Proving The Resurrection By the "Minimal Facts" Approach

[pocaracas]

Which demonstrates what, precisely?

That “empty space” means “empty” of observables? Okay, so THAT would demonstrate the limits of empirical science, and of Lawrence Krauss’ capacity to make scientific claims. What it doesn’t do is it doesn’t conclusively demonstrate the creative power of nothingness.

Unless, of course, you have wrongheadedly confused physical reality with “all reality” by way of methodological materialism.

If you take a deep breath to recover from those eliminative materialistic vapours you will realize what has been “corroborated” is that assuming methodological materialism runs you head on into a logical contradiction, an absurdity as a conclusion: that everything comes from nothing. Ergo, logically speaking, the assumed major premise that got you there to begin with, MUST BE in error.

Of course, we CAN’T permit that because that means eliminative materialism CAN’T be true.

Segue to Lawrence Krauss frantically scribbling: “We MUST stop…”

What?
It seems you have a beef with Krauss…
That experiment proves that real particles are affected by forces which are in accordance with the theory of quantum foam and virtual particles… which is the same that Krauss uses.
I don’t know if he’s right… I don’t know if that was the mechanism that made our Universe… I don’t think Krauss will posit it as fact either… it’s a hypothesis. It’s one that’s somewhat supported from within our Universe… who knows if it’s the right one? Who knows if we’ll ever get a chance at checking it?..
It’s a promising hypothesis.
One that requires no postulation of any god.
It may require other postulations… such as a Space-time behaving like it does within the Universe…
Which postulation do you feel is less prone to be in error?

 

[Peter_Plato]

What?
It’s a promising hypothesis.
One that requires no postulation of any god.

How would you know for certain the above, given that you have no idea what “postulations” are actually required?

As you admit…

It may require other postulations… such as a Space-time behaving like it does within the Universe…
Which postulation do you feel is less prone to be in error?

The point being that Krauss cannot rule out any “postulations” whatsoever since he doesn’t actually have any sense of what is required, metaphysically speaking.

And you have no warrant for claiming only “other” postulations are required.

“Dis is only a bluff dey’re makin’ - see! Dey’re talkin’ tru dere hats.”

 

[Peter_Plato]

What?
It seems you have a beef with Krauss…

The only beef I have with Krauss is that he forgot to add “… the Magnificent,” or “Illusionist” beside his name because he wanders far from the idea of “warranted” in his claims.

Replace the words “empty space” in the phrase “…empty space has been shown to theoretically bring forth particles and their corresponding anti-particles,” with “magic hat” and you have a claim that is essentially indistinguishable from your depiction of his.

To wit:
Lawrence, the Magnificent: “And this magic hat has been shown to theoretically bring forth particles and their corresponding anti-particles.”

 

[Bradski]

Have you ever considered that even where something is plainly obvious – as plain as what is in front of your eyes – the way that empirical facts are, that human beings still can’t get “the facts” straight? AND where ascertaining the more difficult, the more abstract and profoundly non-observable truth is concerned, humans will simply have a more difficult time getting it right?

I think you are beginning to understand.

 

[pocaracas]

How would you know for certain the above, given that you have no idea what “postulations” are actually required?

As you admit…

The point being that Krauss cannot rule out any “postulations” whatsoever since he doesn’t actually have any sense of what is required, metaphysically speaking.

And you have no warrant for claiming only “other” postulations are required.

“Dis is only a bluff dey’re makin’ - see! Dey’re talkin’ tru dere hats.”

When I say I don’t have any idea of which postulations are correct, I mean mankind, as a whole, doesn’t know.
I don’t know, Krauss doesn’t know… you don’t know. The pope doesn’t know.
Nobody knows.
Some people claim to “know” through belief… but that’s not how it’s done…

############

The only beef I have with Krauss is that he forgot to add “… the Magnificent,” or “Illusionist” beside his name because he wanders far from the idea of “warranted” in his claims.

Replace the words “empty space” in the phrase “…empty space has been shown to theoretically bring forth particles and their corresponding anti-particles,” with “magic hat” and you have a claim that is essentially indistinguishable from your depiction of his.

To wit:
Lawrence, the Magnificent: “And this magic hat has been shown to theoretically bring forth particles and their corresponding anti-particles.”

LOL
You so silly.

Here’s Krauss’ friend who developed part of the theory and won a Nobel Prize for it:
youtube.com/watch?v=JG9hJLXn1ZE
And here’s the main page for his Nobel laureate lecture:
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2004/wilczek-lecture.html

And here’s a little extra on what this “nothing” is:
phys.org/news/2014-08-what-is-nothing.html

Take care, or you may learn something, before we’re done!

 

[Peter_Plato]

Take care, or you may learn something, before we’re done!

That, precisely, is what I am waiting for.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I think you are beginning to understand.

