> All arguments of this kind rely on some kind of shaky or dubious foundation.
No, they do not. Aristotle's Argument from 'Motion':
1. Some things in the world are changing. (Observation)
2. Whatever is changing is being changed by another.[1] (Lemma 1)
3. There cannot be an infinite regress of instrumental changers.[2] (Lemma 2)
4. Therefore, there must be a changer that is not itself being changed by another.
A changer that initiates a single change is themselves changing, from a state of not implementing change to a state of implementing change. This also assume a foundation of before and after, that there is a sense of time.
This is like looking at the big bang and asking why caused it. If something caused it, why did it cause it when it did and not before or after? Is there even a before or after when discussing the cause of the big bang?
The answer is that is we don't know. We have no knowledge on what is before then, why did time start when it did, and if logic even applies to given the lack of time or the possibility of other dimensions of time that is harder for us than seeing in 4 spatial dimensions is.
There is also an issue with Lemma 2. Why can't there be an infinite tower going forever? Even if something caused the start of time, something had to exist before that. Suggesting a first event might be akin to suggesting a starting number.
At most, even if we ignore all these problems, you just proven a starting point exists. Nothing about the starting point, nothing to claim it is a deity, much less the Abrahamic one. The beginning could also just be the big bang, a starting point with no before.
Even if this does point to some higher being or reality, it isn't necessarily any conception of God. Also, true randomness in fluctuations in quantum fields could refute 2, no? Also, trying to extend the notion of time to some point at infinity in the past, as if this is a proof by induction, is absurd. Mathematics are free for us to make statements about because we can start with whichever axioms we like. However, our realities (plural) are necessarily constrained by what we think and observe. There is no way to be certain of the nature of one's reality without somehow transcending it.
While that's an impressive article, it seems to only prove, if it indeed proves anything, that science can't disprove the existence of God. It must be said that nothing can prove or disprove the existence of God, so the fact that the article doesn't seem to try either way is adequate. There are various things in the Bible that could theoretically be proved or disproved, but God is necessarily beyond our capabilities to truly know. Only in maths are there proofs. We're glorified frogs in wells.
Whether or not God exists, religious people see fit to mesh their moral axioms with their understanding of God's teachings. Atheists suppose no such being to base their moral axioms on. To each their own, but those who find others intolerable will be hostile. We are humans living in a world we have created for ourselves.
Is it my imagination, or does Fesser always leap into an accusation of the poor reading skills of people who disagree with him?
Anyhow, I can't really find a decent answer in that blog - my understanding is that he hand-waves it away by declaring that it is beyond physics and thus can't be confirmed or denied by such. Not a satisfying answer to my mind and I consider that tower of logic to be on shaky ground.
> Anyhow, I can't really find a decent answer in that blog - my understanding is that he hand-waves it away by declaring that it is beyond physics and thus can't be confirmed or denied by such.
Which is right, in a sense. The fallacy is to use that as a proof of his proposition even though it’s a non sequitur.
Everything is changing and being changed. There is no "first" because the universe is not linear. And ultimately there is no actual division between "changed" and "changer". There is just "change".
Prove, no - but the best argument for a "God" is the simulation argument. Space and time is quantized at the planck scale, which strongly suggests that our known universe is a simulation. Simulation implies a simulator, which would by necessity be an omniscient "God".
Obviously this God would bear no resemblance to any of the popular Abrahamic Gods.
Nonetheless, anyone who subscribes to the simulation hypothesis cannot realistically call themselves an Atheist, by definition.
> Prove, no - but the best argument for a "God" is the simulation argument.
It’s not “the best” argument; it’s just a popular one mostly publicised by people who think they know quantum mechanics. I am sure there is some sampling bias, but I have never seen someone who knew a lot about Physics believing in it (quite a lot of them are religious, though, but mostly in a classical deist way).
> Space and time is quantized at the planck scale, which strongly suggests that our known universe is a simulation.
There is no proof whatsoever that “space and time is quantized at the Plank scale”. You can build thought experiments about this being the smallest distinguishable length because of black holes, but even that implies making quantum mechanics and general relativity work at scale about which we know nothing. And even that is a far cry from spacetime discretisation.
It’s exactly the same mechanism behind the creation of gods: at the time the most powerful things people knew were themselves and awesome natural events, so they imagined them that way. Now that we’re all about computers it is tempting to see them everywhere, but believing that it is the case because of some tenuous superficial similarities is a fallacy. In exactly the same way that von Neumann machines are poor models for a human brain even though on the surface they have similar functions.
Isn't the actual simulation argument based on information density being bounded in a way that doesn't make sense. Something like we would think information density should be bounded by 3d. You have twice as much 3d space, you can hold twice as much information. But the physics argument (and I think it is still theoretical physics) is that it is actually bounded by the 2D surface area of that space, not the 3D volume. I forget the details of how this ties into simulation.
I also think there is some math in general relativity that works out much better if we assume 3D space is actually the 3d-surface area equivalent of a 4d space (and not the 4d space time), which makes us more like a hologram of 4d space. But this is another one where I forget most of the details that actually matter.
These combine give us the hologram simulation that pops up in pop culture from time to time, but what you read about in any blog or news article has nothing to do with the actual math and science behind the theories/hypothesis/what ifs.
> Space and time is quantized at the planck scale, which strongly suggests that our known universe is a simulation.
I don't get the reasoning for this part. It seems analogous to, but even more absurd than looking at abstract art and observing that the artist had pneumonia.
