God vs. Naturalism

C1) A caused universe is incoherent a) Requirements for causation First, Pro asserts that I assume causation can occur “only in the physical realm”. That is entirely irrelevant and I make no such assumption. Causality is the relationship between a cause and an effect by definition. An effect can emerge without time, but for a cause to coherently trigger an effect, something must obviously coherently ‘happen’, and for something to ‘happen’ the passage of time is required. Now, Pro introduces an ad hoc hypothesis saying there could be another form of timeliness prior to time itself, but that is possibility and not probability. Since the additional assumption is not required, via. Occam’s razor it is best to reject that assumption. Pro asserts that “a beginning without a cause is incoherent”, but that is a bare assertion. An effect can occur without a cause. Filipenko and Pasachoff (2001) write, “The idea of a zero-energy universe, together with inflation, suggests that all one needs is just a tiny bit of energy to get the whole thing started (that is, a tiny volume of energy in which inflation can begin). The universe then experiences inflationary expansion, but without creating net energy. What produced the energy before inflation? This is perhaps the ultimate question. As crazy as it might seem, the energy may have come out of nothing! The meaning of ‘nothing’ is somewhat ambiguous here. It might be the vacuum in some pre-existing space and time, or it could be nothing at all – that is, all concepts of space and time were created with the universe itself.” [1] As Lawrence Krauss says, if the universe’s curvature is flat, the net energy in the universe would be precisely zero [2]. Measurements taken by NASA’s WMAP proved, with a chance of error of 0.4%, that the universe’s curvature is flat, thus its net energy is zero [3]. Naturalism need not assert that the universe “naturally begun” or “unnaturally begun”, since, as said before, a beginning can be coherent without a cause, and the universe was likely not caused. If causality is not required for naturalism to be true, then the argument stands only against God. My naturalistic explanation does not require causality of the universe to be true, but the God hypothesis requires the same in all cases. b) Eternalism Despite there being arguments against eternalism, philosophical consensus seems to agree with eternalism, and the B-series. Dean Rickles notes that “the consensus among philosophers seems to be that special and general relativity are incompatible with presentism.” [4] The argument from special relativity which I presented in support of eternalism is referred to as the Rietdijk-Putnam argument, which uses relativity of simultaneity to demonstrate eternalism [5]. Christian Wuthrich writes in defense of eternalism and the Rietdijk-Putnam argument, “Presentists have responded in a variety of ways to the pressure exerted by the Rietdijk-Putnam argument... [A] presentist could deny Naturalism. ... [or] reject SR-Realism... This could occur simply on a priori grounds... Also, considerations from quantum mechanics can be invoked in an attempt to establish that SR is false or incomplete insofar as it lacks an absolute, privileged frame of reference. This response comes in different flavours: (a) (non-relativistic) collapse dynamics require a preferred frame in which the collapse occurs; (b) Bohmian interpretations are incompatible with SR; and (c) invoke Bell's theorem to argue that some tenets of SR must be given up… [A] presentist might simply bite the bullet and consequently relativize existence... since what is present is relative to an inertial frame, what exists becomes fragmented in that it depends on the choice of frame… [Another] is to accept that SR offers a perfectly empirically adequate theory, but to insist that absolute simultaneity still exists. It is just that we cannot possibly detect the privileged frame of reference which determines the present. In other words, absolute simultaneity is not empirically accessible... [The] metaphysics fully relies on postulated extra-structure that can't even in principle be observed... It violates Occam’s razor so crassly that the move cannot be justified by putting some post-verificationist philosophy of science on one's flag.” [6] Eternalism being true does not render all causation incoherent. It is the causation of time (and, in extension, spacetime) which eternalism renders incoherent. Causation of processes such as evolution do not require change, they require change directionality. The B-series and eternalism only entail untensed temporal relations, thus causation of the universe is incoherent without change. But causation of evolution, etc. does not require metaphysical change via. conservation of energy, rather it only requires a directionality of change. In other words, McTaggart argues that metaphysical change is incoherent, not physical processes and change directionality. He