can someone explain this to me? (hopefully thoughtful atheists) re: ad argumentum infinitum?

Question

Although most people say that there is no evidence to support the existence of God, why do you not realize that "no evidence" does not automatically mean "doesn't exist"?
Unless you claim to have absolute knowledge of the universe, you cannot say definitely that God exists. Can you also explain the following?

1. All things must have a creator ( watches have watchmakers, animals have parents, etc...)
2. If all things have creators, that means the universe should also have a creator, seeing as something cannot spontaneously give rise to itself.
3. Therefore, an force outside of the bounds of the universe created it.
4. This must be supernatural and not bound by laws of physics in order to defy law of conservation of energy

So, how do atheists, without proper knowledge, say, "it was NOT God. It could have been anything EXCEPT God..." without commiting the logical fallacy of ad argumentum infinitum?

I know that some answerers will still percieve things within a limited context, think outside the box a little bit, yea?

my proof is the law of conservation of energy. Let us temporarily assume that #1 was not true. This would mean that nothing would hold back the random illogical creation of energy. If this was true, the universe would have suffered a heat death a long time ago, in which energy overwhelms any mass within the universe, however, seeing as how this is not true, we must assume that all things must have some sort of creator.

I am asking for your take on how you can disagree with the existence of an uncreatable force without commiting a logical fallacy! wat does this have to do with leprachauns or whatever? I have not asked you to disprove the EXISTENCE OF GOD, I HAVE ASKED YOU TO EXPLAIN THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE WITHOUT SOME SORT OF ULTIMATE POWER AND AT THE SAME TIME, NOT COMMITING THE LOGICAL FALLACY OF AD ARGUMENTUM INFINITUM

tamyp, please elaborate on your claim. present evidence that something can spontaneously create itself. and if you can, disprove my claim of creation of energy if there is no specific means that are required in order for somethign to be created

Answer 1

A: "Argumentum ad infinitum" means to argue a point without ceasing, in other words, never to yield in spite of evidence against you.

B: While absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, absence of evidence where one would expect evidence to be can be construed to mean evidence of absence.

C: All things do not necessarily have to have a creator. This suggests that there is a personality, and even in the first cause argument for a god, there is no evidence that such a first cause has to have a personality.

D: Evidence for a force outside of the universe is not present. There is every possibility that the universe exists perpetually, either through repeated big bangs or some similar explanation. Because time itself was created at the big bang, language that depends on time has difficulty expressing this concept. However, it is not beyond logical acceptability.

E: The first cause explanation of a god's existence is essentially deism, the thought that God started the universe going and has never interfered with it since. This philosophy is not far out of sync with atheism in that there is no evidence that any god has any say or influence over the day-to-day runnings of our vast universe.

^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ ^v^

Answer 2

"Although most people say that there is no evidence to support the existence of God, why do you not realize that "no evidence" does not automatically mean "doesn't exist"?"

I agree with this and have never said that god does not exist. I would still argue that those who say he does have never proven it nor even offered anything close to actual evidence.

Prove #1. If you can't then the others are nothing more than presumption.

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"Let us temporarily assume that #1 was not true. This would mean that nothing would hold back the random illogical creation of energy."

It doesn't mean that at all. I'm not claiming to know every aspect of how our universe came to exist but science does explain a great deal of it quite well. And not having an answer to some of it is not an answer and doesn't invalidate what we do know. If we took not having an answer as a reason to make up an answer we would have no answers to anything.

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"present evidence that something can spontaneously create itself."
that isn't what I said and it's in fact closer to what you're claiming.

"and if you can, disprove my claim of creation of energy" My only claim so far is not claiming to have all the answers.
You're making the claims so you prove your claims.

Answer 3

For starters, points 1 though 4 are all classic non sequiturs, fallacious arguments based solely on conclusions that are utterly baseless. That out of the way...

As for "no evidence" not meaning "doesn't exist", yes. You are correct. The problem arises when religions define their "God".

Let's say I'm a pantheist. I believe in "god" but I give it/him/her no definition because the nature of my belief is that God is everything. This claim cannot possibly be proved wrong because there are no benchmarks. It is a complete logical negative. The pantheist is off the hook.

Now if we look at Christianity we have an entirely different scenario. The Christian God is very defined. Different Christians have different takes on who he is, but they all claim he exists as a defined entity. This makes proving him non-existent very easy. We only need to point out obvious contradictions. E.g. if God is omniscient he cannot also have granted mankind free will. To claim otherwise is a logical fallacy, an impossible paradox. It's akin to writing a story then claiming the characters you developed along with their actions were of their own concoction.

Of course the Christian god can be defined differently. Then a host of other contradictions will prove he doesn't exist (sorry, more questions to answer).