Ah, yes, but quite resistant to the “conclusion” that, therefore, there is nothing to understand.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Here’s Krauss’ friend who developed part of the theory and won a Nobel Prize for it:
youtube.com/watch?v=JG9hJLXn1ZE
And here’s the main page for his Nobel laureate lecture:
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2004/wilczek-lecture.html

LOL

It almost sounds as if he has convinced himself that he knows intimately what he talking about, at the same instant as he virtually admits he hasn’t a clue.

But, of course, this is quite consonant with everything coming from a vacuous, clueless, nothing.

Time for some humility, I suppose, rather than the “conclusion” that we’ve figured it all out.

Barely scratched the surface, more like. I’m good with that.

Yup, Brad, we are “beginning” to understand and that is barely all that any of us (including Lawrence Krauss) can conclude.

“Therefore, No God,” is a ridiculous overreach.

 

[PRmerger]

Education is teaching what is found in reality.

Indeed. It is trying to control the minds of others—pointing them to reality.

So, again, you can’t have it both ways.

You can’t like having your mind directed and then object to having your mind directed.

You just have some peculiar criteria for what’s ok and what’s not ok.

I presume you think that science, literature, mathematics = good to have your mind pointed in the right direction.

But for religious things, education = bad to have your mind pointed in the right direction.

The teachings may be skewed to a particular point of view…

Well, we can agree that any teaching that is skewed away from truth is a bad thing.

But if being educated is a good thing, then religious education can’t be a bad thing.

The history of my country was taught in a clearly skewed fashion of “us VS them”, where “them” were mostly the spanish and the muslims.
Most other subjects were pretty much inert, widely accepted facts.

That you have had bad education doesn’t equal “therefore religious education is bad”.

Clearly, there is bad logic going around but that doesn’t translate to: therefore, it is bad to appeal to logic.

If the best possible way is spawning in a single location… and taking 2 thousand years to convince some 33% of the worldwide population, while permitting other religions to pop up and thrive to convince some 23% of the worldwide population, and while some 10% are not believing in any of it… then I’m not impressed.

It took you some time to get those statistics, and put them in hyperlinks here, but I fear that it was a bit of a waste o’ time.

For I think that you would agree that even there were no good ways to convince people about God’s existence…that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist.

Or, to put it without so many negatives: absence of any good arguments STILL doesn’t prove God couldn’t exist.

God could exist even if no one knew he was there, right?

As the atheistic philosopher Kai Nielsen acknowledges, “Even if all the proofs for God’s existence fail, it may still be the case that God exists”.

This is a man of integrity and honesty I can respect. :clapping:

 

[PRmerger]

No, I don’t… I’ve been told not believing is one of the worst… another one is suicide.

No. Suicide is not the unforgivable sin. Nor is not believing.

Nor is abortion.

And now you know more than most of the Catholics you’ll ever encounter, who, sadly, have an abysmal knowledge of the faith.

It gives me great amusement to know that you will be correcting some lump-in-the-pew Catholic in the near future.

You’re welcome.

 

[PRmerger]

Unlike the anti-vacciners, the people who don’t believe in christianity are not a fringe minority.

That’s interesting that you bring up the term “fringe minority”.

If you want to talk about “fringe minorities”, there’s nothing more fringe, and minority, than…atheism.

When you look at the history of humanity, from our first beginning 200,000 years ago, to modern times, Belief in God has been a constant.

It is only the atheist who has been a wee, miniscule minority.

So I don’t think you want to pooh-pooh the anti-vacciners because of their being a “fringe minority”, for it certainly invites indictment of your fringe minority status as well.

Bradski mentioned this, too… you seem to have a problem with people accepting some parts of your holy text, while not accepting other parts.

Well, yeah.

I don’t want to ride in a plane with a pilot who’s accepted parts of the pilot manual, while not accepting other parts.

Would you?

No, I don’t accepts the parts with magic in them, for I see no magic in the world beyond those pages

“I won’t believe in the Bible because it contains miracles”

“I don’t believe in miracles therefore the Bible can’t be true”.

#herewegoagain

Certainly, I see magic in other similar holy texts… even from other religions. I also see magic in fictional writings.

You also see it in atheism.

The universe came from nothing!

Nothing. POOF! Now there’s something. A great. big. universe.

#magic!

But I see no magic in reality.

Something coming from nothing certainly looks like magic to me!

It doesn’t to you?

Do you have any examples of something coming from nothing…ever?

And Lawrence Krauss’ assertion doesn’t count. You don’t get to re-define “nothing” as “a vacuum state”.

 

[Bradski]

But for religious things, education = bad to have your mind pointed in the right direction.

I assume you’d be happy with children being taught about all religions so that they could make their own mind up about which is the right direction? I’m sure you’d be unhappy with anyone being told ‘this is what you must believe’.

So equal time for all faiths?

 

[PRmerger]

I assume you’d be happy with children being taught about all religions so that they could make their own mind up about which is the right direction? I’m sure you’d be unhappy with anyone being told ‘this is what you must believe’.

