Okay atheists, it's time to use some logic.?

Question

I have two arguments for you.

1. What made everything.

I know that this sounds really stupid and basic, but let me explain. I think that it can be established that the world that we live in, and everything that we can sense is finite. This is exactly what time is all about. It is about the distance between a beginning and an ending. For example, there is a time when someone is born(beginning), and there is a time when someone dies (ending). Everything has a beginning and an ending. Think about it. Most evolutionists will claim that it started with a big bang of some cosmic dust or soup. I would ask, what thing did the dust come from, and what did the thing that the dust come from come from? Do you see a pattern? There is only one logical explanation. Something infinite must of made the first finite thing.

2. How do you know that the Earth is billions of years old?

I'll make this one easy. What do you base your carbon dating on, and what do you base your fossil dating on?

Answer 1

1) Your "logic" automatically leads to an infinite regress, and thus the question "what made God?" It also takes the form of the fallacy of composition, and begging the question ( since you assume the universe was made in the question), and is thus not logic at all. Next, since you seem to be vaguely aware that causality is a time based concept (cause *before* effect, etc.), it should be clear that any question of the origin of the universe (i.e., space an time itself) cannot be asked. See, to attempt such a question amounts to asking "What was before space/time?", which applies causality outside of time, an is thus absurd.



2) Peer reviewed research (one of the parts of the scientific method you are ignoring) has established the age of the Earth, so this question is settled.



Science functions on evidence. You are obviously a theist, which is a belief not supported by evidence. Thus, your request for evidence to justify the beliefs of others is duplicity, and should be ignored.

Answer 2

> "1. What made everything.

Process of elimination people. If God didn't do it then what did."



You are re-hashing the (flawed) "Cosmological Argument" for the existance of God - also known as the "uncaused cause" argument.

Simply put, it states "Everything has a cause, therefore the universe itself must have had a cause - a creator; and this creator is God." When the counter-argument of "So what made God?" is put, the answer is "God was without cause - the first thing. He is the uncaused cause."



This argument is flawed in a number of ways:



[1] when you say "God is the first thing." you are drawing an arbitrary line in the sand and saying "this far and no farther." You could just as easily start with God's creator as the first thing, or His creator's creator's creator's creator, or ... and so on. And you could just as easily say that our universe itself was the first thing - the uncaused cause.In fact - this is the most parsimonious (simplest) explanation. And therefore it is philosophically the preferred one: since we have direct evidence for the existence of our universe, and none for the existence of God, we must state that the universe itself was the first thing.



[2] the law of causality (which states that everything has a cause) is a law of our universe. There is no reason to suppose that it applies "outside" or "before" our universe. Therefore it is perfectly possible that our universe sprang into existance without cause. And therefore there is no need to suppose the existence of a Creator.



[3] even within our universe, events on a subatomic level can and do happen without a cause - this is part of Quantum physics and has been observed many, many times. Since the singularity which was the "seed" of the Big Bang was a subatomic event (a point of zero volume and infinite density) it could still have "just happened" even if the laws of our universe do apply outside/before it.





> "I think that it can be established that the world that we live in, and everything that we can sense is finite."



No. According to most models, the universe is infinite.



> "Most evolutionists will claim that it started with a big bang of some cosmic dust or soup."



[1] you need to read more on the big Bang and cosmology. There was no "soup".

[2] this is the big Bang, which is part of cosmology - it isn't even BIOLOGY, and has nothing to do with evolution.



> "2. How do you know that the Earth is billions of years old?

I'll make this one easy. What do you base your carbon dating on, and what do you base your fossil dating on?"



Well - the age iof the earth is NOT determined by carbon dating. Carbon dating can only date organic samples, and can only date things to about 60,000 years (though this is more than enough to demonstrate that the earth is older than the 6,000 years supposed by a literal interpretation of the Bible).

Other radioisotope dating methods, like Uranium/Lead and Potassium/Argon, are used to date older and non-organic things. There are many such dating methods, which all use different isotopes with different half-lives. And they all agree that the earth is about 4 to 4.5 Billion years old.



