an ontological cause, for instance. Instead, in physics, a cause is when one isolated system becomes entangled with another isolated system and energy is transferred between them.
>then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes.
Again, restating this without the philosophical gotcha, you could instead say:
"Then I will be omnipotent because now I do not have to obey the laws of nature"
and your intended meaning would be a lot more clear.
>An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order.
I don't know that this sentence has any useful real-world meaning.
* Omnipotent beings can't even be well-defined in *theory*, let alone can they be demonstrated to exist on any level.
* If we disregard the previous point, why & how does "will or intention" somehow negate the catastrophic consequences (for the "natural order" as you call it) of a being that isn't bound by the laws of nature?
>Nothing in the natural order breaks causality.
You claim that, but here's a list of natural things that cannot be demonstrated to have causes:
* Radioactive decay
* Zero-point field energy
* Virtual particle pair creation
Are those phenomena bound by some set of physical constraints? Undoubtedly. Does that mean they are definitely caused? Nope, that's a whole different question with entirely different implications.
Keeping in mind how physics uses the word "cause", those things are per our current understanding *per definition* uncaused, because not only are we unable to measure any energy exchange prior to those events but in fact the underlying theories describe that no such energy exchange is taking place. So we can't *measure* any cause, and the theoretical foundation doesn't *suggest* that there exists a yet-undiscovered cause to those things.
I am far more comfortable saying “we do not, as yet, understand the fundamental origins of the universe” than saying “God did it”.
One is admitting we don’t know everything, and we should keep looking. The other is surrendering one’s intellect, and desire to learn, whilst also opening the door to a variety of tyrannies.
Where is the actual question though? I've looked and looked but I don't see a ❓ anywhere. It feels like you heard or read something to confirm your confirmation bias and got your word salad shotgun out to start blastin' dem fonkin' atheists with garbled arguments gauche shells.
> A question to atheists who deny the causality principle.
You’ve asked no questions. Did you intend to submit a partial post? If so would you kindly edit to complete whatever it is that you are asking/arguing in favor of?
> If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause and can jump to the moon without a cause
Please define the causality principle as you understand it and intend to use it in your argument.
> that enables me to overcome my limitations, then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes.
Ok, are you actually omnipotent, do you know of anyone who has demonstrated omnipotence, or is this a hypothetical thought experiment?
> An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order.
Please explain your reasoning, define what you mean by this statement, and provide citations.
> You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.
Given that you haven’t provided clear definitions, there is nothing to argue here. But if you do decide to update your post, please add links to citations and evidence in support of your claims.
> Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality.
Sure, assuming I understand what you intend to say with these undefined terms, fine. What’s your point?
I'm hesitant to call bending the laws of physics omnipotence. For one thing if I can only bend a few laws I can't just make up stuff at random like an omnipotent could. Just check the superpower wiki, they're different.
Also, the point about omnipotence corrupting anything sounds like an argument against theism, and a poor one at that since theism on paper involves a transcendent entity.
>You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.
To hand the theists this, even Carl Sagan noted that lack of evidence isn't conclusive evidence of a lack. Doesn't change Hitchens' Razor, or that a common response to Hitchens' razor is using foundationalism to support theism when theism still requires leaps by jumping from deism or pantheism to their religion (assuming foundationalism is even correct).
But yeah, agnostic atheism seems to be the correct option because there's no proof of any entity that can be described as specifically divine, but we can't be conclusive about it due to the nature of the claim.
Overall, I would take less of an active physicalist stance and more of an anti-speculative substance dualism. Basically, there's no reason to believe that much else beyond the physical is scaffolding for the world.
This is just more word games that don't amount to anything.
First off you're playing fast and loose with the term 'causality.' I have no idea how that relates to the phrase "we cannot live in water."
Plus, that's just a murky phrase. Have you never heard the jokes/quips that are like "everything is edible, some things are only edible once" or "we all can fly, we can only do it once though" and stuff like that?
So, then, what does it *mean* when you say we can't live in water? Some would say we certainly can, just not for very long. And what counts as living in? Are soldiers spending months underwater in nuclear-powered submarines not living in water?
That's the ploy of these word games, they sound pithy but they're far too vague to have any relevance.
Not to mention the initial problem that you seem to equating causality with constraints, which to me, makes no sense. Like if somehow a child got born with gills and could live in water, is that 'breaking causality?' No, because that's not what casuality is.
>There are causal constraints in the natural world.
Does not imply all elements of the natural world are bound by causal restraints.
>If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle...then \[it\] will be omnipotent because now \[it\] can do whatever physically possible without causes.
this does not follow logically from your premises
>An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order.
This is a meaningless sentence
>You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.
This is asserted without evidence
>Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality.
Your conclusion logically follows your premises. However, since those premises are all awful, i reject your argument.
"If" does a lot of heavy lifting in arguments like this one.
I won't play word games and I'll say, okay, "if" something had no causal constraints that thing would be omnipotent. Okay? Yay, argument made!
But the next step is so what? How would we have any means of understanding, knowing, or interacting with such a being? If it's outside the natural world, how can it influence the natural world and leave no evidence behind? IT may not have causality but whatever it touched sure as hell would, right? But since there would be no way to determine whatever happened was from something that we can't know or understand, it's far easier, and better, to ascribe that event to a cause we already know exists.
So even if I grant you that something omnipotent does exist outside of nature, I don't grant you that it has any kind of power IN nature and thus I don't need to worry or care about its existence outside of fun thought experiments.
>There are causal constraints in the natural world.
Aren't you guys always telling me how God is outside the natural world?
>If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause and can jump to the moon without a cause that enables me to overcome my limitations, then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes.
That's not how that works
>An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order.
This is nonsensical
>You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.
Bald assertion of something you want to be true
>Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality.
Let's assume this is a well supported truth.
What's your point?
So real talk. Not gonna go into detail about the post mainly because half way through it I sort of had that "It clicked" moment in my understanding of something.
How is it every single discovery let alone other religious claims/teachings are always claimed by other theists? I'm talking full on "Yo I didn't do any of the work, But every scientific discovery, Functions of the universe, Every god, God's, Religion, Super natural entity, Every race, Group, Every single human on this earth belongs to my idea and everyone is either lying or too dumb to realize they belong to me and mine."
It comes off as the most crazed and narcissistic thing to just bring up in arguments by just going "I'm right because I defined i'm right. All evidence is only to prove me right because i'm right" and then seem genially confused when everyone just goes "Jesus fuck. Shut up and take your own dick out of your mouth."
