Well, why?

[CWBetts]

Windfish,

I would be happy to discuss possible causes for the mistake in perception, but I’m not going to do so until you concede that we’re talking about mistaken perception.

If you’re going to insist that the sun flew out of its position and left absolutely no trace of this event at all, then we have nothing more to talk about.

Here is the thing about Fatima, and there is no getting round it. There are zero documented cases of even two people having the same hallucination at the same time. There are 70,000 witnesses to the phenomenon at Fatima. How do you explain this?

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Thanks for taking your time to go through this.

Here’s what Kreeft has to say, coming directly from my post. I’ll also interject in a couple of places.

I would stop with the first premise. That first premise is true for all things that exist within the universe; the problem is that you then want to turn around and apply it to the entire universe itself.

"Suppose you deny the first premise. Then if X exists, there need not exist what it takes for X to exist. But “what it takes for X to exist” means the immediate condition(s) for X’s existence. You mean that X exists only if Y. Without Y, there can be no X. So the denial of premise 1 amounts to this: X exists; X can only exist if Y exists; and Y does not exist. This is absurd. So there must exist what it takes for the universe to exist. But what does it take?

In other words, since we don’t know anything about the period before the Big Bang – or whether or not it even makes sense to speak of “before the Big Bang” – we can’t make any reliable judgments about “what it takes” for the stuff that came before the Big Bang to exist. Perhaps the stuff that came before the Big Bang always existed. Perhaps some pre-universe natural law – that’s not operative anymore – caused particles to emerge from the rough equivalent of a void.

Well, that’s what the proof is trying to posit-logically it’s impossible for us to conclude that there was an infinite universe.

As for your other possibilities, the proof concedes them-it’s positing (I hope I’m using that word correctly) a first cause. Nothing else.

Perhaps some supernatural being other than your god caused the Big Bang to happen.

By the standards that the proof is using, this is possible. The proof doesn’t say otherwise.

We really don’t know. And at any rate, even if there were a god, what are the things that must exist for a god to exist? If you’re going to state that a god can exist all by himself without a beginning, then you have contradicted your first premise, and your argument fails. If your god could have existed all by himself without a beginning, there’s no reason that the “stuff” that came before the Big Bang couldn’t have existed all by itself without a beginning. [And if you’re going to say, “Well, god’s special,” then that’s special pleading.

Special pleading works because the universe is physical. The proof is positing that God exists outside of physics.

Like I say, either there’s an infinite chain of causes (which doesn’t make sense) or something (whether an intelligent being or some kind of mindless matter) always existed (which doesn’t make sense) or the universe emerged from a void due to some quantum principle (which also doesn’t make sense).

We don’t know. And “I don’t know” can’t be used to support a claim.

You keep coming back to variations on this same argument from ignorance, which suggests that you’re really holding on to it and holding out hope that there’s some word game that can make it work.

Kreeft again:

To be dependent in this way is to be contingent. You exist if something else right now exists.

But not everything can be like this. For then everything would need to be given being, but there would be nothing capable of giving it. There would not exist what it takes for anything to exist. So there must be something that does not exist conditionally; something which does not exist only if something else exists; something which exists in itself. What it takes for this thing to exist could only be this thing itself. Unlike changing material reality, there would be no distance, so to speak, between what this thing is and that it is. Obviously the collection of beings changing in space and time cannot be such a thing. Therefore, what it takes for the universe to exist cannot be identical with the universe itself or with a part of the universe.
[/quote]

 

[AntiTheist]

Here is the thing about Fatima, and there is no getting round it. There are zero documented cases of even two people having the same hallucination at the same time.

On the contrary, there are plenty of cases where multiple people report having the same mistaken impression. For example, there are cases on record of groups of people who think that they were abducted by aliens together. Or, to use an example I mentioned earlier in the thread, there are millions of people who saw a magician make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

In the case of Fatima, we have a large number of people claiming to have seen something happen that we know for a fact, thanks to evidence, could not have happened without throwing the earth and the solar system into a cataclysm.

So we have to investigate why so many people had a mistaken impression. What we can’t do is to use that as evidence that a god exists.

There are 70,000 witnesses to the phenomenon at Fatima. How do you explain this?

A few things to say here. In the first place, I don’t think that 70,000 well-documented eyewitness testimonies exist (incidentally, I’ve heard wildly different accounts of the number of people who were there, everything from 10,000 to 100,000). At best, these claims are probably based on a few thousand people saying they saw something (not that numbers matter – please keep reading).

