# Questions on Christianity (Again...) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 30, 2010, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952 "2010-08-30T02:13:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/341 "2010-09-03T04:19:19Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > Perhaps the best repsonse iis to ask you how you recognise it as such. > > Recognize what as what? As child abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/342 "2010-09-03T04:22:14Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > Virtual particles are still uncaused, and guess what, > > There is no evidence they are uncaused. They arise from within a quantum field, so how do you know they are uncaused? Bell’s Therem. let me quote the esteemed Stephen Hawking (from the lecture I linked above): > [@](#): > > Einstein was very unhappy about this apparent randomness in nature. His views were summed up in his famous phrase, ‘God does not play dice’. He seemed to have felt that the uncertainty was only provisional: but that there was an underlying reality, in which particles would have well defined positions and speeds, and would evolve according to deterministic laws, in the spirit of Laplace. This reality might be known to God, but the quantum nature of light would prevent us seeing it, except through a glass darkly. > > Einstein’s view was what would now be called, a hidden variable theory. Hidden variable theories might seem to be the most obvious way to incorporate the Uncertainty Principle into physics. They form the basis of the mental picture of the universe, held by many scientists, and almost all philosophers of science. But these hidden variable theories are wrong. The British physicist, John Bell, who died recently, devised an experimental test that would distinguish hidden variable theories. When the experiment was carried out carefully, the results were inconsistent with hidden variables. Thus it seems that even God is bound by the Uncertainty Principle, and can not know both the position, and the speed, of a particle. So God does play dice with the universe. All the evidence points to him being an inveterate gambler, who throws the dice on every possible occasion The key words there are “inconsistent with hidden variables.” Uncertainty is not just hiding something we can’t see. It is inconsistent with even the _possibility_ of determinism. Your statement that “there is no evidence they are uncaused” is factually incorrect. We do not just have absence of evidence for a cause, we have evidence of absence. > [@](#): > > That is irrelevant. If a quantum field existed prior to the Big Bang, then the Big Bang was not the first physical event that needs to be explained. Quantum fields don’t require a beginning and therefore don’t need to be explained. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/343 "2010-09-03T04:24:38Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > Recognize what as what? > > As child abuse. It’s child abuse by definition. Your question makes no sense. You’re asking how do I recognize child abuse as child abuse? What are you getting at? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/344 "2010-09-03T04:27:30Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > You didn’t read what I posted. > > Yes I did. What you posted was erroneous. > > This is, once again, completely erroneous. > > You already said this, and I already told you NO IT DOESN’T. Evolution would require just the opposite. That populations need to maintain stability and cooperative unity. Tribes compete with tribes, but without tribal identity and cooperation, the species would have died. Homo sapiens is not a species that can sustain itself outside of cooperative populations. Humans are not the only animal this can be said about, by the way. Evolution is filled with species who live in packs, herds, etc. including other primates. > > No it isn’t. > > > [@](#): > > > > There are far too many human charateristics and repsonses (global and tribal) that contradict evolution as the sole means of progress. > > What do you mean by “progress?” and what part of this “progress” do you think contradicts evolution? What you’ve said so far shows a deep ignorance of evolution, so you should probably take that into consideration before you hurt your credibility any more than you already have. 1\> Once again you speculate. The notion that “populations need to maintain stability and cooperative unity” is an evolutionary response is not a given. The individual imperative for survival still, at least potentially, may override the gretaer good. Thus murder, to obtain a greater share of scarce resources, is legitimised. 2\> Progress was an abbreviation for the development of mankind. Contrary to your somehwat desperate remark, I have a sound understanding of evolutionary theory, fully understanding both it’s merits and it’s limitations. Evolution, or put another way, purely naturalistic expanations, cannot account for much of human behaviours, including our aversion ot murder, our aversion to child abuse, and indeed the various human responses that have no contingent benefit. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/345 "2010-09-03T04:30:13Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > As child abuse. > > It’s child abuse by definition. Your question makes no sense. You’re asking how do I recognize child abuse as child abuse? What are you getting at? That’s precisely what I’m asking, the clear impliaction being that the word ‘abuse’ infers a moral wrong. But to move forward, I will rephrase. How do you recognise that the rape a 3 year old is ‘abuse’ of that 3 year old? By what standard, by what methodology, by what ‘code’? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/346 "2010-09-03T04:41:48Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > There is no evidence they are uncaused. They arise from within a quantum field, so how do you know they are uncaused? > > Bell’s Therem. let me quote the esteemed Stephen Hawking (from the lecture I linked above): > > The key words there are “inconsistent with hidden variables.” Uncertainty is not just hiding something we can’t see. It is inconsistent with even the _possibility_ of determinism. Your statement that “there is no evidence they are uncaused” is factually incorrect. We do not just have absence of evidence for a cause, we have evidence of absence. > > > [@](#): > > > > That is irrelevant. If a quantum field existed prior to the Big Bang, then the Big Bang was not the first physical event that needs to be explained. > > Quantum fields don’t require a beginning and therefore don’t need to be explained. For possibly understandable reasons, you are reading into Hawkings statements what are simply not there. As to quantum fields, how do you know they don’t need a beginning? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/347 "2010-09-03T04:44:11Z")
Or put another way, where did the energy in the Quantum field come from? ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/348 "2010-09-03T04:46:48Z")