> "What I am presenting to you is science. What part of the scientific method am I leaving out?"



You are leaving out the part where you look through the evidence and THEN draw a conclusion (instead of having a conclusion, and then selectively accepting or ignoring the evidence until it fits your presupposed conclusion).

And you are also ignoring the part where you actually understand the principles behind what you are discussing.

Answer 3

1. This is a fallacy. Because time passes you think it is a fixed stream. However, when you move into 11 dimensions (and there is significant evidence to say that those dimensions are there) then time becomes just another dimension and things no longer have the cause and effect that we see in out macroscopic senses.



These effects poke into our universe at the quantum level. It has been shown that at the quantum level matter actually pops into and out of existence in a seemingly random fashion.



Where did the universe come from? I do not know. For a singularity or a non-existent universe quantum effects may extend up to the size of an entire universe rather than the sub-atomic level we see now. M=theory is interesting, we will have to see what happens when we can actually test some of the consequences of if it is right.



Just because we do not know the answer does not mean that God Did It, or some infinite being exists. People in history have attributed thousands of things to deities that have all turned out to have natural causes.





2. How old is the Earth? There are a few clues. The oldest rocks on the planet are about 3 to 4 billion years old. You can not use carbon dating for rocks - no carbon - also the half life of C14 is too short to date past about 50,000 years ago. However there are plenty of other radioactive isotopes that have very long half lives and can be used to date things billions of years old. The 4.5 billion number comes from analysis of meteorites that would have formed at the same time as the Earth, but have not gone though the recycling process that the Earths crust does though plate tectonics.



For more information look at:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html





Edit:

What I am presenting to you is science. What part of the scientific method am I leaving out?





No it is not. Science makes no assumptions as to the answer. It looks at the facts and deduces the answer that best fits those facts.





Process of elimination people. If God didn't do it then what did.



And here is your assumption. Why your God? Why not Vishnu, or Kronos or one of the other hundreds of creator gods? Why not say it was created by the Great Green Arkleseizure sneezing the universe into existence? They all have equal evidence.



If you want to say God Did It, then if you want to be scientific about it then you have to ante up the evidence that actually supports your claim. Your problem is that you have none and the only book that supports your claim is patently wrong about the creation of the universe.

Answer 4

1:

The origin of the universe is perhaps THE ultimate question in cosmology. The simple answer is that we don't know. Some possibilities is that the universe came about from a quantum fluctuation in higher dimensional space... or maybe there's Lots of universes and they come and go all the time.



I want you to notice that "God" doesn't really solve the problem either, only pushes it back a step. If you're going to say that god created the universe, then you're left with 'Where did god come from?'. And if you can accept that God has always existed, why is it so hard to accept that perhaps Existence itself has always existed. Perhaps some higher dimensional reality exists which is infinite and our universe is one of many in that reality.



Of course that's all speculation... There are several possibilities that are all compatible with what we know about physics. Like I said, we don't know, and that's ok... It gives us something to explore.





2:

There are several lines of evidence that all converge to paint the picture that the earth is billions of years old. The primary line of evidence has to do with the radioactive decay of unstable elements. An unstable element can decay into a daughter element at any time, so for example, Uranium can decay into Lead. That process of decay is extremely predictable. So if you have an amount of Uranium-238, you can very precisely predict how much of it, over time, is going to decay to Lead-206. Looking at the ratios of parent elements and daughter elements that exist on rocks on earth, we can determine the age of the rock.



The assumption that is made with this method is that there was an even distribution of these elements to begin with. And that assumption has been tested. If the distribution was even to begin with, when you plot the ratios of different elements on a graph, they would all fall on a line. And that's exactly what happens. That wouldn't happen if the distribution were not uniform in the early solar system. If the distribution were random, the points on the graph would be random.



Also, there are several different elements that undergo radioactive decay. If you date the earth using different elements, you get dates that are all very close to each other. If radiometric dating were so wildly inaccurate, then using different methods would all produce wildly different results.



Also, by the way, carbon dating is not used to date the earth because carbon does not have a long enough half-life.



I hope that helps. If you have more questions, i'd be happy to help.