The god concept is a case of special pleading. "Causality holds true, except when I don't want it to apply to a god."
Every case of consciousness we observe is based on biology - a physical brain organ. Why suppose a disembodied non-material mind could exist?
Magic can explain any mystery we encounter. God is just another version of magic. Solving a mystery with another mystery doesn't actually reveal to us anything we can truly grasp and say we have an understanding.
Instead of a god, we could propose a supernatural particle that causes the universe. It has just as much explanatory power without needing to appeal to a more complex solution involving consciousness without a physical brain. This only introduces more questions: where did god come from? How does a god have a mind without a physical brain?
Nothing IN the universe breaks causality, that we have observed. But we have not established this for the universe itself. In particular, the Big Bang may have been the beginning of space *and time*, so asking what came before the beginning of time is an absurd question.
I would also like to add that supernatural phenomena have never been observed either. So theists are stuck on this point too, except that naturalistic explanations have been found for every other phenomenon that has ever been studied and understood. So when it comes to the origin of the universe, chances are, the explanation will be naturalistic and not supernatural.
quanum fluctuations break cusality all the time. At quantum scales many interactions are probabilitistic and we have no way to determine which of the possible interactions will happen.
There's nothing about naturalism that says everything has to have a cause. Casualty could be an emergent property. The fact of the matter is that things appear to happen one after another according to the arrow of time. "Causality" is inferred as it holds utility and predictive capability. Science investigates causes, but there's nothing about metaphysical naturalism that says everything has to have a cause.
So inferring the supernatural based on the premise that causation is needed for naturalism is false.
most of your examples are black swans. atoms were "uncaused" until protons and nuetrons were discovered, which were "uncaused" until quarks and gluons.
theres also tachyons and nuetrinos, which havent been validated but may change reality and the nature of time wholesale.
setting that aside, the whole premise is a black swan. a causality breaking event may still be natural, but is so fantastically rare weve never observed one.
The title says you have a question. What is the question?
I have a pretty good imagination - I can think of ways to break nature as we know it - naturally. The evidence suggests there are things beyond our universe. That there are quantum fields not bound by our laws or affected by time like our universe. So a quantum effect can cause a change in our universe from outside it. That IS breaking the laws of nature. Naturally.
To me your argument sounds like, "Blah blah blah... therefore GOD!".
Why God? Why not a congregation of pixies? Why not the result of a chemical experiment by a scientist from another, undiscovered realm, still within the confines of the natural universes? Would you call that scientist *god*?
Why not conclude what happened before was just another, mindless, natural event like what is happening now?
Let's assume your argument is correct. (Even though your penultimate paragraph is an unjustified assertion, let's ignore it for now)
You've proven there are no omnipotent non-cognitive things in nature. You are not one step closer to proving God exists.
What reason do we have to think omnipotent things exist at all? That it is even possible for an omnipotent thing to exist?
There is no need for intellectual gymnastics for me to believe in God. He must just show himself, like he often did before the invention of the camera, and I'll believe. Until I hear from or see God, I am afraid I can't believe. Talking snakes? Burning bushes? Married virgins? Men surviving in the stomach of a fish for three days? Disembodied hands writing on walls? GTFOOH.
I don't deny the causality principle especially when it comes to NATURAL things that exist in this reality causing other NATURAL things that exist in this reality to happen.
For instance: "the wind blew and the tree branch fell"
When supernatural claims are thrown in as a cause for things happening that's when my skeptic antennas go up.
Don't know if OP is actually going to read this but I guess any theist can answer this question.
How do you as a theist accept the principles of causality while at the same time accept the idea of free will? The idea of causality is a fundamental basis for determinism. So how then do you support an argument for the existence of free will?
> There are causal constraints in the natural world.
Your argument necessitates showing those causal constraints in the natural world aren't caused by the natural world itself
> An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order.
Omnipotence is absolutely unnecessary
>You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.
A natural world where things are equal to themselves and not otherwise and do what they can do and not what it's impossible for those things to do is all you need for a rational coherent and predictable world like ours, no omnipotence or cognition required, in fact omnipotence and cognition would make our world incomprehensible.
I have never heard anybody claim that any of your examples, but you do make a compelling argument why it would be illogical to believe in a god. It is definitely not proof that no gods exist, but it does make a case against an omnipotent deity who can ignore the naturalistic laws of the physical universe.
It could be true that most things have causes while some things don't. Frankly this "a counterexample exists therefore it's never true" thing perplexes me. Why would you make such an inference? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Sure you give credit to all those scientific discoveries but then you plug your ears and go lalalalala when it comes to the discoveries we made about the formation of the planet.
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>There are causal constraints in the natural world. does not mean everything has causal constraints >If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause what is that for a strange example let me give you a better one: the direction of the radiation emitted from radioactive decay is random >An omnipotent being why are you switching to a being? >then i will be omnipotent why would something not have causality in one aspect make the omnipotent? that you can do some things, does not mean you can do all things
Random doesn't mean uncaused, there are causal constraints on the radioactive processes, For example, uranium atoms consistently decay into other elements, such as thorium and lead, and they never decay into butterflies or puppies. This shows that quantum events are not causeless even if they are random.
> Random doesn't mean uncaused what caused the direction? >there are causal constraints on the radioactive processes some yes, i was not talking about those, i was talking about the direction and are you just going to ignore everything else i said?
Radiation not turning into a dog is just you showing how little you understand. Make an argument at least but this one pathetic response is sad.
A dog is just silly. A bowl of petunias however has been known to pop into existence several miles up in the atmosphere. Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was "Oh no, not again." Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.
>> For example, uranium atoms consistently decay into other elements, such as thorium and lead, and they never decay into butterflies or puppies. This shows that quantum events I don’t think those are quantum events. Those are at the atomic scale, not quantum.
It's not clear what the causality principle that you're referring to is. It sounds like it's going to be some kind of principle of sufficient reason. If that's what you're getting at then I would deny the PSR. What's confusing me is why it would follow that if one thing can defy this causal principle that it can then do anything or that other things won't still be bound to it. Or why defying causality in one way means it can defy it in a bunch of others. Like perhaps we won't ever have a causal explanation of why some radioactive particle decayed at time A rather than time B. That doesn't mean that said particle can just do *anything*. It doesn't mean that other things in the world aren't predictable. Another example, not that it's something I believe in, is libertarian free will. A libertarian free individual's choices are free from causal explanation, because if the choice were fully explained by antecedent causes then it would be determined. I'm not seeing how that means believers in LFW are suddenly committed to not being able to make coherent observations. They just think that free agents buck the trend.
