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Charlemagne_III
Guest
So what you are saying is that infinitely long means the universe was not created?
Your strangely Baptist anti-Genesis slip is showing.
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Your strangely Baptist anti-Genesis slip is showing.
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inocente
Guest
You didn’t mention a creator. You said “Increasing the number of possible worlds makes it MORE likely that one of them actually is designed”. And I said if only one or some are designed, the designer cannot be logically necessary, and therefore cannot be God.I did?
Where in my post did I say that the Creator needs a Creator?
Sounds like you didn’t intend that conclusion, but it follows from what you wrote
.Possible worlds is a way of talking about contingent and necessary truths. A necessary truth must be necessarily true in all possible worlds. Anything which is not true in all possible worlds cannot be necessarily true, it must instead be a contingent truth. So “Increasing the number of possible worlds makes it MORE likely that one of them actually is designed” only tells us a contingent probability about a designer, not a necessary truth about the Creator.
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inocente
Guest
:coffeeread: I plead guilty to never taking Half Baked Propaganda 101.So what you are saying is that infinitely long means the universe was not created?
Your strangely Baptist anti-Genesis slip is showing.
I’m saying that investing so much faith in a 37-year-old TV show script that you actually use it to interpret scripture may be misplaced. I’m saying I don’t share your conviction that the opening lines of a three thousand year-old scripture are about a mid-twentieth century notion of photons rather than about salvation, about spiritual light, about anything important like “I am the light of the world”.
Would you agree that scientism is wrong anyway, and scientism based on out-of-date science is doubly wrong?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
What I would agree with is that scientism is wrong, but science (which is not scientism since scientism is philosophy, and wrong-headed philosophy at that) seeks truth, and truth cannot contradict truth, as Aquinas would put it.Would you agree that scientism is wrong anyway, and scientism based on out-of-date science is doubly wrong?
The “Let there be light” of Genesis is not science. It is history, the first account of the history of Creation that is strangely consistent with scientific accounts of the origin of the universe. The Big Bang points to an origin as opposed to an eternally existing universe. And it points to Light as the dominant element of Creation that made all other elements possible. It was the Light of the World that created that first seminal light that flooded the universe … a pleasing consistency there.
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STT
Guest
Do you have any better option?Would you agree that scientism is wrong anyway, and scientism based on out-of-date science is doubly wrong?
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inocente
Guest
There were people 400 years ago who thought Genesis was “strangely consistent with scientific accounts”. And so they put Galileo and his new science on trial.
As the Vatican Observatory says, “Galileo had already written several essays on the interpretation of the bible in which he essentially said that the bible was written to teach us how to go to heaven and not how the heavens go. In these documents he essentially anticipated by about 400 years what the Catholic Church would teach about the interpretation of the bible, but he did so privately.”
So when do you reckon you might catch up with that teaching?
And they said satire is dead.
See above.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
“The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.”
Galileo Galilei
An argument for Intelligent Design, unless you think the language of mathematics is unintelligible.
The last I looked, the Catholic Church has not contradicted the Genesis account of Creation as an act of Design and Creation.
The Seven Day plan alone signifies a Grand Intelligence at work.
Can you cite a Church publication that declares this to be heresy? Doubtful.
But that will never stop you from trying to drive a wedge between Catholics and their Church … hopeless task that it is.
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fnr
Guest
Here is a very important hole in atheist arguments about cosmology, the Big Bang, etc.: infinity is not a physical quantity. To posit an infinite number of universes posits an infinite number of universes with intelligence in it, which would be a source for infinite, non-repetitive (non-degenerate) information. In physics, information doesn’t just come from nowhere – you can’t just produce it without an external source of energy. So what’s the source of energy involved in infinite multiverse generation? Again, that gets us to infinite recursion.
There are other physics-based problems with multiverse theories. For example, cosmic inflation definitely had a beginning, according to a proof by the physicists Alexander Vlinken, Arvind Borde, and Alan Guth – because you can’t have infinite backward spacetimes – in any system that is, on average, expanding. That’s true for one universe or multiple universes.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is another big constraint on speculation about multiverses. Entropy is ALWAYS increasing within any system. Speculative theories about cyclic bang/crunch universes (spun off some interpretations of loop quantum gravity) run into Second Law. So too do speculative theories about an infinite past history of quantum vacuum that spontaneously “fluctuated” our universe.
That’s true, in a sense. I would say that the highly-educated atheist has retreated to saying that they have a physically-plausible hypothesis to explain how the universe leapt into being out of nothing (e.g., random fluctuation of virtual particles in a quantum vacuum). However, they still run into the problems I just described.
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Charlemagne_III
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The problem just described for atheists is that they are talking science fiction rather than science fact. A physically-plausible hypothesis" is not science until the proof arrives. At present there is no proof that other universes exist, never mind an infinity of them.
After all, how many universes can sit on the head of a hypothesis?
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inocente
Guest
Yikes, the Discovery Institute reigns supreme.“The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.”
Galileo Galilei
An argument for Intelligent Design, unless you think the language of mathematics is unintelligible.
The last I looked, the Catholic Church has not contradicted the Genesis account of Creation as an act of Design and Creation.
The Seven Day plan alone signifies a Grand Intelligence at work.