Answer 5

What you are presenting is not science.



You're presuming God did something because you can't imagine what else could have done it. It's called argument from incredulity.



You presume, in order to avoid infinite regression, that something infinite had to have created the first finite thing, but you introduce the infinite thing because the infinite regression is just not acceptable to you. You provide no reason why it has to be this way other than it is simply unacceptable to you. I will be charitable and leave your presumption of God alone and do no more than say you are using a concept of an infinite god as a skyhook.



Your second point about the age of the earth has nothing at all to do with carbon dating. Science doesn't use carbon dating to date the age of the earth. You sound like you are rejecting uniformitarianism in dating the earth again, based on incredulity. What do you propose in its place that has the standards of falsifiability, predictability, parsimony, and unifying a disparate collection of observations under a single explanation?

Answer 6

1a - Just because any individual thing is finite doesn't mean that the structure under which they all fall is itself finite. If you wish to use science, then because of Planck's constants, we can't go back to "time = 0" to make a determination of anything.



If you want to be logical about it, then let's define "coming into existence." I would define this as:

X comes into existence at time = t if and only if:

1 - X exists at t; and

2 - There is no time immediately prior to t at which X exists.



Under this definition, time itself could not be created, because there would be no time immediately prior to t at which time exists. There would be no "time before time." If there's a Creator, he would be subject to time.



1b - Even if the universe has a cause, you would be proposing an entity that itself should require a clause. Being a creator does not mean, ipso facto, to be uncaused.



1c - Even a cause that is infinite would not necessarily be a personal agent, much less with the traits theists describe. It would be up to you to prove that a single god, with the traits you would believe he has, is the only explanation.



I can easily imagine a god who, screwing up the universe several times in an attempt to make life due to his own imperfect knowledge, only getting it "just right" after thousands of attempts. I can just as easily imagine several beings working together to make a universe. I can also easily imagine a god who created the universe, then stepped aside, never tinkering with the physical laws on which the the universe operates, and generally not caring about the life forms within.

Answer 7

No, you don't actually have two arguments. You have two ignorant assertions.

1) This is the Fallacy Of Turtles All The Way Down: If *everything* had to be "made", them who/what made your sky pixie ? Then, who/what made that sky pixie's creator, and so on. Ergo, logic alone proves that everything does NOT need a creator. Once thats established, then adding the studied laws of the Universe shows that nothing "needs" a specific and artificial creation. Everything always was, it just wasn't always in the forms that we see out there now. Your claim of the "need" for an infinite thing to make finite things is the Fallacy of Personal Incredulity; The Universe is not obliged to do as you demand.

Trying to claim that just because a few miserable life forms on one tiny ball of dust need a beginning, so does the Universe, is anthropomorphic arrogance of the first order. Doesn't your teachings mention being at all humble ? Its quite clear that you missed that lesson.

2) We know from many ways, and they all agree on the time frame involved. Earth rocks can be dated back as far as 3 billion years, lunar ones from 4 billion, and carbon dating has nothing to do with that issue, as carbon dating only works for up to about 60,000 years, so that is not useful for dating back billions of years. If you wish to question science, first you need to educate yourself about that science so that you don't make more basic mistakes such as this one.

Oh, we can also tell that the Universe is at least 12-13 billion years old by observing far out into space; since astronomy uses light or radio, both of which obey lightspeed laws, that must mean that the further away one looks out into space, the further *back in time* one is looking.

Its too bad for you that you deny yourself the majesty of the Universe *as it is*, in favour of myths and fantasies. But, since thats what you have chosen, you have no standing to criticise those who deal in facts and evidence.

Answer 8

OK if something made the dust and whatnot, what made the something and so on. Again, just because we don't understand some thing, it doesn't mean "God" did it. That is the least likely explanation, well to me anyway. If you must find meaning and really need to explain everything, then that's up to you. You can do what you want.

How do you know the earth isn't billions of years old? Carbon dating is more accurate then the god explanation, Adam and Eve? OH come on, really. A deity that created everything and started this world 10,000 years ago just sounds very ignorant to me.