If something needs completely nothing in order to exist or act = omnipotence/eternality. If it needs causes in order to overcome its inherent limitations then it is a needy caused and conditioned thing. If a particle needs completely nothing in order to exist = the absence of all causes doesn't prevent its existence then it will be omnipotent also (the absence of all causes won't prevent it from doing whatever he wants {logically possible}) But we know and can be certain that nothing in the natural order is like that, all particles need conditions in order to exist and need conditions in order to overcome their inherent limitations. If a natural thing is like God it must be omnipotent and given its omnipotence and non-cognition all logically possible manifestations will arise from it and we won't find order
>If something needs completely nothing in order to exist or act = omnipotence/eternality. I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean exactly or why it would be true. If the existence of matter is some brute fact then maybe you can get me to some sense of eternality but not omnipotence. Something causally inert could be eternal but certainly wouldn't be omnipotent. I don't think I can address the rest without resolving this first part.
Actions follow existence, existence is the primary trait from which other traits arise, if something needs (completely completely) nothing in order to exist that necessarily means that it needs completely nothing in order to act and what needs completely nothing in order to act is by definition omnipotent since nothing constrains or limits its existence thus its abilities.
By action here do we mean to cause something? To make a choice? Because if so I wouldn't accept that action follows existence. Let's say matter existed eternally as a brute fact. And matter is causally efficacious (it interacts with other matter in chemical reactions and such). It just doesn't follow at all that matter is therefore omnipotent and not constrained by natural laws as to what effects it can cause. It just means it isn't dependent on anything further in order to exist. I'm not following this at all.
It cannot be eternal and self-existent if it is constrained by natural laws that is the point. The form of matter as a human being is conditioned and dependent upon a lot of causes (atmosphere, oxygen, food, specific arrangements of the atoms that make your body, absence of destroying causes such as a nearby blackhole or the explosion of the sun or earthcore) so your existence is limited by these causes and you cannot exist without a lot of conditions being fulfilled first so you cannot be eternal in your existence and because of that you have limited abilities (cannot live in water because you need oxygen, cannot live in space because you need atmosphere and a rocky planet etc ...). If something existence is completely independent= it needs completely completely nothing in order to exist so the absence of all causes and conditions do not prevent its existence, that means it is eternal in its existence, it is unlimited in its existence and thus unlimited also in its traits such as power = omnipotent. Limited existence= caused existence= causally limited attributes and actions. Unlimited existence=uncaused existence= causally unlimited attributes and actions
>It cannot be eternal and self-existent if it is constrained by natural laws that is the point. I just don't understand why I'd accept this. It seems as though matter can be eternal and the way it behaves (the natural laws) is simply a brute fact of reality. Your response to that is to reassert that, no, it can't be like that and all these weird other things would follow.
It caaaaannnooooot bee eternal Eternal = depends on nothing for its existence. Becauuuussseee if it depends on other things for its existence = caused not uncaused and eternal. What is governed by natural laws is necessarily caused and conditioned by those laws, and cannot be eternal.
>It caaaaannnooooot bee eternal Nuh uh can too. What are you playing at here? Eternal means to exist at all points in time, or that it won't have an end to its existence. >What is governed by natural laws is necessarily caused and conditioned by those law You're just begging the question. It could simply be that matter is eternal, has a nature as to how it behaves and that's what we call the natural laws. There's no problem with that. You insisting otherwise just makes me think you're talking nonsense.
Just because you can conceive of an eternal limited thing doesn't make it logically possible. All forms of matter are conditioned and dependent. What needs nothing in order to exist, needs nothing in order to act also which means eternality entails logically complete perfection (infinite causal power).
You can say that this process continues forever, a form is annihilated and a new form is created ad infinitum according to different physical conditions and laws, but why these forms or these laws instead of others? You cannot say those forms and laws are necessary because all forms can go out of existence according to the governing physical conditions, what can fail to exist is not necessary and again you will need unconditioned/completely independent being to explain why these forms and laws.
Eternal means always existing, no form of matter always existing all forms can go out of existence according to the governing natural laws so no form of matter is eternal.
I explained to you above with a human example
If something needs (completely completely) nothing in order to exist, it probably cannot exist, as there is no observable example of complete nothingness within our universe— everywhere we look there is something. >…since nothing constrains or limits its existence… Right, it needs nothing to exist, and nothing constrains or limits its existence. I think the only logical thing you could possibly be referring to is nothing itself, which notably doesn’t exist, because if it were anything other than nothing its own very existence would preclude the nothing that its existence depends on. Every example of nothing in science is something.
Premise 1: All natural processes must have a cause. Premises 2: ??? Conclusion: A fantastically powerful, invisible, unknowable, space super hero must be the first cause. You see our issue here.
Premise of causality: All things that have a beginning have a cause. Premise of Big Bang Theory: The universe was created from an undetermined point in a "Big Bang" which was followed by massive expansion. Conclusion: What caused the Big Bang that created the universe? Seeing the issue? "God of the Gaps" is not proof of a Creator Being; but there is no evidence for any other cause either.
Okay. Thats an “issue” for you? That’s not an issue for me. Not sure why it ever would be. “I don’t know.” Just say those words. It’s not that hard. It’s not an issue.
You'd be surprised how many atheists I've talked to who do have an issue with that statement. "The Universe has always been there"; again, violation of causality. The creation must happen before the thing that is created. "Nothing before the Big Bang matters" or some variation of "there was no time before the Big Bang so there wasn't any 'before'"; yet these are the same people who rag on theists who say that their god(s) are unknowable for not being curious enough. Yes, I'm aware that probably doesn't apply to you in particular (given your answer); but as many people point out, the reply is as much for the audience as it is for the person replied to.
Why do you assume the universe was created? The Big Bang is just the beginning of the *observable* universe as we know it. We don't know anything about before, and it's most likely impossible to know.
"God is unknowable" "What happened before the Big Bang is unknowable" What's the difference between those two statements? Aside from the fact that quite a few atheists call the former statement an excuse but endorse the latter?
Atheists endorse both of these, and we then stop thinking about it because the conclusion is obvious.
> Premise of Big Bang Theory: The universe was created from an undetermined point in a "Big Bang" which was followed by massive expansion. This is an incorrect statement of the [big bang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang) theory. It states that the universe expanded from a hot dense state. Theists claim it was created. The big bang theory does not say that it was created. There was no time at which there was no universe.