In the second place, I honestly don’t know what those people saw. I know for a fact that whatever they saw was not the sun darting through the sky in crazy patterns – we know for certain, thanks to astronomical evidence, that that did not happen.

Since I wasn’t there, I can’t tell you the answer, but “I don’t know why a lot of people saw something that wasn’t there” isn’t evidence of the supernatural. It’s just not. And even if you could somehow demonstrate that it’s evidence of the supernatural, you couldn’t demonstrate that it’s evidence of your particular supernatural belief (what if it was the work of a Hindu Rakshasa who was trying to lead those people away from the one, true faith of Hinduism? What if it was a sudden eruption of psychic material from the collective unconscious into the minds of all of those people? What if it was leprechauns having a little fun?)

If you really want me to wildly speculate as to what might have caused so many people to make an honest mistake, I think the most likely culprit is good ol’ human psychology. Thousands of people showed up that day – most of them religious believers or, if they were atheists, I’m willing to bet that a lot of them were atheists for dumb reasons (read: based on appeal to emotion). I think there’s a good chance that the vast majority of the crowd was kind of expecting something to happen.

I know from experience that the sun can cause all sorts of interesting illusions if you catch it at the right angle or in a particular cloud formation or what not. I can distinctly remember one time I could have sworn the sun was flashing at me – as if it were winking. All it takes is a handful of people, already whipped up into an expectant fervor, to see something like that and start trumpeting it as a “miracle.”

And those of us around here with some slight understanding of psychology – specifically the psychology of eyewitness identification – will know that once some people start saying that they saw something, it’s human nature to talk yourself into thinking that you saw it to: “Yeah, I did notice the sun looked weird!”

As I say, that’s just wild speculation on my part, but I think it’s as good a guess as any. Certainly, it’s more plausible than the claim that ghosts made it happen for some inscrutble reason. I mean, if your god is seriously interested in demonstrations of his power – what happened to faith, anyway? – why the heck wouldn’t he do these sorts of things more often, and in ways that actually leave a trace on the material world so that we know that they are really happening?

It’s just appalling that some people consider such ghost stories sufficient evidence for thinking that disembodied intelligences exist.

 

[AntiTheist]

"Suppose you deny the first premise.

I don’t deny the first premise. I’m happy to grant that it applies to everything in the universe. I deny that we can know that it applies to the period before the Big Bang.

Then if X exists, there need not exist what it takes for X to exist. But “what it takes for X to exist” means the immediate condition(s) for X’s existence. You mean that X exists only if Y. Without Y, there can be no X. So the denial of premise 1 amounts to this: X exists; X can only exist if Y exists; and Y does not exist. This is absurd. So there must exist what it takes for the universe to exist. But what does it take?

I guess I wasn’t clear enough, I was proposing that it was possible that before the Big Bang, the pre-universe (let’s call it), the stuff that expanded at the moment of the Big Bang, existed and had always existed.

I don’t know that for a fact, but I propose that it’s possible. In other words, I’m saying that the pre-universe might not need any “what it takes,” in the same way that you seem to think that your god doesn’t need a “what it takes.”

Since what I’m proposing is possible, your argument isn’t necessarily true.

Well, that’s what the proof is trying to posit-logically it’s impossible for us to conclude that there was an infinite universe.

And I am saying that the pre-universe (which existed before the Big Bang, under laws of the pre-universe that may be entirely different than the current laws of the universe) may have always existed. Why do you say that it could not have always existed?

Special pleading works

No, it doesn’t. We’re talking about the pre-universe, which may have worked on different laws. You can’t say, “God’s exempt from needing a beginning, but the pre-universe, about which we know nothing, must have had a creator.”

So there must be something that does not exist conditionally

I am proposing that the pre-universe existed unconditionally, without beginning.

Am I asserting it as fact? No. But the very fact that it’s possible blows your argument clear out of the water.

 

[Windfish]

:banghead: :doh2:

It is just ridiculous. Like I said you would, you would go outside the evidence and even against it, nothing but ad hoc , nothing but out-of-thin-air BS. It’s an idiotic commitment to skepticism. You have NOTHING.

 

[Windfish]

Why do you say that it could not have always existed?