Process of elimination? And god is one of your choices? You have me speechless man

Answer 9

Answering in reverse order just for fun...



Question 2: Sorry, poor fallacy. Carbon dating does not work over millions of years; other forms of radioisotope dating do, however. And the decay rates can be calibrated in the lab, independent of anything else, by simple measurements of radioactivity taken over long periods of time. So radioisotope dating which does NOT rely on fossils for calibration shows the Earth to be billions of years old.



Question 1: Sorry, but you can't claim the causal argument and then just say that 'since everything needs a cause, I'm going to claim it was done by something that doesn't need a cause and ignore my earlier assertion, just because I say it's an exception'. No-one who studies science claims that the Big Bang CREATED all the matter and energy in the universe. The matter and energy was already existent in a singularity. The Big Bang was merely the expansion of that singularity into the universe we now know. As for what came before, we still do not know, but saying 'godidit' is a personal assertion with no basis in facts or evidence. And if you claim something has to be infinite beforehand, explain why an omnipotent being more complex than the universe itself is more logical than formless matter and energy obeying it's natural tendencies.



I hope you will now admit that your assertions do not have a factual basis, and the only thing you have going for them is blind faith. Thanks for your time.



EDIT: As others have mentioned above me, geology and cosmological studies also provide firm evidence of the age of billions of years. And they all concur. Isn't that funny?



EDIT2: Your additional information shows that, sadly, you're not even bothering to read the answers you're getting. That just shows you're willfully ignorant. Quite sad really.

Answer 10

Your first mistake is assuming that evolutionists claim that "it started with a big bang." That's just not correct - eveolution is the change in genetic frequency of allelles. It's not an explanation of the formation of the comsos.



Your second mistake is assuming that one, and only one, god would create our known universe. Why not three gods? Seven? Zero? You assume one god and make it the right answer. Why is it only one and not ten?



We know the earth is billions of years old from geologic records. Geology is the study of rocks, to put it very simply, and carbon dating that your reference only pertains to living things. We also know the ages of things because they decay over time - atoms have a half-life and we can determine how much has decayed over time and go backwards to determine ages of planets and moons.



This is just a starting point. Learning about geology will help you answer your question.

Answer 11

I like how rift3r is quick to call atheists' beliefs silly when his own belief that a cosmic rhinoceros farted the universe into existence is questionable at best.



Anyway, the scientific method here would be to start with what you know and apply that retroactively. Starting with "God did it" and then trying to fit evidence around that is not science.



We know that the Earth is billion years from hours of deduction after studying geological evidence. This is much more respectable than "oh it says so in this book."

Answer 12

1. What made god? If you can't answer this your whole "argument" falls apart. The answer to where it all came from is *unknown* so far, and may never be known. Deal with it.



2. There are several radiometric methods of dating which all converge on similar ages for whatever is being dated. These are good for ages in the millions of years, so trying to date something only a few thousand years old by this technique will give unreliable results. Carbon dating is only used for formerly living things up to at most 50,000 years old. The Shroud of Turin has been accurately dated this way to within a few years of 1300 CE (CE=Common Era, since not everyone's a Christian), by the way.



3. www.talkorigins.org

Answer 13

1) Science keeps moving back toward the moment the primordial singularity started expanding. It's not looking for 'what made everything' because that's the province of philosophy and religion. You can have all the opinions in that area you choose, and none of them will have any more proof than your contention that 'goddidit.'



2) An earlier responder mentioned the red shift and the blue shift. Measures of parallax tell us that the Andromeda galaxy is more than a million light years away. So, either that light has been on the way for more than a million years, or there is a hoax involved. Apply Occam's Razor. Which is more logical? The light has been on its way for more than a million years, or it's a trick?

Answer 14

There's a single answer to both of your questions: They're unanswerable because you don't understand the basic tenants of evolution, abiogenesis, logic, or science. Your additional details alone show that you don't have even a rudimentary knowledge of evolution and the formation of solar systems and galaxies.