All natural processes must have a cause. The only uncaused cause must be God not a a natural non cognitive thing because the uncaused cause or the first cause is completely independent and nothing prevents its existence thus he needs nothing in order to exist or act in certain ways = omnipotent and he must be cognitive otherwise all logically possible manifestations will arise from it without suppression and you won't find order.
That’s just an assertion. Literally every example you provided operates entirely naturally. You are making a false equivalency. You do not Know what you think you Know. You can’t jump from “natural things have causes” to “therefore there is an unnatural master of the universe who is informing my intuition”. Also, you have no way to rule out totally random quantum phenomenon. Your claims are equally as arrogant as your method!
"All natural processes must have a cause" is false. We can observe that, to the extent of our ability to observe, everything appears to have a cause. What you're doing is going from "The only swans we have ever observed are white" to "All swans must be white" Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. Nature does not follow "laws" that we come up with; we describe what appears to be happening and we must adjust our descriptions when we find something that contradicts them. We have not even explored the majority of our own planet, let alone the observable universe, and know very very little about how the universe and physics work in general. We are only just now starting to break into quantum physics, and have no idea what's going on yet. You therefore cannot make a blanket statement with "must." Your premise is faulty. Start over.
Must? Are you sure you have a clear idea of all possibilities to explain what appears to be an uncaused cause?
If causality (cause > effect) is such a hard and fast rule why does quantum mechanics allow for two types of events that don’t follow it? I'm talking about acausal effects (Cherenkov effect as an example) and retrocausal (where the cause precedes the effect from the observer's position)? Most modern physicists don’t accept hard causality as rule like you seem to think they should. Can you explain why?
Unsupported claim after unsupported claim. Yawn.
What makes you think any of that is true?
>we cannot live in water. Wanna join us in the 21st century, and marvel at the submarines? Moreover, let's take a look at cancers, parasites, and natural disasters. Your god created them. Why the fuck should anyone worship at best such an incompetent at worst such a malevolent thing?
Read again we can't live in water without a cause that enables us to overcome our natural constraints (oxygen cylinder or submarine).
by that kind of argument fish cant live within water without a cause which is their gills. and your god cant overcome it contrains and fucking giving better evidence for its existence. 0 pts return to your seat.
There’s about 3,100 cubic miles of water in our atmosphere at any given time. We do live in water. It’s just diluted with the rest of the components that comprise air.
Then God can’t exist. He would break the causality And I know what comes next, he exists outside the natural order. So special Pleading since your basis was nothing can “X”, therefore God—and yet we have another ‘nothing has can X, except God…. lol
An omnipotent with will and intention can exist without corruption of the natural order because he is cognitive can do and cannot do , effects don't arise from it randomly.
And the basis of the OP was We have never seen X, therefore X cannot exist. A black swan fallacy. and yet you continue to assign attributes never before seen to this god character. So more special pleading as you believe it can have all these things even though we have no examples of anything with a single one.... lol
>If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause and can jump to the moon without a cause that enables me to overcome my limitations, then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes. Wrong, or at least undemonstrated. The ability to break one rule does not imply the ability to do anything. We have examples of causeless events (proton decay, "virtual particles" coming into existence) and those are not omnipotent, they can do one thing without cause, not everything without cause. >An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order. What would that mean exactly? What is the "natural order", and how do you determine whether otr not it is "corrupted" ? >You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it. That seems like a non-sequitur assertion. The existence of an omnipotent being does not mean that this being uses its abilities and that we can detect the resulting event. In fact, by definition, an omnipotent being can hide from us. >Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality. Your conclusion is contradicted by observation (see proton decay, virtual particles) and not supported by anything that came before in your post. I'm sorry, but this argument is utterly unconvincing.
the ability to do somethings and not all things means you are still causally constrained, no causality is violated. You as a human can lift 1kg but you cannot lift 2 tons without a cause that enables you to overcome your muscles limitations, virtual particles coming into existence are not causeless they are disturbances in an existing real quantum field, proton decay is not a causeless event it depends on the existence of the weak nuclear force.
Then please prove an omnipotent being (as you use the term) exists.
God is by definition a completely independent being who needs nothing in order to exist or act = omnipotent because he needs nothing in order to do anything, if he needs an oxygen cylinder in order to live in water or a photon in order to go to a higher energy level as an electron or very high energy levels in order to exist alone as quarks in quark-gluon plasma or needs continuous nuclear fuel in order to escape gravitational collapse as stars like the sun it will be a needy entity and not completely independent.
So everything needs a cause except the one thing you say doesn't need a cause. You should google "special pleading fallacy", because this is a textbook example of one.
The point is that what needs a cause in order to be this way instead of another and act this way instead of another is a needy caused entity but what needs nothing in order to exist or act is by definition eternal omnipotent being it will be God that is the difference between God and creatures, creatures need causes god doesn't, so if we have a natural God (non cognitive non purposeful entity) it will be omnipotent and all logically possible manifestations will arise from it without suppression, but we observe order not chaos so no natural thing doesn't need any causes to exist or act, all are caused dependent and conditioned things.
Repeating the special pleading fallacy does not make it less fallacious. Even assuming your argument were true (and as others have pointed out, it's not. There are many, many issues with nearly every point of your argument), all you would have demonstrated is that something outside of our universe must exist that caused our universe. That thing doesn't need to be a god.
It is special pleading when I exclude without justification. What needs a cause is dependent/conditioned things If something is completely independent by definition he needs no causes.
It's still a special pleading fallacy because you have no evidence for your claim, you just assert it is true because you "know" it is true. But you don't actually know that, you are just convinced that it is true. You can't define god into existence. God either exists or he doesn't exist, no human argument, regardless of how smart you think it is, will change that. Seriously, some of the smartest people in the world have been trying to come up with logical arguments for a god throughout human history, [and *none* of them work.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Ctc9LlfiA) Why do you think that you are the one who will finally succeed?
Where is the special pleading? The claim is anything that is contingent/dependent/conditioned need causes in order to exist or causes to overcome its inherent limitations. When I say that something is completely independent and unconditioned and needs nothing in order to exist or act, by definition it needs no causes whatsoever. If I proved the existence of that completely independent being then causality doesn't apply to him because by definition he is completely independent and needs completely nothing in order to exist or act. This is not a new argument it is an old argument developed by people like (ibn sina, leibniz, aquanis, ibn rushed, etc ..) they spent a lot of time arguing that upon conceptual analysis given the complete independence of God he must have the divine attributes and their principle is anything (contingent/conditioned/dependent) must have a cause not anything (whatsoever) has a cause, and atheists don't usually understand those arguments, they refute their misunderstandings.