"The violent microstructure of the vacuum has been used in attempts to explain the origin of the universe as a long-lived vacuum fluctuation. But some authors have connected with this legitimate speculations [sic] far-reaching metaphysical claims, or at most they couched their mathematics in a highly misleading language, when they maintained ‘the creation of the universe out of nothing’ . . . From the philosophical point of view it is essential to note that the foregoing is far from being a spontaneous generation of everything from naught, but the origin of that embryonic bubble is really a causal process leading from a primordial substratum with a rich physical structure to a materialized substratum of the vacuum. Admittedly this process is not deterministic, it includes that weak kind of causal dependence peculiar to every quantum mechanical process"(Kanitscheider 1990: 346-7). In other words, quantum physics does not contradict the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/349 "2010-09-03T05:52:45Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > It’s child abuse by definition. Your question makes no sense. You’re asking how do I recognize child abuse as child abuse? What are you getting at? > > That’s precisely what I’m asking, the clear impliaction being that the word ‘abuse’ infers a moral wrong. > > But to move forward, I will rephrase. > > How do you recognise that the rape a 3 year old is ‘abuse’ of that 3 year old? By what standard, by what methodology, by what ‘code’? “Abuse” is purely a word of description with no moral judgement attached. It is treatment which does injury. Observing that an action causes injury is purely empirical. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/350 "2010-09-03T05:54:52Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > As to quantum fields, how do you know they don’t need a beginning? You have the question backwards. It’s up to you to explain why they _do_ need a beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/351 "2010-09-03T05:56:50Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Evolutionary theory suggests that murder would be not only acceptable but desirable AT A TRIBAL LEVEL. This is simply because of competition for resources. If man is ordered based on tribal lines, population growth would suffer from this ethos. We know, however, that this is not the case. Oh, nonsense. Evolutionary theory predicts no such thing. Cooperation is at least as important and successful in evolution as competition. > [@aigonz](#): > > > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > > > Of course I do, that’s why I posted it. The idea that, say, murder is something that should be forbidden isn’t something intrinsic to humans; we had to figure out that was a good idea, and then figure out that it should apply to everyone and how to enforce it. A process that took thousands of years. In really primitive societies murder is often the top cause of death for just that reason. > > How do you know it took thousands of years? You can only speculate this, and it’s unlikely. If during this time murder was considered ‘ok’, then based on evolutionary theory it would be prevalent (competing resources etc), and therefore the population would be suppressed. We know it took thousands of years because it did. That wasn’t speculation, it was a description of history. As for the population, it was “suppressed”. A 90% or so murder rate will do that. And you clearly have no understanding of evolution. > [@aigonz](#): > > How do you recognise that the rape a 3 year old is ‘abuse’ of that 3 year old? By what standard, by what methodology, by what ‘code’? Because it’s a human child and forcing human children to have sex causes them harm. Biology and psychology, not theology. It isn’t some absolute; for some other hypothetical intelligent species sex with children might be beneficial or involuntary (something that breeds by spores, say). Or even a meaningless concept if the species in question doesn’t have children. We can only treat it as an effective absolute because the only children we actually have to deal with are human ones. What makes you think that your precious religion prevents child abuse anyway? You keep claiming that God is necessary for morality, when in reality religion has been a source of evil. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/352 "2010-09-03T06:01:25Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Or put another way, where did the energy in the Quantum field come from? Why do you think it had to come from anything? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/353 "2010-09-03T06:03:49Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > "The violent microstructure of the vacuum has been used in attempts to explain the origin of the universe as a long-lived vacuum fluctuation. But some authors have connected with this legitimate speculations [sic] far-reaching metaphysical claims, or at most they couched their mathematics in a highly misleading language, when they maintained ‘the creation of the universe out of nothing’ . . . > > From the philosophical point of view it is essential to note that the foregoing is far from being a spontaneous generation of everything from naught, but the origin of that embryonic bubble is really a causal process leading from a primordial substratum with a rich physical structure to a materialized substratum of the vacuum. Admittedly this process is not deterministic, it includes that weak kind of causal dependence peculiar to every quantum mechanical process"(Kanitscheider 1990: 346-7). > > In other words, quantum physics does not contradict the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause. Yers it does. You don’t understand this passage. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/354 "2010-09-03T10:59:13Z")