This pre-universe of no-space and no-time that “always existed” means that there is NO potentiality for change, since what you’re describing is an immutable state. If something always existed, then it’s immutable. There’s no “where” or no “time” for anything to change, since it always was. Since we know change DID occur, this pre-universe state you’re describing is absurd. In any case, what you’re saying amounts to the universe created the universe. yawn

As for Fatima… you’re being obstinate. Re-read what I said earlier, pretty much squashing all of your points (i.e., illusion, hallucination, collusion, religious fervor, primed for the miracle, blah blah blah, can’t prove our particular supernatural belief).

 

[NaturalEnquirer]

On the contrary, there are plenty of cases where multiple people report having the same mistaken impression. For example, there are cases on record of groups of people who think that they were abducted by aliens together. Or, to use an example I mentioned earlier in the thread, there are millions of people who saw a magician make the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Are there any cases where tens of thousands of people think they were abducted by aliens together?
The Statue of Liberty seems like a non-parallel case, since it was a deliberate deception by a professional illusionist. Unless you’re contending that’s what happened at Fatima.

And while the statue’s disappearance is not fully explained, plausible theories exist. I won’t trouble you by googling them.

In the case of Fatima, we have a large number of people claiming to have seen something happen that we know for a fact, thanks to evidence, could not have happened without throwing the earth and the solar system into a cataclysm.

I agree. It’s totally reasonable to say that the sun wasn’t really bouncing all over the sky, for the reasons you’re describing. That tends to suggest a primarily visual phenomenon. Although the rain and mud drying up suggests that it wasn’t. And the fact that solar effects were reported from miles away suggests that it wasn’t a psychological effect which would be isolated to the people immediately present.

Sounds like a rather unprecedented event.

So we have to investigate why so many people had a mistaken impression. What we can’t do is to use that as evidence that a god exists.

A miraculous explanation would seem to be consistent with the facts. And considering that a miracle was promised at that exact place at that exact time… I think that if no plausible alternative is presented, miracle is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to come to.

I mean, this isn’t some isolated zealot seeing Jesus in a tortilla, or a dozen yahoos in the woods with a crazy story. You say numbers don’t matter, but of course they do. Tens of thousands of diverse witnesses provide a great deal more substantiation than a handful of witnesses.

A few things to say here. In the first place, I don’t think that 70,000 well-documented eyewitness testimonies exist (incidentally, I’ve heard wildly different accounts of the number of people who were there, everything from 10,000 to 100,000). At best, these claims are probably based on a few thousand people saying they saw something (not that numbers matter – please keep reading).

For what it’s worth, the number I consistently hear is 70,000. I agree there is some disparity in the accounts. Now, were statements taken from all present? I imagine not. But the dogs that aren’t barking provide a clue. Where are the voices saying “I was there, and absolutely nothing happened.” Surely if it was just an illusion caused by idiots staring at the sun, there would be a few non-idiots in the crowd who didn’t do so, right?

In the second place, I honestly don’t know what those people saw. I know for a fact that whatever they saw was not the sun darting through the sky in crazy patterns – we know for certain, thanks to astronomical evidence, that that did not happen.

(snipped for word count - various supernatural theories presented)

You raise a valid point. Once the supernatural is on the table, the particular supernatural perpetrator is impossible to pin down. But in and of itself, that complication doesn’t disallow the supernatural.

(snipped for word count - this was the “human psychology” and “yeah, I did notice the sun looked a bit weird” bit.)

If it’s that straightforward, why is it so unique? Why doesn’t this happen a couple times a year? Large gatherings of religious people in an expectant fervor are not exactly uncommon.

As I say, that’s just wild speculation on my part, but I think it’s as good a guess as any. Certainly, it’s more plausible than the claim that ghosts made it happen for some inscrutble reason.

Given two competing natural theories, we have plenty of experience we can draw from to assign probabilities, and say “theory x is 75% like; theory y is 25% likely; probably theory x is true”. I don’t see how you can make such a comparison when one of the candidate explanations is a unique supernatural event. What’s the probability that the Blessed Virgin will choose to manifest in an unprecedented way? I dunno, and I don’t really think you do either.

I mean, if your god is seriously interested in demonstrations of his power – what happened to faith, anyway? – why the heck wouldn’t he do these sorts of things more often, and in ways that actually leave a trace on the material world so that we know that they are really happening?

These are legitimate questions. I agree that a person who has had a direct experience of the supernatural surely approaches faith from a different perspective than someone who hasn’t had such an experience. I would venture to guess (since you asked) that the answer is related to the old canard “Much is expected from those to whom much is given.” Yes, the witnesses of Fatima have a leg up on the rest of us. The question that they’ll be judged on is, what did they do with that boost?