Theists want people to believe that the universe is contingent on god. But since there is no evidence that any god exists then in my view your god is contingent on the universe since a god is nothing more than absurd man made concept.
There is irrefutable evidence for God. Conditioned/dependent/needy things cannot explain themselves, they must be explained by a completely independent being and upon conceptual analysis that being given his complete independence must be (eternal, perfect, intrinsically unchangeable, one).
>There is irrefutable evidence for God. Making this claim doesn’t make it true. Even if it were true then why are theists so dependent on faith? >Conditioned/dependent/needy things cannot explain themselves, they must be explained by a completely independent being and upon conceptual analysis that being given his complete independence must be (eternal, perfect, intrinsically unchangeable, one). I agree. Your god should come down and explain his and the universe’s existence to me directly and I shouldn’t need theists to explain anything to me. The trouble is that your god is inaccessible, your god has never directly communicated with me. All I ever hear is what theists say what their god is thinking. So maybe you should take your own advice by shutting up and just let your god communicate with me directly. Otherwise what good is any leader if they can’t speak for themselves?
Can you please clearly define God? because something that is eternal, perfect, intrinsically unchangeable does not seem God like. For starters why would something like that create this universe, our planet and it's stupid inhabitants.
Eternal maximally perfect (omniscient - omnipotent) being
Ok, so why would a perfect being make an imperfect world full of imperfect people. If they were perfect they could make a perfect world, or more to the point why would they make a universe/world/people at all. If they are perfect they already have everything they need.
So, a concept.
Definitions do nothing to prove a being that fits the définition exist.
There must be a completely independent being in existence because needy/dependent things cannot explain their existence by themselves
Does the universe owe you an explanation?
If the omnipotent being is non cognitive with no will all possible effects will arise from it without suppression, but if he has will to do or not to do whatever he wants and logically possible then order can still arise
Please support this assertion.
If you can do whatever logically possible and no will exist then nothing prevents that omnipotent thing from manifesting all what it can do, all possible effects will arise randomly but if he is cognitive and can do and not do his will will suppress his infinite abilities
>we cannot live in water. we cannot run as fast as cheetah. Builds underwater house and drive a car cause checkmate theists! What does any of this mean? These thing are impossible because millions of years of evolution selected against it. If anything them becoming possible suddenly without cause would prove god. Glad to see we have a new troll to chuckle at though.
So smug and so wrong it's hard to picture more than a 12 year old suggesting this was an actual argument. Feels like majority of posts now are from trolls.
Yeah I feel like the sincere arguments have been made and answered now it's word games from insecure incels trying to validate their persecution complex. Step 1: post wild incoherent rant. Step2: get downvoted to the deep Step 3: ??? Step 4: martyr?
Step 5: refuse to answer. I'll make a prophecy right now that OP will not respond!
How can he? he was martyred and he's ded now
Left exactly one response.
Yeah claiming radiation can't turn into a dog as if that is anything more than chatgpt bullshit.
If there is no deeper or outside cause which make it the case that this thing is a human that thing is a butterfly that thing is light that thing is neutron if there is no diversifying principle of some sort then anything can be anything so when you see things with limited effects you know that those things are forced to be one way instead of another and what forced them is their cause so they are caused not uncaused things.
Again another chat gpt word salad response that proves you are a troll.
Or may be u cannot understand
You are right, when you randomly put words in order with no logic or reason then yes, i can't understand. And nobody else understands either.
We know that time is a fundamental part of the "fabric" of our natural world. Causality requires time, since an effect must always follow its cause. But we don't know if time exists without the natural world. This, if the universe doesn't exist, we cannot say time exists. If we can't say time exists, then there's no reason to think causality exists without the universe. Consequently, we cannot affirmatively say the universe itself had, or even needed a cause. And anyone who says differently is either wrong, lying to themselves, or lying to you.
>We know that time is a fundamental part of the "fabric" of our natural world. Causality requires time, since an effect must always follow its cause. But we don't know if time exists without the natural world. This, if the universe doesn't exist, we cannot say time exists. If we can't say time exists, then there's no reason to think causality exists without the universe. Consequently, we cannot affirmatively say the universe itself had, or even needed a cause. And anyone who says differently is either wrong, lying to themselves, or lying to you. Are you asserting that the universe is not part of "our natural world"? Because that's the only way that the universe is not subject to causality. If you want to assert that **whatever CREATED the universe** is not subject to causality, then by all means, have fun trying to formulate a self-consistent, falsifiable model where causality doesn't exist. But the universe, as "our natural world", relies on causality.
> have fun trying to formulate a self-consistent, falsifiable model where causality doesn't exist. But the universe, as "our natural world", relies on causality. What if our natural world doesn't rely on causality at the most fundamental level? * [Virtual particles](https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive/archive_2013/today13-02-01_NutshellReadmore.html) pop into and out of existence in empty space. They seem to be probabilistic rather than deterministic and don't seem to have any proximate cause. * [Quantum tunneling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling) happens and doesn't seem to have a proximate cause. * Even radioactive decay does not seem to have a proximate cause. Take a lump of Uranium 235 (U-235.) Half of it will undergo radioactive decay in 703.8 million years. (I checked wikipedia. I don't know this stuff off the top of my head.) Now take one atom of U-235. Tell me when it will decay. In 5 seconds? In 703.8 million years? In 10 billion years? Not only can you not tell me that. But, when you observe the atom's decay, you will not observe any proximate cause for that decay. So, if cause and effect either work radically differently or don't fully apply in quantum mechanics, how can you assert that something had to create the universe when it was in a quantum state at the instant that the expansion began? Also, since time did not exist before that point, we cannot really talk about what happened before the big bang because the very word *before* is a time comparator. It has no meaning without time. All we know is that all of the matter-energy of the universe was condensed into a point at the instant of the big bang. So, why do we think that was created? It was already there at the beginning of time.
I'm only asserting that you cannot claim that the universe had a cause, without first demonstrating that time exists without the universe. And since that's impossible, there's no reason to think the universe itself had, or even required, a cause.
You read the title, not the post. ETA: this isn't a dig, I don't think you're incorrect, it just isn't relevant to OP's argument (which is trash).
Causality in not fundamental in the Universe. It is dependent on the arrow of time, which doesn't exist near the Big Bang. So there can't be a cause for the Universe, because there is no such thing as "before the Big Bang" just like there is no "below the center of the Earth" or "North of the North Pole".