The "ad argumentum infinitum" argument you refer to has nothing to do with the validity of the argument, but rather the overstated opposition. It's not necessarily a logical fallacy or truth. That's not what "ad argumentum infinitum" refers to. It's simply an argument that the arguer believes is true only because people are tired of hearing him repeat it over and over again, thus they stop arguing.

Answer 4

of course. all you ask of us is to explain the creation of the universe....its so simple. well the odds are no body here is an astrophysicist so no one here would even know where to start. does that mean we are wrong about not believing in god? no. mearlly that we cannot explain the creation of the universe. how do you even know the universe was even created? it could have always been there. its possible, i'm sure there is a theory out there that states and supports that theory. plus your question can also be turned around on you. you cannot claim to have absolute knowledge of the universe there for you cannot say god exists. unless your point here is basically, its better to believe than not to believe because you will never know. and that is good ol' pascals wager which has been proven time and time again to be full of falsities. or if your point is that we should all be agnostic because no one can know for sure then you have again stated pascals wager again in slightly different words. you think you bring up a good point but you dont. just because we cant answer your question doesnt mean we are wrong or that you are right. merly that we dont have the knowledge.

Answer 5

What I don't understand, is why creationists present arguments where they are demanding that certain things have absolutes (watches have watchmakers, therefore the universe must have a maker...) but then when asked about the "universe maker", their argument suddenly dissolves into "a magical, invisible, supernatural being that has always existed and does not have to follow the laws of physics did it in defiance of the conservation of energy.
Why does this not strike them as being screwed up?
And so let's talk about the watchmaker. The watchmaker had materials to use to make the watch, right? What did God use to "make" the universe? Let me guess...he 'POOFED" everything into existence. Atheists simplify things quite a bit. Everything was just always here. We don't need to add magical sky-daddies or dancing leprechauns to our explanations.

So as we go on and continue with this argument, the creationists argument falls deeper and deeper into the realm of "I'm completely making this up as I go along, and obviously I don't have a scrap of evidence to back up my claims for the existence of a God, period.

Yes...no evidence having been found yet does not constitute proof that there isn't a God. However, no evidence for such a thing means that I'm going to not believe in it until I have a good reason to.Wouldn't YOU feel that it wold be stupid to believe me if I came to you and told you that I knew for a FACT that invisible dancing turtles created everything. Then I told you that you HAD to believe it under the threat of eternal punishment. Oh...and I can't provide a single scrap of evidence that such a thing even exists. And on top of that, I try to get my theories about the invisible turtles inserted into your children's science classes, where your children are to be told that it is an "alternative theory". Now, becase it's IN their science class, they are now under the impression that it's somehow legitimate science.

Answer 6

We don't know. You've got to look at where the idea of god came from. God comes from old religions made by man. Although you can't prove the non-existence of a creator, there is not a logical reason to beleive that there was one. And if there was, there would be no way of any human of knowing anything about it, so it is again pointless to beleive anything about it. Also, why just one creator? You might as well beleive that there are billions of creators working together, or maybe a team of super-aliens that created our universe.

Answer 7

1: Patently untrue and, therefore, points 2 to 4 are invalid.

By assuming point one to be 100% true, your views on everything else become distorted.
If you really believe that everything and every occurrence is caused by an invisible, silent and non-interventional entity, A god who, apparently, therefore, wreaks havoc upon many parts of this planet through disasters and wars and general cruelty, then your views are very very suspect indeed.
Why not accept reality and then everything makes sense.
There IS NO god. There are no gods.
All gods throughout the history of thinking mankind have been invented BY mankind. Once you understand this, all falls into place.

Answer 8

Well for one, i think evolution itself makes a pretty great argument.

If all things have a creator, who/what do you suggest created god? I personally think people created god. I don't believe god doesn't exist due to my own logic. I think religion is a good thing that helps get many people on the right track, and gives them something to believe in. I personally do not need anything to believe in. I don't think there is anything supernatural. What is, is. That is all there is to it.

Answer 9

not all things have a creator and i personally do not believe that the universe suddenly exploded into exsistance.

I believe that there was all this matter around before the big bang

o and if all animals have parents doesnt' that mean that your parents are your creators? then doens't that mean that all we just keep going back far enough that we all just came out of the same pool of goo who knows how many millions of years ago?

It has been proven that you can create amino acids using electricy and a small and suprisingly uncomplicated formula of acids? if these acids all came together and lightning struck the pool then you have essentually the building blocks of life

we are just one big cosmic accident

Answer 10

Your premise is not true. All things don't have a creator. That is your logical fallacy.

There are real and credible explanations for life and the universe. Why would I accept the supernatural explanation?