writes, “Changes must happen to the events of such a nature that the occurrence of these changes does not hinder the events from being events, and the same events, both before and after the change. Now what characteristics of an event are there which can change and yet leave the event the same event? ... It seems to me that there is only one class of such characteristics -- namely, the determination of the event in question by the terms of the A series.” [7] Pro argues, “naturalism can hardly explain how this eternal universe exists (or came to existence).” First, it is not an ‘eternal’ universe, rather it had a beginning, albeit it was not caused, according to naturalistic explanations. The zero-energy universe hypothesis allows for the universe to literally come into existence with no cause [8]. C2) Atemporal minds are impossible Pro introduces an ad hoc hypothesis saying there could be another form of timeliness prior to time itself, but that is possibility and not probability. Since the additional assumption is not required, via. Occam’s razor it is best to reject that assumption. Making decisions is irrelevant to P3. Differential psychologist Lloyd Humphreys defines intelligence as “the resultant of the process of acquiring, storing in memory, retrieving, combining, comparing, and using in new contexts information and conceptual skills.” [9] Since ‘intelligence’ involves a process by definition, for God to be intelligent a process is required, and atemporal processes are incoherent. C3) Occam’s razor I accept Pro’s interpretation of Occam’s razor, which states that unnecessary complexity is considered unlikely. Thus, if I can refute Pro’s arguments regarding the probability of God, I can use Occam’s razor to show that Pro adds unnecessary complexity to the explanation by adding the God hypothesis and reject the hypothesis as unlikely. R1) Arguments for an initial being a) Pool table argument I challenge Premise B of the pool table argument that says “there is a finite number of past causes”, which in turn is justified by the fact that there is a finite number of past events, which seems to assume that everything has a cause, which was what I challenged. Next, the properties of the uncaused cause. An uncaused cause can behave in a predetermined way since it needn’t be the first thing to exist -- that is begging the question, since the universe need not have been caused, and if the universe wasn’t caused, this uncaused cause would have emerged in a finite amount of time after the universe came into existence. The cause needn’t act freely, as Pro begs the question assuming there was nothing prior to this uncaused cause. If the universe wasn’t caused, it existed prior to this uncaused cause, thus the cause need not act freely. So, even if the pool table argument proves an uncaused cause, it does not prove God without begging the question. Next, my opponent strawmans, claiming I’m stating all causality is false. This is incorrect, as I merely represent causality of the universe to be false. Evolution, et cetera are irrelevant to this, and my opponent presents a classical straw-man fallacy by misrepresenting my entire argument [10]. As Alex Filipenko says [1], the universe could have literally come from nothing at all, or the limited energy in the quantum vacuum could have existed eternally. b) Corroborating evidence Once more, my opponent begs the question by assuming that either the universe caused itself or it had an external cause, entirely dropping the idea that the universe could have come into existence without anything influencing it. Next, I never mentioned that the B-series would thwart Pro’s claim altogether, rather I said his interpretation of the BGV theorem was based on the A-series which is flawed. R2) Intelligent design a) Fine-tuning argument I apologize for the sourcing of 18 and 19, I shall present the sources here [11-12]. Sean Carroll’s idea has nothing to do with chaotic inflationary model, rather it is a multiverse hypothesis which I do not support. b) Abiogenesis Pro asserts that abiogenesis via. autocatalysis is unlikely because it is random. This is incorrect, as the process occurred due to thermodynamic inevitability, i.e. the low-entropy state of Earth put it under thermodynamic stress without these processes of autocatalysis. When the Earth was first formed, there was not as much thermodynamic stress via. the atmosphere as it was during the origin of life [13]. According to most studies, DNA emerged via. RNA, since deoxyribose is a modification of ‘normal’ ribose sugar. Pyrimidine nucleotides, essential to the formation of RNA, have been synthesized under conditions thought to occur under the early Earth [14][15]. Oligomers and polymers can be formed by abiotic coupling of monomers via. inorganic clays. Ribosomes are capable of complete autocatalysis. Thus, DNA could have easily arisen by abiotic processes, especially in conditions under great thermodynamic stress. Sources in comments.