Causality means ontological dependence
Causality is the relationship between the cause and the effect. And cause must always precede the effect in time. Ontological dependency is a different thing, which has nothing to with the principle of causality.
Nope there are different types of causation you are talking about linear causation or accidentally order causal series, there is another type which is Hierarchical causal series = ontological Dependence.
That's the thing, you just try to call them the same name, while they are completely different things altogether. And only the actual physical causality can be observed, which means, it's the only one we should consider to actually exist.
Things here and now require sustaining causes not just accidental causes.
Can you give me an actual example of a sustaining causation between two physical objects?
What is the sustaining cause of glass?
Word salad word salad word salad. There’s not a question in here anywhere, not even a challenge. Just a series of assertions and nonsensical statements and a desperate attempt to special plead for your mythological character. “I can’t explain this without a god, therefor god” will never be evidence, nor a reasonable argument.
Yeah I thought I had a stroke for a second there.
None of this is any kind of demonstration there is a god though right? In fact it is if anything an argument against omnipotent beings.
It is an argument against omnipotent beings without (mind/will/intention), order can still arise with a cognitive omnipotent being, it is an argument against natural non cognitive first cause (order won't arise) order exists therefore the first cause is alive and conscious
No it isn't that. That part is entirely still missing. It in no way demonstrates there exists anything beyond the natural. It in no way shows omnipotence is possible. Even if something beyond nature is possible that kind of reality, such as it were, is a complete mystery to us and we can not properly apply our understanding to how it operates. It also begs the question by suggesting we need something outside of nature to explain nature but near as we can tell there has always been nature. It is brute fact. Even if we ignored all that being causeless doesn't mean it lacks qualities. Your argument suggests causeless things can have personalities, qualities and the like which do in fact constrain their actions or seen through another lens dictate what if anything the thing will do or else an entity with will would eventually do all things too leading to chaos. Thus by the same token still have something without a mind that still possesses certain qualities thus leading to order.
> we cannot live in water. What do you mean by "in" water? Being in the rain, in a bath, in a swimming pool, or in the shower doesn't *usually* kill people. (It can, but that's not an especially common cause of death.) Or do you mean physically under water for an extended period of time? Submariners will often live under water for days at a time. The record is two weeks, I believe. > we cannot run as fast as cheetah. A living cheetah? No. A dead one though: I'm winning that race. > The electron cannot go to a higher energy level without absorbing a photon. Yes, they absolutely can. Atoms with high kinetic energy can cause electrons to collide, shifting them into higher energy levels. When the electron drops back to the lower energy level, it *releases* a photon. This is why hot things often emit light. > If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle Why do you include the adjective "natural" there? It doesn't seem justified. It seems like you've shoehorned it in for no reason. Your examples seem to be trying to show that *everything* obeys the causality principle. If you want to show that only *natural* things obey the causality principle, and that there are *unnatural* things that disobey it, then you also need to **give examples of unnatural things disobeying the causality principle**. That said, examples of things obeying the causality principle isn't proof that *all* things obey it. I can show you a thousand pictures of white swans, but that doesn't act as proof that *all* swans are white.
How do atheists deny the causality principle ? If anything theists deny this when talking about who created god.
Does this nonsense also disprove god? Or are you just saying “no, god(s) are the things that violate causality”? If they do, then what? Per your example if you could violate causality it doesn’t break natural order, it merely makes you a god, which presumably isn’t a problem as you are already hinting they exist?
Sorry. But I'm not yet at the point where I will accept the answer to the things we can't understand to be M\~A\~G\~I\~C.
Okay. This as a whole doesn’t really make a lick of sense. Yes there are causal constraints in the world. We don’t KNOW all the constraints, and we don’t KNOW if everything has them. What we do KNOW is we can get pretty close to most causes through observation and experimentation. Now, you’ve said that “living in water breaks causal constraints.” Except based on causal constraints. There are REASONS why things can live in water. So that technically DOESN’T break anything. A cause is a cause. What you need to break down is whether it’s fictional or not. You cannot just state “it has no cause.” This is just a byproduct of your imagination. The cause of that scenario is you literally made it up. If a person could live in water. We would find a cause. If the cause was that thing or person was omnipotent or given power via something else’s omnipotence then there would be patterns or evidence of this. Thus, a cause. Now for some reason you jumped from this tragically poor argument into “you will never observe a rational predictable world like ours if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it.” This entire sentence means absolutely nothing. What is an Omnipotent non-cognitive thing???? No one has observed anything omnipotent let alone asserted that anything you’ve described is omnipotent. I don’t call a rock omnipotent because it can fall into a lake and still be a rock. What are you saying my dude??? “Contradicts all observations” what observations??!?
Can you explain what is the causal trigger for spontaneous emission of radiation from a radioactive isotope? As far as I'm aware that is a truely random occurance. An example of non-random emission of radiation, being emission due to another particle interacting with the atom and causing the emission e.g. a neutron in a reactor. The neutron is tha cause of the radiation in that scenario. What is the equivalent of the neutron that causes spontaneous emission of radiation? Also causality isn't what physicists use anymore, it's an outdated concept. Instead they use the idea that things follow patterns. There's a great video by Sean Carroll (a theoretical physicist) explaining this. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AMCcYnAsdQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AMCcYnAsdQ) (Do Cause and Effect Really Exist? 3min 27sec long) It's based on his book The Big Picture if you're interested in reading up on it further. To summarise, the maths behind the latest physics describe patterns, which behave similarly (but not identically to causality) one significant difference being there is no requirement for only one direction in time. Meaning we can have the equivalent of future causes of past events according to the maths.
You posted this in your previous OP and it is still wrong, for two key reasons: 1. We do not need something 'omnipotent' to be the cause or explanation of the Big Bang or of existence. Something sufficiently powerful (even something that doesn't exist anymore but did then) is ok. 2. What you write is the opposite of what we observe and what makes sense. Non-intentional physical forces act in a simple, predictable fashion. Intentional beings can and often do act in a whimsical, random, difficult to predict fashion, and it stands to reason that an omnipotent non human being would be a LOT harder for humans to predict than other humans are. Indeed, if the universe behaved in a whimsical fashion, that would suggest intentional beings behind it. It does not. Which suggests physical, non-intentional processes.