Can you cite a Church publication that declares this to be heresy? Doubtful.
But that will never stop you from trying to drive a wedge between Catholics and their Church … hopeless task that it is.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
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inocente
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I think unless we’ve a relevant degree, we have to assume that the PhD’s did their homework. For instance, I think theory is that the net sum of energy in the universe is and always has been zero, since otherwise there would need to be a physical explanation to supply the initial energy, such as a prior physical universe. (And intelligent design fans should note that a start-up energy of anything other than zero would immediately disprove creation ex nihilo).
I copied your phrase “cosmic inflation definitely had a beginning” into google and the very first hit is Alan Guth concluding that “It looks to me that probably the universe had a beginning, but I would not want to place a large bet on the issue”. This chimes with Monseigneur George Lemaître, the originator of the big bang theory, who said “The question if it was really a beginning or rather a creation, something started from nothing, is a philosophical question which cannot be settled by physical or astronomical considerations”.
Can’t see your issue with information or entropy either. But then I guess none of us on the thread have a relevant degree, and in any case the science keeps changing. Thomas Aquinas would have argued against intelligent design, Pope Francis has argued against it, and theologians have a name for it - the god-of-the-gaps.
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
There you go again with that tedious effort to drive a wedge between Catholics.
Thomas Aquinas, Theologian: Advocate of Intelligent Design
“Nature is nothing but the plan of some art, namely a divine one, put into things themselves, by which those things move toward a concrete end: as if the man who builds up a ship could give to the pieces of wood that they could move by themselves to produce the form of the ship.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Book II, Chapter 8
“We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.” (Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Article 3, Question 2).
content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1150808,00.html
By the way, despite the fact that he is a Jesuit, Francis’s academic credentials aren’t at all so impressive as Benedict’s.
When Francis talks against God waving a magic wand, that is not at all what Intelligent Design posits. See Aquinas again.
But I do very much respect Francis’s comments on Satanism and the need for more exorcists ready and willing to drive demons from those possessed by them.
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inocente
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That’s an excellent example of what I mean. Catholic Answers publishes a well-considered article by Prof. Tkacz, arguing that Aquinas wouldn’t be a fan of the 20th century American intelligent design cult.
In rebuttal you mine a couple of well-known quotes as if Tkacz would be ignorant of them. As if he’s not a PhD who is expert on medieval philosophy and the philosophy of nature (he’s also described by his students as a very Godly man).
Then in answer to Pope Francis you question his credentials and say he doesn’t know what intelligent design posits. And capitalize intellgent design as if it’s holy. And link an eleven year old article reporting what the journalist claimed was confusion in the Vatican.
So in summary, I link an article by a Catholic expert published here on Catholic Answers, and you disagree with it. I link the Pope criticizing intelligent design, and you question the Pope’s credentials. I don’t say anything about supposed confusion in the Vatican, didn’t even know of such a thing, and you bring it to our attention. And you say somehow I’m driving a wedge between Catholics? Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. :takeoff:
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Charlemagne_III
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You failed to deal with the Aquinas quotes directly and called upon someone else as if that someone else could read Aquinas’ mind if he were alive today.
That Benedict and Francis seem to disagree on Intelligent Design means nothing. They are not disagreeing on theology, for certain. But only on whether there is room in science for theological implications. There used to be in the days of Newton a century before Darwin, and then the evolutionary fascists took over and forbade any mention of the god-of-the-gaps as if it were a mortal sin…And here you are seemingly agreeing with the atheists that God had no plan (intelligent design) for the universe. The only difference between you and the atheists is that they say there is no God, whereas you seemingly only say there is a mindless God who just threw the dice and hoped that Natural Selection would do the trick?
I give you the Aquinas quote again and ask you to explain why Aquinas would be opposed to Intelligent Design today. Be not evasive and refer to modern Catholic philosophers as if you could stir up trouble between us and them. We are only interested in stirring up trouble between us and you!
“Nature is nothing but the plan of some art, namely a divine one, put into things themselves, by which those things move toward a concrete end: as if the man who builds up a ship could give to the pieces of wood that they could move by themselves to produce the form of the ship.” Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Book II, Chapter 8
Francis is also a very godly man. That does not make him an expert on Intelligent Design.
By the way, which advocate of Intelligent Design has referred to a magic wand?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I’ve often noticed that you make this point, disparaging older articles as if there was no truth in them.
You must think the Gospels are really dumb?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Anyway, none of this recent stuff has anything to do with a multiverse. If a multiverse exists, for theists it would have to be by God’s design, as opposed to an escape hatch from the Big Bang for atheists.
Moreover, the multiple universes would have to be infinite in number, an absolutely unprovable hypothesis that mocks science by reducing it to science fiction.
Moreover, the multiple universes would have to be infinite in number, an absolutely unprovable hypothesis that mocks science by reducing it to science fiction.
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edwest2
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The Multiverse has zero basis in fact. No evidence at all.
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Ed
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Charlemagne_III
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A pipedream for atheists.
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Wesrock
Guest
Just going to pipe in and say that intelligent design doesn’t just refer only to an intelligent designer but to a specific conception of creation that views creation as a mechanical device and a group of artifiacts. Aquinas would likely not have agreed with Intelligent Design in that sense.
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