To answer you first question in a philosophical way, if everything has a beginning and end that means so does god, who made god? When you can adequately answer that without contradictions or circular reasoning you will already have the answers to both of your questions ;)



Here's something else philosophical to think about:



Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then where does evil come from?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Answer 15

why do u theists insist on this nonsense. i mean seriously. so i guess ur thinking that since we don't know through science how the universe started god had to start it right? why would u think that? well can't u say that a unicorn started it? or a giant spaghetti monster god, or anything else? thats ridiculous. but someday science will find out how it all started then this question will be no more.



and carbon dating... dude come on!! u can easily look it up and read up on it. there is so much proof as to why it is used. why do u ask this?



look just think about it and u will see that there is no such thing as a god, just like there is no such thing as a unicorn, a leperchaun, a tooth fairy, a goblin, a monster, a mermaid,...etc....

Answer 16

1. Time is the 4th dimension. Therefor time will be much different in an 11 dimensional space time compared to our 4 dimensional universe. The 11 dimensional space time could have always existed. Look up "M Theory".



2. radiometric dating, not just carbon, is based on the established decay rates. In other words, scientific facts.

Answer 17

You are presenting us with ID pseudo science. Visit a real science website not sponsored by a christian group and do some research.



Later addition.

Natkra are you familiar at all with how carbon dating was originally established as a basis for measuring the age of things?

If anyone is interested, look up the Bristle Cone Pine and how it was used as a contributor to radiocarbon dating.

Answer 18

What part of the scientific method are you leaving out? You are ignoring empirical testing. Empirical testing is what separates the Theory of Evolution from religious origination opinions like Creationism and Intelligent Design.





John S: It's the "arguing from ignorance" logical fallacy. It's also the "contrary-to-fact hypothesis" logical fallacy to some extent as well. Wait, he also commits a classic apriorism here too... And then there's the "using the wrong reasons" logical fallacy...

Answer 19

1.

I don't know.. Insufficient data. The universe may be eternal, and not have needed a "creator". It may have other properties that do not need a creator.



2.

The easiest means of determining the age of the Earth to be over a few thousand years is to calculate the time it would require for light to reach us. Other than that, it has been a while since I took geology.. Off of the top of my head I am not sure, I could go to a few sites and do more research to refresh myself.. But, I'm not a geologist, and not likely to give you an adequate answer.

Answer 20

First off you need to understand that the two issues you brought up have NOTHING inherent to do with atheism...NOTHING. So right off the starting line you're failing.



I can't even begin to answer your fist statement because it's all based off misinformation and bad premises. Evolution(ists) has nothing to do with the big bang or cosmic dust or anything like that. At all. This is why you fail, because you didn't receive a proper education!



As far as your second statement, please read up on radiometric dating. Sure carbon dating is one method of dating something, but it's only reliable up to about 60,000 years. you have to use other elements with longer half-lives.



Here's a link to educate yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating



I don't mean to come off as a prick dude, but you're really showing a severe lack of knowing what you're even talking about.

Answer 21

1. What made god? Same problem.



2. Carbon dating is only used for relatively new things, in the thousands of years. Other radioactive isotopes and their breakdown products are used for older dating. But mostly it's from the science of geology, which would take too long to explain for YA. Take a geology course which is available at your local community college. And then there's the starlight reaching us accross billions of light years of distance. If the rest of the universe is billions of years old then why wouldn't we be?

Answer 22

Good question, right now we dont have the right technology to know that the there was a big bang. In the future though, we might become so powerful with advanced technology that we can build a time machine. A time machine may become reality.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X02WMNoHSm8&feature=related, Your other question is :how do we know the earth is billions of years old well look in here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aklZa8BWhE. And of course if you people who are religious will ignore everything and say "thats fake" but its not, we did studies and research in this.

Answer 23

1. No, everything doesn't have a beginning and end. Energy, which the universe is, cannot be CREATED or destroyed.



2. I don't know how old the earth is. But I do know that the middle eastern myth about it popping into existence one day is not a true story. We know this for a fact. Evolution alone disproves Genesis.



See how easy that is?

Answer 24

I don't know what happened at the very beginning of the universe as we know it. Nobody knows. For all we know it may be circular. You don't know either.