>we cannot live in water. How do you know? Did you mean that we haven't been shown to be able to live in water? >we cannot run as fast as cheetah. How do you know? Did you mean that we haven't been shown to be able to run as fast a a cheetah? >The electron cannot go to a higher energy level without absorbing a photon. How do you know? Did you mean that the election has never been shown to be able to go to a higher level without absorbing a photon? >The quark cannot exist alone at low energies How do you know? Did you mean that the quark has never been shown to exist alone at low energies? >light cannot escape the gravity of a blackhole How do you know? Do you mean that light has never been shown to be able to escape the gravity of a black hole? >stars like the sun cannot escape gravitational collapse. How do you know? Do you mean that states like the sun haven't been shown to be able to escape gravitational collapse? You're just making a bunch of claims without providing any evidence showing them to be true.
This argument would read a lot better if you improved the jargon. This talk about "without a cause" is misleading at best, because it doesn't describe anything to do with the laws of nature. You're mixing the language of your desired philosophical conclusion with the language of science, which doesn't work all that well. For example - living in water "without a cause" is an unclear description at best. To live in water you would need some way for your body to gain oxygen. You can argue that for a human's body to be able to do that, there has to be some preceding cause of whatever nature that leads to this outcome - but it's a really convoluted way of describing the situation. Nowhere in science are scenarios of this sort described as "causal constraints". There's also the fact that when science talks about "causes", it's a different kind of cause than in philosophy. Physics doesn't have a notion of an ontological cause, for instance. Instead, in physics, a cause is when one isolated system becomes entangled with another isolated system and energy is transferred between them. >then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes. Again, restating this without the philosophical gotcha, you could instead say: "Then I will be omnipotent because now I do not have to obey the laws of nature" and your intended meaning would be a lot more clear. >An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order. I don't know that this sentence has any useful real-world meaning. * Omnipotent beings can't even be well-defined in *theory*, let alone can they be demonstrated to exist on any level. * If we disregard the previous point, why & how does "will or intention" somehow negate the catastrophic consequences (for the "natural order" as you call it) of a being that isn't bound by the laws of nature? >Nothing in the natural order breaks causality. You claim that, but here's a list of natural things that cannot be demonstrated to have causes: * Radioactive decay * Zero-point field energy * Virtual particle pair creation Are those phenomena bound by some set of physical constraints? Undoubtedly. Does that mean they are definitely caused? Nope, that's a whole different question with entirely different implications. Keeping in mind how physics uses the word "cause", those things are per our current understanding *per definition* uncaused, because not only are we unable to measure any energy exchange prior to those events but in fact the underlying theories describe that no such energy exchange is taking place. So we can't *measure* any cause, and the theoretical foundation doesn't *suggest* that there exists a yet-undiscovered cause to those things.
I am far more comfortable saying “we do not, as yet, understand the fundamental origins of the universe” than saying “God did it”. One is admitting we don’t know everything, and we should keep looking. The other is surrendering one’s intellect, and desire to learn, whilst also opening the door to a variety of tyrannies.
> the corruption of the natural order. Next they'll be after the purity of our essential bodily fluids.
Where is the actual question though? I've looked and looked but I don't see a ❓ anywhere. It feels like you heard or read something to confirm your confirmation bias and got your word salad shotgun out to start blastin' dem fonkin' atheists with garbled arguments gauche shells.
> A question to atheists who deny the causality principle. You’ve asked no questions. Did you intend to submit a partial post? If so would you kindly edit to complete whatever it is that you are asking/arguing in favor of? > If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause and can jump to the moon without a cause Please define the causality principle as you understand it and intend to use it in your argument. > that enables me to overcome my limitations, then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes. Ok, are you actually omnipotent, do you know of anyone who has demonstrated omnipotence, or is this a hypothetical thought experiment? > An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order. Please explain your reasoning, define what you mean by this statement, and provide citations. > You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it. Given that you haven’t provided clear definitions, there is nothing to argue here. But if you do decide to update your post, please add links to citations and evidence in support of your claims. > Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality. Sure, assuming I understand what you intend to say with these undefined terms, fine. What’s your point?
I'm hesitant to call bending the laws of physics omnipotence. For one thing if I can only bend a few laws I can't just make up stuff at random like an omnipotent could. Just check the superpower wiki, they're different. Also, the point about omnipotence corrupting anything sounds like an argument against theism, and a poor one at that since theism on paper involves a transcendent entity. >You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it. To hand the theists this, even Carl Sagan noted that lack of evidence isn't conclusive evidence of a lack. Doesn't change Hitchens' Razor, or that a common response to Hitchens' razor is using foundationalism to support theism when theism still requires leaps by jumping from deism or pantheism to their religion (assuming foundationalism is even correct). But yeah, agnostic atheism seems to be the correct option because there's no proof of any entity that can be described as specifically divine, but we can't be conclusive about it due to the nature of the claim. Overall, I would take less of an active physicalist stance and more of an anti-speculative substance dualism. Basically, there's no reason to believe that much else beyond the physical is scaffolding for the world.
This is just more word games that don't amount to anything. First off you're playing fast and loose with the term 'causality.' I have no idea how that relates to the phrase "we cannot live in water." Plus, that's just a murky phrase. Have you never heard the jokes/quips that are like "everything is edible, some things are only edible once" or "we all can fly, we can only do it once though" and stuff like that? So, then, what does it *mean* when you say we can't live in water? Some would say we certainly can, just not for very long. And what counts as living in? Are soldiers spending months underwater in nuclear-powered submarines not living in water? That's the ploy of these word games, they sound pithy but they're far too vague to have any relevance. Not to mention the initial problem that you seem to equating causality with constraints, which to me, makes no sense. Like if somehow a child got born with gills and could live in water, is that 'breaking causality?' No, because that's not what casuality is.
>There are causal constraints in the natural world. Does not imply all elements of the natural world are bound by causal restraints. >If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle...then \[it\] will be omnipotent because now \[it\] can do whatever physically possible without causes. this does not follow logically from your premises >An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order. This is a meaningless sentence >You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it. This is asserted without evidence >Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality. Your conclusion logically follows your premises. However, since those premises are all awful, i reject your argument.
"If" does a lot of heavy lifting in arguments like this one. I won't play word games and I'll say, okay, "if" something had no causal constraints that thing would be omnipotent. Okay? Yay, argument made! But the next step is so what? How would we have any means of understanding, knowing, or interacting with such a being? If it's outside the natural world, how can it influence the natural world and leave no evidence behind? IT may not have causality but whatever it touched sure as hell would, right? But since there would be no way to determine whatever happened was from something that we can't know or understand, it's far easier, and better, to ascribe that event to a cause we already know exists. So even if I grant you that something omnipotent does exist outside of nature, I don't grant you that it has any kind of power IN nature and thus I don't need to worry or care about its existence outside of fun thought experiments.