As for why he wouldn’t to these things more often - I’m not really prepared to speculate on that. It’s a good question.

Have a nice day.

 

[CWBetts]

ANtiTheist reminds me a bit of the skeptic who said “If the whole world would be healed at Lourdes I would still not believe in miracles” (or something like that. I will look it up when I get the time. There are times when a supernatural explanation is the only explanation.

 

[j1akey]

ANtiTheist reminds me a bit of the skeptic who said “If the whole world would be healed at Lourdes I would still not believe in miracles” (or something like that. I will look it up when I get the time. There are times when a supernatural explanation is the only explanation.

I don’t know about that. The Plague used to be punishment from god but eventually we figured out that it was bacteria. Supernatural explanations only exist for things we haven’t figured out yet.

 

[Luke_K]

The basic form of this argument is simple.

1. If something exists, there must exist what it takes for that thing to exist.
2. The universe—the collection of beings in space and time—exists.
3. Therefore, there must exist what it takes for the universe to exist.
4. What it takes for the universe to exist cannot exist within the universe or be bounded by space and time.
5. Therefore, what it takes for the universe to exist must transcend both space and time.

Here’s the one thing that’s always missing from the cosmological proofs I’ve seen:
What exactly is it about the universe that shows us it needed a cause, or that it is contingent?

Until you answer this with an incontrovertible property of the universe, these proofs won’t convince anybody. For example, the universe is not actually infinite, which we know because it has distinguishable parts to it. Then you would have to go from there and show why a non-infinite entity must have a cause.

Obviously the collection of beings changing in space and time cannot be such a thing. Therefore, what it takes for the universe to exist cannot be identical with the universe itself or with a part of the universe.

All of the matter and energy which comprises the universe has always existed, and it only changes forms. Your particular body, an arrangement of that matter and energy, has not always existed but what comprises it has. Therefore, why does it need a cause if all the “stuff” of the universe has always existed?

I believe in God, it’s just that I get tired of people always supporting cosmological proofs without ever adequately addressing this counterpoint.

EDIT: Considering AntiTheist’s post, let me add the other point you must address: Why must any un-caused cause be actually infinite?

 

[CWBetts]

I don’t know about that. The Plague used to be punishment from god but eventually we figured out that it was bacteria. Supernatural explanations only exist for things we haven’t figured out yet.

I disagree. There are things that have happened, testified to by atheists and agnostics, that defy explanation.

 

[Luke_K]

I guess I wasn’t clear enough, I was proposing that it was possible that before the Big Bang, the pre-universe (let’s call it), the stuff that expanded at the moment of the Big Bang, existed and had always existed.

You can’t logically propose anything “pre-” this universe, because then you are applying our concept of time where it doesn’t make sense to. It’s like trying to talk about something in the space beyond the “edge” of the universe.

The only cause we can logically propose, if the universe has a cause, is one that created the universe as an eternal act. So I don’t think your counterargument “blows his out of the water,” but I also don’t think his argument stands on its own anyways.

 

[Luke_K]

Supernatural explanations only exist for things we haven’t figured out yet.

If that’s the case, then you’ve rejected even the possibility of evidence for God. Even if I predicted that next Tuesday, at 3:04 p.m. Pacific time, a wave of meteors would crash into Death Valley and spell out “God exists” in all the major world languages, and it happened, that would only be an unexplained natural phenomenon?

 

[Windfish]

What exactly is it about the universe that shows us it needed a cause, or that it is contingent?

You’re saying that it’s possible for the universe to be finite (i.e., have a beginning), and NOT have a cause?

 

[Luke_K]

You’re saying that it’s possible for the universe to be finite (i.e., have a beginning), and NOT have a cause?

Why not? Seriously, please explain because I don’t know.

 

[AntiTheist]

This pre-universe of no-space and no-time that “always existed” means that there is NO potentiality for change, since what you’re describing is an immutable state.

Not necessarily at all. I can imagine the pre-universe always existing in a volatile state, a potential waiting to give birth to the universe according to the laws of the pre-universe. Or I can imagine the pre-universe expanding into a universe and then collapsing back into the pre-universe innumerable times before expanding into this universe (which, from the evidence, appears like it will be the last…no Big Crunch for us).

We really don’t know.

Luke K nicely notes the following:

What exactly is it about the universe that shows us it needed a cause, or that it is contingent?

And he’s spot on here. You can’t establish this, so these cosmological arguments have to fail.