So equal time for all faiths?

I would be happy with children being taught truth.

Not that all religions are the same.

Similarly, I wouldn’t want to present:

here’s one way you can spell photosynthesis…FOTOCHYNTHYFIS.

And here’s another way to spell it: PHOTOSYNTHESIS.

You decide what way looks right to you.

And I certainly wouldn’t want to cross over a bridge that was designed by an engineer who decided for herself that “Maybe the quadratic formula shouldn’t be over 2a, but rather pi! I like pi better than 2a! I decide for myself, after all. No mind control for me! I make the rules for myself!”

---

And just because I like this meme oh-so-much:

 

[PRmerger]

Really?
The one under debate on this very thread?

Yep.

Is there some reason that we should exclude it?

It’s a biggie, after all.

It’s kind of like your saying, “I don’t have any examples of a competitive sports game that involves lots of countries. I can’t think of a single one.”

And I say, “Ummm…the Olympics?”

And you respond, “Really? That’s the best you can do?”

Yep. Pretty much the Big One. Can’t discount it for no reason can we?

Study of Christianity… what is that?
Did you also study all the other religions so that you could tell which is the most reasonable?

Yes.

And that is just why the claims keep pouring.
“It’s a miracle” they say…

Let’s just say it’s most likely not a miracle… but let them believe it is… no harm done, I guess.

That there are hokey claims to miracles doesn’t equate to: therefore no miracles have ever occurred, ever, in the history of the universe.

In fact, since you like to appeal to probabilities–what seems more likely–that you know with 100% certainty that no miracle has ever occurred–ever, ever, ever–or that in the 14 billion year history of the existence of the universe, a miracle has occurred…and you just weren’t aware of it.

Now, really, poca, look at what I’ve just written and think about what is more probable.

Your 100% certainty that no miracle has ever occurred…or…what I just said.

And remember, poca, in order to prove God exists, one miracle is all that needs to have occurred.

One. Miracle.

In 13 billion years.

 

[PRmerger]

It’s a valid enough extrapolation of my awareness of human nature.
Can you tell when someone is lying? Can you tell when a lie is passed on and a person who believes in the lie then writes about it?

So here’s the thing, poca. Extrapolation is absolutely fine. I love extrapolation. I breathe extrapolation. My job depends upon my ability to extrapolate.

But what I would like to point out is this SCREAMING double standard that exists with atheists.

Atheist says: “I get to extrapolate and make conclusions, even though there isn’t exactly any empirical data or hard evidence to prove my point. But we can certainly extrapolate legitimately to my conclusion”.

But Believer says, “Let’s extrapolate from these 20 Arguments that…there is a God. Maybe 1 argument by itself isn’t compelling. Or 2 or 3…but we have 20 Arguments (PLUS!). Certainly we can extrapolate that given all the data, it’s more probable for God to exist than not”…

and you’re all “Nope. There is no extrapolation for you, Believer! There is no probable. There is empirical data only! Hard facts only! Reproducible results only!”

Do you see why there’s such a cognitive dissonance here for us Catholics?

 

[PRmerger]

It’s a valid enough extrapolation of my awareness of human nature.
Can you tell when someone is lying? Can you tell when a lie is passed on and a person who believes in the lie then writes about it?

The standards be what they be.
Supernatural phenomena need to show themselves.
Natural phenomena, such as humans lying… that oh so common activity that kids learn sooner than we’d expect… that requires very little to accept.

Regardless of whether everyone lies or not…Bradski has already conceded that no one dies for a lie. Even calling it “plainly obvious”.

So someone on Team Atheist has already seen the wisdom of what we’ve been trying to present to you.

But it is plainly obvious that people will die for what they believe is true. Not for what they believe is a lie. They will sacrifice themselves (and others, including family members) for charismatic leaders, ideologies and religions. That has no bearing on the veracity of the ideas for which they died.

Hence the argument re the apostle’s martyrdom is worthless.

 

[Bradski]

I would be happy with children being taught truth.

But you didn’t answer the question. Would you be happy with children being taught about all religions?

We call it Comparative Religion here: www.thegreatcourses.com.au/courses/comparative-religion.htm

 

[PRmerger]

But you didn’t answer the question. Would you be happy with children being taught about all religions?

We call it Comparative Religion here: www.thegreatcourses.com.au/courses/comparative-religion.htm

Yes. I would.

 

[Bradski]

Regardless of whether everyone lies or not…Bradski has already conceded that no one dies for a lie. Even calling it “plainly obvious”.

Let’s be a little clearer. I said no-one dies knowing something is a lie. They may well die/sacrifice themselves/kill others if they believe it’s true. Whether it is true or not is totally irrelevant.

Hence, one cannot use an example of self sacrifice to claim the veracity of someone’s belief.

 

[PRmerger]

Why indeed… The US president Thomas Jefferson did that. Not a particularly dumb person, I reckon…

He also had slaves, so…