Please tell me where a circle begins and ends. Please use logic for it. After all you say everything has a beginning and an end. Prove it. Tell me how to find the beginning of a circle.



What is the end of a carbon atom? What is the end of a water molecule? Getting split into hydrogen and water? What if the selfsame atoms condense to water again? Did it end, did it begin?



Shallow thinking leads to shallow conclusions. Your argument is called "god of the gaps". You rename lack of your knowledge "god", I think that's not even polite toward whichever god you mean to represent.



2. If you want to know the reasoning for the age of the earth, read through this:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html

Answer 25

1. It doesn't really say it was the beginning but rather the beginning of this cycle.



2. Because that's what I learned in school. It makes more sense to me than 6000 years. Almost all of the information ties into it though. When they talk about the Sun, ice samples, geology, dinosaurs, etc.. all of it is much older than 6000 years. The bible stands alone.

Answer 26

So in your view god created everything.



Then who created god?



You can not have it both ways. If everything needs a creator then god needs a creator and ergo can not be god.



If god does not need a creator then by extension neither does the universe.



Which do you want it to be?

Answer 27

Your "one logical explanation" is actually a logical fallacy. I can't remember which one it is, but you're basically assuming that because no one knows the answer, your beliefs must be the answer. It could be that the answer is out there, and we haven't just found it yet. The burden of proof is on you. You must prove that "Something infinite must of made the first finite thing."



Good luck on that.

Answer 28

We're going to have definitive answers very soon. Read this article....



http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/080823/national/god_particle_1



Do you realize that not only will they prove the Big Bang and where matter came from, but will likely also be able to create a universe (on a micro scale, but no matter)? Once this is done, in the next 10 years or so, what will you do then?



"What I am presenting to you is science" - No, it's not. The ONLY thing you are doing is killing your own myth (what created a god then?) and using false logic by making the assumption that if you can't explain it then it must be supernatural.

Answer 29

1 There is never an answer to that because no matter what you say, you have the same question for your answer



2 There are at least 6 radiological methods based on the same principle as atomic clocks

Answer 30

1 who knows, but they keep pushing the god of gaps further back.

Who said anything did it, perhaps time is ultimately circular and bends back on itself. Until you run out of choices why fall back on ancient superstitions?



2 a basic education.

Answer 31

K 'atheists' , 'scientists' , 'darwinists' , and 'evolutionists' which is not even a word mind you, yet people think it is. Anyway these are not the same thing. These is no automatic acceptance of evolution and/or the big band just because somebody is an atheist.

Answer 32

You would have to learn the science of atheists: the chance that everything is happened is 1...

Answer 33

a smart person would say

"hmm i dont know. nor does anyone else but i will do some scientific research and find out"

a dumb person:

"hmm i dont know. nor does anyone else... that must mean god did it"

Answer 34

1. Everything always was. There was no beginning.



2. Light from galaxies billions of light years away reaching Earth.

Radiometric dating is based on half life of decaying radioactive isotopes.

Answer 35

I just love it when people say "Oh, the universe was just there. Nothing created it. It was always just there."



Umm, we weren't just here. We came from our parents, who came from their parents. A tree comes from another trees seed. Rain comes from the water on the earth, evaporated. Everything mechanical comes from factories (built by people) or people themselves. The materials come from the earth. And yet, the earth was always just there?



riiight. Everything has a cause and an effect. I never heard a scientific law say "It was just there."

Answer 36

Not again



1. Nobody knows. Doesn't mean "gawd diddit". God is a weak persons answer.



2. Its called 'science". Go learn.

Answer 37

you're right that does sound stupid



i'm not going to respond sensibly because you are only looking to validate your own beliefs

Answer 38

Why don't you look this up yourself? being an atheist doesn't makes us scientists by default...

Answer 39

Oh my. I can't even be bothered to give you a real answer. People like you make me feel suddenly very tired..

Answer 40

1. They only think their parents made them. It's impossible to get them to answer anything beyond that.



2. They have a strong FAITH in a scientific story that was thrown up to the wall to see if it would stick.



Yet, they trash people of legitimate faith. Go figure.