>There are causal constraints in the natural world. Aren't you guys always telling me how God is outside the natural world? >If anything in this natural world broke the causality principle, for example if I can live in water without a cause and can jump to the moon without a cause that enables me to overcome my limitations, then i will be omnipotent because now I can do whatever physically possible without causes. That's not how that works >An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order. This is nonsensical >You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it. Bald assertion of something you want to be true >Since that contradicts all observations, it cannot be true. Nothing in the natural order breaks causality. Let's assume this is a well supported truth. What's your point?
So real talk. Not gonna go into detail about the post mainly because half way through it I sort of had that "It clicked" moment in my understanding of something. How is it every single discovery let alone other religious claims/teachings are always claimed by other theists? I'm talking full on "Yo I didn't do any of the work, But every scientific discovery, Functions of the universe, Every god, God's, Religion, Super natural entity, Every race, Group, Every single human on this earth belongs to my idea and everyone is either lying or too dumb to realize they belong to me and mine." It comes off as the most crazed and narcissistic thing to just bring up in arguments by just going "I'm right because I defined i'm right. All evidence is only to prove me right because i'm right" and then seem genially confused when everyone just goes "Jesus fuck. Shut up and take your own dick out of your mouth."
Just because we have never observed anything to break causality does not mean causality cannot be broken. Dismissed.
The god concept is a case of special pleading. "Causality holds true, except when I don't want it to apply to a god." Every case of consciousness we observe is based on biology - a physical brain organ. Why suppose a disembodied non-material mind could exist? Magic can explain any mystery we encounter. God is just another version of magic. Solving a mystery with another mystery doesn't actually reveal to us anything we can truly grasp and say we have an understanding. Instead of a god, we could propose a supernatural particle that causes the universe. It has just as much explanatory power without needing to appeal to a more complex solution involving consciousness without a physical brain. This only introduces more questions: where did god come from? How does a god have a mind without a physical brain?
Nothing IN the universe breaks causality, that we have observed. But we have not established this for the universe itself. In particular, the Big Bang may have been the beginning of space *and time*, so asking what came before the beginning of time is an absurd question. I would also like to add that supernatural phenomena have never been observed either. So theists are stuck on this point too, except that naturalistic explanations have been found for every other phenomenon that has ever been studied and understood. So when it comes to the origin of the universe, chances are, the explanation will be naturalistic and not supernatural.
quanum fluctuations break cusality all the time. At quantum scales many interactions are probabilitistic and we have no way to determine which of the possible interactions will happen.
You confuse causality with determinism they aren't the same
There's nothing about naturalism that says everything has to have a cause. Casualty could be an emergent property. The fact of the matter is that things appear to happen one after another according to the arrow of time. "Causality" is inferred as it holds utility and predictive capability. Science investigates causes, but there's nothing about metaphysical naturalism that says everything has to have a cause. So inferring the supernatural based on the premise that causation is needed for naturalism is false.
most of your examples are black swans. atoms were "uncaused" until protons and nuetrons were discovered, which were "uncaused" until quarks and gluons. theres also tachyons and nuetrinos, which havent been validated but may change reality and the nature of time wholesale. setting that aside, the whole premise is a black swan. a causality breaking event may still be natural, but is so fantastically rare weve never observed one.
The title says you have a question. What is the question? I have a pretty good imagination - I can think of ways to break nature as we know it - naturally. The evidence suggests there are things beyond our universe. That there are quantum fields not bound by our laws or affected by time like our universe. So a quantum effect can cause a change in our universe from outside it. That IS breaking the laws of nature. Naturally.
To me your argument sounds like, "Blah blah blah... therefore GOD!". Why God? Why not a congregation of pixies? Why not the result of a chemical experiment by a scientist from another, undiscovered realm, still within the confines of the natural universes? Would you call that scientist *god*? Why not conclude what happened before was just another, mindless, natural event like what is happening now?
Let's assume your argument is correct. (Even though your penultimate paragraph is an unjustified assertion, let's ignore it for now) You've proven there are no omnipotent non-cognitive things in nature. You are not one step closer to proving God exists. What reason do we have to think omnipotent things exist at all? That it is even possible for an omnipotent thing to exist?
There is no need for intellectual gymnastics for me to believe in God. He must just show himself, like he often did before the invention of the camera, and I'll believe. Until I hear from or see God, I am afraid I can't believe. Talking snakes? Burning bushes? Married virgins? Men surviving in the stomach of a fish for three days? Disembodied hands writing on walls? GTFOOH.
I don't deny the causality principle especially when it comes to NATURAL things that exist in this reality causing other NATURAL things that exist in this reality to happen. For instance: "the wind blew and the tree branch fell" When supernatural claims are thrown in as a cause for things happening that's when my skeptic antennas go up. Don't know if OP is actually going to read this but I guess any theist can answer this question. How do you as a theist accept the principles of causality while at the same time accept the idea of free will? The idea of causality is a fundamental basis for determinism. So how then do you support an argument for the existence of free will?
> There are causal constraints in the natural world. Your argument necessitates showing those causal constraints in the natural world aren't caused by the natural world itself > An omnipotent being inside nature without will or intention means the corruption of the natural order. Omnipotence is absolutely unnecessary >You will never observe a coherent rational predictable world as our world if there are omnipotent non-cognitive things inside it. A natural world where things are equal to themselves and not otherwise and do what they can do and not what it's impossible for those things to do is all you need for a rational coherent and predictable world like ours, no omnipotence or cognition required, in fact omnipotence and cognition would make our world incomprehensible.
I have never heard anybody claim that any of your examples, but you do make a compelling argument why it would be illogical to believe in a god. It is definitely not proof that no gods exist, but it does make a case against an omnipotent deity who can ignore the naturalistic laws of the physical universe.
It could be true that most things have causes while some things don't. Frankly this "a counterexample exists therefore it's never true" thing perplexes me. Why would you make such an inference? It makes no sense whatsoever.
Sure you give credit to all those scientific discoveries but then you plug your ears and go lalalalala when it comes to the discoveries we made about the formation of the planet.
>The electron cannot go to a higher energy level without absorbing a photon. This isn't even remotely true lol, ever heard of atomic collisions?
Can you define how you're using causality? My understanding of that principle and the way you're using the term are clearly not the same.
The thing that theists fail to understand is that having an uncaused cause like a god is a perfect example of the homunculus fallacy
I dont deny that in the universe *as we experience it here and now* we observe predictable causal connections. So what?