The God Hypothesis is the best scientific explanation for the origins of existence

I wish Pro's case were organized enough that I knew what he thought he was arguing. I see no structure. Random claims whiz by, many of which are so far-fetched as to seem whimsical. Don't let Pro use unclarity as an offensive weapon. He has the burden of proof. I'll start at the beginning of his post, and point out errors. An argument with this many errors would have to be utterly unpersuasive even if we did understand it. - Pro recants his claim that there can't be infinities. Apparently he thinks he gets to use infinities but I don't. That's textbook special pleading, a fallacy. - Pro says I can't prove that infinities exist in the universe, but that is an attempt to reverse the burden of proof. If it's important to him that infinities not exist, then he has to prove that they don't. And if they don't, then he doesn't get to use them himself. - Pro claims George Ellis as an expert supporting his claim that infinities don't exist. But what does he quote Ellis as actually saying? "Can there be an infinite set of really existing universes? We suggest that the answer may very well be , 'No' ." [Sic, and emphasis added.] In other words, George Ellis said infinities may not exist. He can't tell. Ellis does not support Pro's claim that infinities do not exist. Voters, I submit that source points could be awarded to me: Pro offered a sourced quote that doesn't say what he claims it does. Source points are for reliable sources; if a source doesn't say what it's proponent claims it says, it's reliability is negative. Certainly Pro should not be granted source points. Pro quotes Ellis considering whether "infinite entities can exist in practice." His verdict? The existence of Infinite entities is "questionable." Questionable, not nonexistent. This refutes Pro's claim that god is an infinite entity. Pro provided this expert, but the expert says his claim is questionable. Pro also misrepresented his source: 1. Pro claims that infinities don't exist. 2. Pro claims that Ellis supports him, "He actually reiterates what I have been arguing and saying before." 3. But the actual quote does not support Pro in the slightest. Consider, voters whether this is worth voting sources to Con. So, Pro's claim that don't exist is unsupported and bereft of credibility. - Pro admits that "There is no conceptual problem with an infinite set ' countable or uncountable '" (sic) of possible or conceivable universes." That's a turn, a slam dunk for me. Infinite universes are "possible," according to Pro. Pro's case is dead. - Pro cites David Hilbert (of Hilbert's Hotel fame). Hilbert didn't like infinities the way Einstein didn't like quantum mechanics, the way Pythagoras didn't like irrational numbers, the way Schrödinger didn't like uncollapsed probability waves. Hilbert illustrated ways in which infinities seem strange to people who are used to finite numbers, but you can't prove that the French language doesn't exist by showing that it seems strange to English speakers. Hilbert no more proved that infinities don't exist than Einstein proved god doesn't play dice. [4] You can't prove that imaginary numbers (numbers involving the square root of minus one) don't exist by throwing up your hands and saying, "It's too weird! I don't believe it!" They are weird, but they do in fact describe the physical world. Computer technology is based on irrational numbers. If irrational numbers weren't true, microprocessors wouldn't work. Do infinities describe the actual universe? I don't know. George Ellis doesn't know. Physics professors Tom Manny and Larry Weaver don't know. [1] I don't think Pro knows either. But he has undertaken to prove that infinities don't exist, and he has failed. - Pro claimed some people have theorems, and asks readers believe, in effect, that theorems make things true. I offered Pro opportunity to clarify: Do his experts believe their theorems describe reality? Are they true? Pro would need conclusive quotations in support, because we know by now not to trust his representations of what his sources believe. But, in any case, Pro declined to answer. Instead he tried to shift the burden of proof to me, asking me to provide conflicting theorems. In effect, he has dropped this line of argument. - Pro says I misrepresented Steven Hawking, whose name he persists in misspelling even after being corrected. Pro quotes Hawking, in A Brief History of Time as saying that we don't know what happened before the big bang so we should say that nothing happened. That's like saying that if footprints appear out of the surf, that we should assume that somebody materialized there at the shore. (I'm not making fun of Hawking, whose point is that there's no point in speculating on what happened before the big bang: We just don't know.) Asimov used similar language. We don't know what happened before, so we can call that the beginning. In fact, every professional I've read on the subject has used similar language. They don't know. There's no point in talking about it. Let's call that the start. But Pro tries to portray this as a claim that the universe actually started at the big bang. This is improper. In fact, A Brief History of Time sets out Hawking's belief: Time is finite but unbounded. [2] That is, time doesn't go back infinitely, but neither does it have a beginning. (Hawking believes in "imaginary time" [time measured in terms of the square root of minus one], which is every bit as confusing to me as infinities, but Hawking---Pro's chosen authority---believes it is real.) "Finite but unbounded" makes no sense to me. But, once we get into quantum mechanics, as J. B. S. Haldane, said "in Possible Worlds and Other Papers (1927), p. 286: The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." [3] The point is that Pro misrepresented not only Hawking's belief, but the Hawking quotation that Pro provided. Voters, again, consider this misrepresentation if you vote points for sources. But a question remains: Are physicists just saying we should, as a practical matter, treat the big bang as the beginning? Or do they actually believe it is the beginning. After all, when experts write for laymen, they say the uncertainty principle consists of not knowing both velocity and location. But they really believe that, beyond certain limits, if the location is known, the velocity is not true. Could it be that physicists do a similar thing, just calling the big bang the beginning for laymen, but believing among themselves that it really is the beginning? I asked Professor of Physics Larry Weaver, PhD, what the consensus is among physicists. His answer: "Nobody knows what happened before the big bang. Nobody knows what happened before the big bang. Nobody knows what happened before the big bang." It appears that Physics does not support Pro's claim. Pro based his case on a scientific consensus that does not in fact exist. - Conclusion: - Please forgive me for not having space to get to the rest of Pro's claims. It takes longer to clear up misrepresentations than to make them. - What can we say for sure about Pro's case? Most of his claims are false. No identifiable case can be constructed from his true claims. - Pro has the burden of proof. He failed to carry it. - Please extend all of my arguments. - Please generalize: Each of Pro's claims that I had space to consider proved false. - Please vote Con for persuasiveness. Please vote Con for sources. Footnotes: 1. Personal conversation with Physicists Tom Manny and Larry Weaver. I talked to others, too, but I don't remember their names. Not one of them ever came down on Pro's side of this argument. 2. A Brief History of Time, Steven Hawking. 3. http://en.wikiquote.org... 4. http://en.wikiquote.org...