Ultimate Rube Goldberg

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I just made a random reference to Rube Goldberg in another thread. Like, just before you posted this thread.

Spooky.
 
I know it'll bug some folks to hear me say this, but I'll say it any way.

Watching that video, I couldn't help but think of God.

But that's just me. . .
 
I know it'll bug some folks to hear me say this, but I'll say it any way.

Watching that video, I couldn't help but think of God.

But that's just me. . .

Thats a perfectly reasonable thing to think :) I dont see why that should bother anyone. Saying that God god the ball rolling, so to speak, shouldnt interfere with the beliefs of even the hardest of atheists. And isnt it more inspiring for those with religious beliefs to embrace it all as the work of God rather than deny the accepted science? The final sentence of the video sums it all up, doesnt it?
 
This thread is ironic, because I'm building a Rube Goldberg project for my physics class right now.
 
I have a problem with God as a first cause argument, it accepts natural explanations for everything in the universe since the big bang but introduces an explanatory block for cosmogony with the God based explanation.

There is no good reason to believe that there was a creative intelligence behind the formation of the universe, and it's arrogant to maintain anything other than proper agnosticism about how the universe formed until we have more knowledge.

The wonderful complexity of the biological world is entirely explicable through evolution, it removes intelligence from the process of design and crafts exquisite biological machines without any outside interference. We can't use biology to prove God, every beautiful thing in nature was generated by natural laws acting on regular matter with no anticipation or foresight towards humans (no intelligent designer or elan vital).

If we look at more fundamental issues such as the origins of matter, energy, and space-time (all questions of physics) I don't see a point where anybody can justify theological explanations. There are tricky and deep problems in physics, but these don't lend support for God based explanations, there is nothing supernatural about the universe itself so why introduce a magic wand at the big bang?

Positing God as a first cause explains nothing, and it closes the mind to potential naturalistic explanations for those big problems. It also suffers from the infinite regress of what created God, for which the answer that God is infinite and had no beginning might just as well apply to a naturalistic explanation that invokes some static universe or multiverse.

The other issue is what role God as a first cause serves people, if God starts the universe and then doesn't interfere then he might as well not exist. The deist and the atheist are in exactly the same position when it comes to living an ethical life, making sense of the world, and questioning claims of revelation. On the other hand the theist gets into a harder position because they must suppose God has created our enormous universe, let it run for 13.7 billion years, to produce one planet with one species in one particular place in which to give direct instructions about how to live their lives.

I find it far more plausible to accept that I live on an island of low entropy in a universe running towards heat death, that I exist because of a long chain of historical contingencies that make my existence vanishingly improbable, and that the universe is explicable through scientific investigation; current grand claims about knowing what created the universe should be seen as arrogant until proven innocent.
 
I had a feeling you might have something to say about it :wink: My point was just that, if someone wants to believe that God caused the big bang, it really doesnt directly get in the way of any other scientific explanations for the natural world, as its too early in the history of anything. As opposed to say, a young earth creationist who will tell you fossils were put there by the devil to test our faith
 
A-wanderer is incapable of letting any reference, anywhere, at any time, in any way, to a God go by without making a stand. It's really kind of tiresome.
 
I have a problem with God as a first cause argument, it accepts natural explanations for everything in the universe since the big bang but introduces an explanatory block for cosmogony with the God based explanation.

There is no good reason to believe that there was a creative intelligence behind the formation of the universe, and it's arrogant to maintain anything other than proper agnosticism about how the universe formed until we have more knowledge.

The wonderful complexity of the biological world is entirely explicable through evolution, it removes intelligence from the process of design and crafts exquisite biological machines without any outside interference. We can't use biology to prove God, every beautiful thing in nature was generated by natural laws acting on regular matter with no anticipation or foresight towards humans (no intelligent designer or elan vital).

If we look at more fundamental issues such as the origins of matter, energy, and space-time (all questions of physics) I don't see a point where anybody can justify theological explanations. There are tricky and deep problems in physics, but these don't lend support for God based explanations, there is nothing supernatural about the universe itself so why introduce a magic wand at the big bang?

Positing God as a first cause explains nothing, and it closes the mind to potential naturalistic explanations for those big problems. It also suffers from the infinite regress of what created God, for which the answer that God is infinite and had no beginning might just as well apply to a naturalistic explanation that invokes some static universe or multiverse.