Speaking of Luke:

You can’t logically propose anything “pre-” this universe, because then you are applying our concept of time where it doesn’t make sense to. It’s like trying to talk about something in the space beyond the “edge” of the universe.

Well, strictly speaking, we can only go back as far as planck time (a few seconds after the Big Bang) – I’m calling the stuff we can’t access the “pre-universe.” That “stuff” that expanded at the moment of the Big Bang was already there when it started to expand. I agree it doesn’t fit perfectly into the categories of thought that we use to describe the universe, but that’s about the best I can do.

“We don’t know” just about sums it up, and that statement can’t be used to support a claim.

Incidentally, cosmological arguments aren’t empirical evidence, which is what this thread was supposed to be about. Everyone who’s studied logic knows that you can construct a logically coherent argument that is false – logic needs to begin from true premises, premises that you must demonstrate with evidence. And since we’re talking about a time period that – as you yourself say – we can’t make any certain claims about (and thus cannot base our conjectures on evidence), these cosmological arguments are extremely flimsy at best.

Ok, now back to the argument from ghost stories:

NaturalEnquirer(cute name, btw):

A miraculous explanation would seem to be consistent with the facts.

Sure it is. But there’s a huge difference between evidence that is consistent with a claim and evidence that is sufficient to support a claim. For example, in the case of Fatima, the evidence is equally consistent with a UFO buzzing the place, after aliens had sent transmissions, under the cloak of the local mythology, so that they could have a laugh at the inhabitants of this weird planet.

To switch contexts for a second, the fact that I have been losing my socks is consistent with the claim that sock gremlins are stealing them, but it’s not sufficient to demonstrate that.

The evidence at Fatima is consistent with your supernatural claims – just as it is consistent with a number of other supernatural or natural claims – but not sufficient to demonstrate it. And this thread – need I remind you – is about evidence that is sufficient to accept the claim.

Once the supernatural is on the table, the particular supernatural perpetrator is impossible to pin down. But in and of itself, that complication doesn’t disallow the supernatural.

Sure, but that’s not why I invoked that point. I invoked it to show you that even if you could demonstrate that this was a supernatural event, it could not be used as sufficient evidence for your god.

Given two competing natural theories, we have plenty of experience we can draw from to assign probabilities, and say “theory x is 75% like; theory y is 25% likely; probably theory x is true”. I don’t see how you can make such a comparison when one of the candidate explanations is a unique supernatural event.

Well, in any circumstance where are our choices are between something that we know exists and something that we have no evidence for, the odds are always in favor of the thing that we know exists.

If the choice is between simple human error, eyewitness mistakes, and crowd psychology – which are all things that we have good evidence for their existence – and something supernatural, which is something we have no evidence of, the best odds always belong to the side with evidence.

I saw a program many years ago where they had a group witness a staged crime and then give eyewitness testimony of what the criminal looked like. One lady, planted by the experimenters, said she saw the thief had a crooked nose. After she said this, many others in the group started to strongly remember that his nose looked weird – one young man went into rather specific detail about how it almost looked “broken.”

In fact, the guy’s nose was completely normal. These details were being cooked up in the imagination afterwards and then misregarded as memory. This sort of thing does happen all the time, which is why eyewitness testimony is often not very useful for police.

I’m not trying to claim that I know exactly what happened at Fatima, but I am claiming that a bunch of people having a mistaken impression is not sufficient evidence that something supernatural took place. There are all kinds of explanations consistent with the evidence, but the evidence isn’t sufficient to support the claim that you want it to.

 

[AntiTheist]

are times when a supernatural explanation is the only explanation.

Maybe, but this particular ghost story that everyone on the thread seems so fond of is not a case where the only possible explanation is supernatural – or even the particular supernatural claim that you want it to be.

There are a number of natural and supernatural explanations consistent with the evidence, but the evidence isn’t sufficient to demonstrate the supernatural, much less to demonstrate the supernatural claim you want it to be evidence of.

 

[Windfish]

Not necessarily at all. I can imagine the pre-universe always existing in a volatile state, a potential waiting to give birth to the universe according to the laws of the pre-universe. Or I can imagine the pre-universe expanding into a universe and then collapsing back into the pre-universe innumerable times before expanding into this universe (which, from the evidence, appears like it will be the last…no Big Crunch for us).

Imagine what you want, but it would not be consistent with what we know, that “before” the Big Bang there was no time and no space. There can be no expansion, no movement, no volatility, no change from a state of no time. It really is an immutable void.