aignoz; If God is separate from the physical, how could He show Moses His back side? He also has a face, according to the writer of Genesis as the writer claims God couldn’t show Moses His face, because if He did, Moses would die. In such a case, God would have shape and could be seen by material eyes. In the case of being in the water and not part of it you are speaking of 2 material things, that is not the same as claiming God is separate from existence. Existence is what is! Either something is in extistense or it is non-existent! In your case, you and the water are both in existence so you can be together though separate. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/355 "2010-09-03T12:35:47Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > 1\> The response related to the questions. Your question is ‘what is God’? For the purposes of this discussion, God is a super-natural entity that is seperate from the natural universe. What is a ‘super-natural’ entity? An entity ‘above’ or ‘different’ from the natural? That fails for the same reason that ‘immaterial’ does. It tells us nothing. > [@aigonz](#): > > 2\> The claim has been made that an entity that is seperate from the universe could not interact with it. My position is that that is absurd, and no-one has been able to logically argue the claim. How does an immaterial entity interact with the material universe? How does an entity outside of time and space have any time to interact with time and space? Is there a ‘super’ time where this entity resides? How does an entity act upon nothing to create something? If you are simply going to retreat to magic, that’s fine, but I don’t see why anyone should take such a suggestion seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Meatros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/356 "2010-09-03T12:37:09Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > > [@Meatros](#): > > > > Who says that something came from nothing? > > > > It seems to me that theists do. IIRC, most philosophers accept the B theory of time, which means, there is no need to accept the idea that something came from nothing. > > > > That said, let’s suppose it’s possible that something can come from nothing. > > > > It make no sense to say that this could be _caused_ by anything - unless you mean something by ‘caused’ that is not what is commonly understood. > > > > To cause something to exist, is to create something with pre-existing materials/energy within time and space. It takes an agent acting upon something. > > > > Now, take away materials/energy, what is there for an agent to act upon? Take away time and how is there any time for an agent to act? > > > > It’s nonsensical. > > Bump Bump again. aigonz, can I get a response? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/357 "2010-09-03T12:51:29Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > Evidence for God… > > 1. Design **aigonz** , So far you have hardly supplied us with any evidence of designed creation. Except an attempt at the First Cause argument. Your other example of a supposed “objective moral law” on child abuse has had the goalpoast shifted to have become meaningless. Neither have you yet given any characteristics of this god, other than that he is “super-natural”. Please tell us more about this god you believe created the world. Are there any more gods or do you believe this god to be the god of the bible? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2010, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/358 "2010-09-03T13:35:39Z")
> [@aigonz](#): > > This is not chid abuse. There a plenty of examples of similar behaviours, including cultures who (willingly) marry very young. You’re hoisting yourself on your own petard here. You seem to accept cultures who marry very young, but in another context you see the same behavior as abuse. That doesn’t seem to be an objective definition to me, but a situational one. Abuse is defined as something harmful (or potentially harmful). An action that’s not even potentially harmful, to me, is not immoral. It’s all subjective. > [@aigonz](#): > > Two questions for those of you who suggest quantum events are uncaused. > > 1\> From where do virtual particles derive the energy required for their existence? > 2\> What is the state of the quantum vacuum? 1\> From the uncertainty principle. 2\> Uh, Nebraska? Huh? > [@aigonz](#): > > 1. Virtual particles arise from fluctuations in the quantum vacuum. These fluctuations prove that the vaccum is not ‘nothing’. So? Stephen Hawking’s own talk, which you pointed us to, explains why quantum events are uncaused. Even though there can be no “nothing,” that doesn’t mean that quantum events are caused. I’m not sure why you’re not grasping this. > [@](#): > > 1. Your quote from Wiki doesn’t speak to the issue of cause. Stephen Hawking’s talk, which you pointed us to, does, and he says that quantum events are uncaused. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/359 "2010-09-04T02:39:59Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > That’s precisely what I’m asking, the clear impliaction being that the word ‘abuse’ infers a moral wrong. > > > > But to move forward, I will rephrase. > > > > How do you recognise that the rape a 3 year old is ‘abuse’ of that 3 year old? By what standard, by what methodology, by what ‘code’? > > “Abuse” is purely a word of description with no moral judgement attached. It is treatment which does injury. Observing that an action causes injury is purely empirical. To abuse is to misuse or mistreat. Of course that requires a moral judgement. ---
**Author:** ![aigonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4491bb/32.png) [@aigonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aigonz)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2010, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952/360 "2010-09-04T02:41:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > [@aigonz](#): > > > > As to quantum fields, how do you know they don’t need a beginning? > > You have the question backwards. It’s up to you to explain why they _do_ need a beginning. You are wrong. You have claimed they have no beginning. The onus of proof is on you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-on-christianity-again/551952.md?page=19)