The other issue is what role God as a first cause serves people, if God starts the universe and then doesn't interfere then he might as well not exist. The deist and the atheist are in exactly the same position when it comes to living an ethical life, making sense of the world, and questioning claims of revelation. On the other hand the theist gets into a harder position because they must suppose God has created our enormous universe, let it run for 13.7 billion years, to produce one planet with one species in one particular place in which to give direct instructions about how to live their lives.

I find it far more plausible to accept that I live on an island of low entropy in a universe running towards heat death, that I exist because of a long chain of historical contingencies that make my existence vanishingly improbable, and that the universe is explicable through scientific investigation; current grand claims about knowing what created the universe should be seen as arrogant until proven innocent.

If you don't mind my asking, why are you so interested in this? See, I know there isn't any god in a meaningful theist interventionist sense, and I know there isn't an afterlife. And I'm pretty much comfortable with that. But I partially know these things by instinct as much - probably more so -than by logic and analysis. So, I guess I'm somewhat intrigued by why you seem to spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff. Speaking as an atheist, some aspects of religious belief, such as early Christian heresies, are quite interesting to me - but only in the sense of understanding human psychology.
 
A-wanderer is incapable of letting any reference, anywhere, at any time, in any way, to a God go by without making a stand. It's really kind of tiresome.

I think that's a mildly meanspirited comment. But I'd grant you that it's intriguing in some ways that atheists are quite fascinated by the question of religious belief, analysing it and so forth.
 
I'm not making any personal attacks, I wanted to justify why I don't have the same feeling that there is a creative intelligence behind the universe, I think that questions about how the universe formed are important and justified why I don't feel any divine hand in it.
 
If you don't mind my asking, why are you so interested in this? See, I know there isn't any god in a meaningful theist interventionist sense, and I know there isn't an afterlife. And I'm pretty much comfortable with that. But I partially know these things by instinct as much - probably more so -than by logic and analysis. So, I guess I'm somewhat intrigued by why you seem to spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff. Speaking as an atheist, some aspects of religious belief, such as early Christian heresies, are quite interesting to me - but only in the sense of understanding human psychology.
I'd agree with being a comfortable non-believer, God strikes me as a peculiar human cultural invention that has no impact on how I live my life or make sense of the world.

I do think that supernaturalism is worth argument and I make no apologies for frequently arguing the point here. Admittedly arguing against first cause deists isn't picking on the easier targets, but I felt it was worth arguing; saying that God got the ball rolling is unjustifiable, and I think agnosticism holding out for a naturalistic explanation is a better position.
 
Thanks for posting that AWanderer. I'll check it out some time during the holidays. Maybe we can change the name of this thread and just make it a place to post interesting science related videos?
 
I'd agree with being a comfortable non-believer, God strikes me as a peculiar human cultural invention that has no impact on how I live my life or make sense of the world.

I do think that supernaturalism is worth argument and I make no apologies for frequently arguing the point here. Admittedly arguing against first cause deists isn't picking on the easier targets, but I felt it was worth arguing; saying that God got the ball rolling is unjustifiable, and I think agnosticism holding out for a naturalistic explanation is a better position.

Agreed, but it is entirely possible for an atheist to take the best parts of the various religions, and discard the rest - indeed, I try to do so. And in my view the best part of Christianity, for example, is the idea of grace. I've seen it in myself, and I've seen it in my friends, even though most of us are 'bad', and not 'good'. There are also 'good' parts with Buddhism and Judaism, in my view. (I will refrain from being rude about Islam, as I haven't discovered anything good in that religion.)

I suppose my point is the knowledge that there is no creator deity in any sense that's meaningful, or the knowlege that there is no afterlife, doesn't particularly make us 'better' than the common herd in and of itself.
 
AWanderer, I watched your Lawrence Krauss video. Amazing. Thanks again for posting it. Though its almost one of the more philosophical things he mentioned, I found his comments toward the end of the talk regarding scientist of the future coming to incorrect conclusions due to the accelerating expansion to be particularly interesting. I had never heard that before. Anyway, keep the videos coming. I'll do the same if I come across anything of interest
 
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