AntiTheist:

NaturalEnquirer(cute name, btw):Sure it is. But there’s a huge difference between evidence that is consistent with a claim and evidence that is sufficient to support a claim. For example, in the case of Fatima, the evidence is equally consistent with a UFO buzzing the place, after aliens had sent transmissions, under the cloak of the local mythology, so that they could have a laugh at the inhabitants of this weird planet.

So… pretty much LSD in the water, huh? Predictable.

AntiTheist:

Sure, but that’s not why I invoked that point. I invoked it to show you that even if you could demonstrate that this was a supernatural event, it could not be used as sufficient evidence for your god.

Why not? The children who predicted the miracle to the day, to the hour, to the second, had claimed encounters the Virgin Mary during the previous several months. That their prediction proved to be true supports the veracity of their claims, or are you really going to appeal to an alien conspiracy here, too? You can do that about anything.

AntiTheist:

Well, in any circumstance where are our choices are between something that we know exists and something that we have no evidence for, the odds are always in favor of the thing that we know exists.

You really have to put aside this probability BS. It’s totally bogus.

AntiTheist:

If the choice is between simple human error, eyewitness mistakes, and crowd psychology – which are all things that we have good evidence for their existence – and something supernatural, which is something we have no evidence of, the best odds always belong to the side with evidence.

AntiTheist, didn’t you read my posts? We have an abundance of evidence that “crowd psychology” was not at play. It has been thoroughly squashed.

AntiTheist:

I saw a program many years ago where they had a group witness a staged crime and then give eyewitness testimony of what the criminal looked like. One lady, planted by the experimenters, said she saw the thief had a crooked nose. After she said this, many others in the group started to strongly remember that his nose looked weird – one young man went into rather specific detail about how it almost looked “broken.”

In fact, the guy’s nose was completely normal. These details were being cooked up in the imagination afterwards and then misregarded as memory. This sort of thing does happen all the time, which is why eyewitness testimony is often not very useful for police.

Cool story. I don’t care. How about you actually look at the evidence?

AntiTheist:

I’m not trying to claim that I know exactly what happened at Fatima, but I am claiming that a bunch of people having a mistaken impression is not sufficient evidence that something supernatural took place. There are all kinds of explanations consistent with the evidence, but the evidence isn’t sufficient to support the claim that you want it to.

They didn’t have a mistaken impression. They saw the sun spin on its axis, wrench itself from the sky, and come tumbling toward earth. I can pull out the evidence again, if you want, but that is what they saw, period. Like I said before, when professional skeptics like Randi try to debunk this, the evidence is so persuasive that they have to believe what they saw and account for THAT. They don’t at all say that what they saw was mistaken, this clearly goes against the evidence. You can argue “crowd psychology,” but…

All of the following have been debunked:

-Mass collusion
-Mass delusion/hysteria
-Mass hallucination
-Mass illusion
-Eye-strain from the sun
-Natural phenomenon

So what’s left? A miraculous explanation or what amounts to LSD in the water (i.e., an alien conspiracy). Don’t you see how ridiculous you’re being?

 

[Windfish]

Maybe, but this particular ghost story that everyone on the thread seems so fond of is not a case where the only possible explanation is supernatural – or even the particular supernatural claim that you want it to be.

There are a number of natural and supernatural explanations consistent with the evidence, but the evidence isn’t sufficient to demonstrate the supernatural, much less to demonstrate the supernatural claim you want it to be evidence of.

This is just it, AntiTheist, there are NO natural explanations for it, unless you really want to go with an alien conspiracy. Mass collusion, mass delusion/hysteria, mass hallucination, mass illusion, eye-strain from the sun, and natural phenomenon as explanations have all been debunked from the evidence that we do have. If you really say you want evidence, you NEED to come to terms with this. It’s the only honest thing to do. Otherwise, you’re just being obstinate.

 

[Windfish]

Why not? Seriously, please explain because I don’t know.

So you’re saying that the universe, which, being finite, cannot possibly be self-existent or self-explanatory, is dependent on nothing for its coming to being? I think is YOU who will have to explain how the answer to this question could be anything but “NO. :ehh:”

EDIT: By the way, I know the cosmological argument isn’t empirical proof, but what it does show is that believing in God is plausible/reasonable and not is just absurd absent some really, really, unlikely natural explanation, which cosmologists at this point in time say doesn’t exist (or at least won’t be discovered).