What is the standard atheist response to this "proof" of God's existence?

[CalD]

@Ethilrist

It’s like opening a new checking account, and you need to start the numbering at check 1,000, because nobody’ll take checks below 1,000 for arcanely stupid reasons. You don’t need to have check #200, or check #1, there’s no logical requirement for it.

I’m not able to apply this to the problem at hand, sorry…

[msmith537]

@CalD

Hi,

I’m not really after a debate, which is why I am posting this here in GQ. I’m after a factual answer.

One argument that I often see for the existence of God rests on an idea that states it’s impossible that an infinite amount of time has passed up until now based on the following proof:

If said I will give you a dollar after an infinite amount of times passes, when would I give you the dollar? Never. Hence, it’s impossible that an infinite amount of time has passed up until right now, or else, the events currently taking place would never have been reached.

I have seen variations of this “argument” presented around the place, I am just wondering if there is a common refutation to it?

Or do atheists accept that the universe/space/time/matter had a beginning, a finite amount of time ago?

The “standard response” is “you are certainly entitled to your beliefs as I am entitled to mine, so why don’t we agree to disagree and not convince the other whose right.”
To address your specific mathmatical proof, there are different definitions of “infinity”:

Definition of a ray - A line which starts at a point and goes off in a particular direction to infinity

How many times can you divide the space between two ends of a meter stick? An infinite amount.
As for the universe being infinite, I don’t recall anyone ever making that claim. Most scientists seem to put the universe at about 14 billion years old. Prior to the Big Bang, who knows? Can there be a “before” if there is no matter?

Also, I fail to see how an infinite amount of time passing or not passing has any bearing on the existance of a God (and isn’t he supposed to be infinite

[Alive_At_Both_Ends]

Missed the edit window…

@Jeff_Lichtman

Again, to boil down the original argument - it says that nothing could have been infinitely long ago, since no point in time (including now) could have been reached from then. But there is no logical requirement that any point in time be reachable.

Are you trying to imply here, as you seem to be, that there is no logical requirement that *now *be reachable? But we *have *reached now.

[CalD]

@Alive_At_Both_Ends

But numbers don’t count by themselves. You have to start the count. And when counting numbers, you can start the count anywhere you please - at zero, one, or -34 if you like. Time is different - it is already flowing, you don’t start it off by yourself. If there is an infinity of past time you have no option but to start the “count” of time at negative infinity. And from there you can never reach the present.

Yes - that’s a great summation. Is there any possible refutation of this?

[nd_n8]

@CookingWithGas

Time is a dimension in space-time. We also measure other dimensions with man-made constructs, but that doesn’t mean that the dimensions are purely conceptual.

This is like saying that if we die off, length, width, and height die with us.

Doesn’t it?

If the observer cannot observe the condition (because we are all dead) then how can anything be said about the condition?

“Honest officer, I swear that cat was alive when I put it in there, and I have no idea how that vial of radioactive what-not got broken.”

[Little_Nemo]

Even if certain individual stars haven’t always existed, as long as stars in general have always existed and have done so at roughly equal densities everywhere in the universe, then every point in the sky should be as bright as the surface of a star. But obviously, you could do away with the static, unchanging universe assumption and an infinite universe would be workable.

Exactly. The assumption that because the universe has numerous stars now, it must always have had stars in the past is unproven. Arguably, there may have been an extended period when the universe existed in darkness and stars are a relatively recent phenomena. If this were true, then it would be possible to have an always-existing universe that wasn’t yet filled by light.

[Derleth]

@nd_n8

If the observer cannot observe the condition (because we are all dead) then how can anything be said about the condition?

Down that path lies solipsism. A more constructive conclusion might be to observe that the physical world obeys laws regardless of what we observe about it (we can back-extrapolate current conditions to previous conditions we didn’t directly observe and end up with consistent models) so it would continue to obey those laws regardless of how many humans exist.

@CalD

Yes - that’s a great summation. Is there any possible refutation of this?

I doubt that time is infinite. We don’t have any evidence that it is and, in fact, the evidence we do have points to a finite amount of past time beginning with the Big Bang.

[Alive_At_Both_Ends]

@CalD

Yes - that’s a great summation. Is there any possible refutation of this?

I don’t believe so, but I would like to point out, as others have, that this is NOT an argument for the existence of God (I’m an atheist myself). It is an argument that time began at a specific point in the past (not negative infinity), no more than that.

[CalD]

Sure.

As I stated in my OP, the argument for God’s existence simply rests on this particular concept.

[Grumman]

@nd_n8

If the observer cannot observe the condition (because we are all dead) then how can anything be said about the condition?

The condition is not affected by whether, 10^-8 seconds into the future, the photons released interact with a human eye. Or, in the example of Schroedinger’s cat, the universe doesn’t go and retroactively kill the cat once you open the box.

[Indistinguishable]

@CalD

Sure.

As I stated in my OP, the argument for God’s existence simply rests on this particular concept.

And as I and a few others mentioned before, this particular concept (by which I assume you mean your argument for only a finite amount of time having passed before now (and for only a finite amount of time remaining from now until the end of the universe?)) is thoroughly broken.

Your argument indicates that no two points in time are infinitely far apart. Fine. It does not follow that the total span of time is finite. Consider, for example, the integers: …, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, … . No two of them are infinitely far apart. Yet, all the same, their span is infinite in both directions.

[DrFidelius]

@CalD

Sure.

As I stated in my OP, the argument for God’s existence simply rests on this particular concept.

Okay, I’ll play.

How does the argument for God’s existence rest on the concept of you not paying a dollar until infinite time has passed?

Or did I miss something?

[JThunder]

@Derleth

No. Atheism, as it is most commonly used, is a lack of belief in gods and, by extension, the supernatural.

Not according to The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which says that in its more common formulation, atheism refers to the active rejection of God’s existence. It’s only been in more recent times that some vocal atheists have been using the term to mean mere “lack of belief.”

Personally, I wish they would just refer to the lack of belief as “non-theism,” rather than coopting a previously established term. Heck, even the word “agnosticism” would have been better.

[CalD]

@Indistinguishable

And as I and a few others mentioned before, this particular concept (by which I assume you mean your argument for only a finite amount of time having passed before now (and for only a finite amount of time remaining from now until the end of the universe?)) is thoroughly broken.

Your argument indicates that no two points in time are infinitely far apart. Fine. It does not follow that the total span of time is finite. Consider, for example, the integers: …, -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, … . No two of them are infinitely far apart. Yet, all the same, their span is infinite in both directions.

Time could theoretically go on forever from this point onward, the question is, could an infinite amount of time have passed up until now? Logically, I don’t see how. Alive At Both Ends has summed it up more clearly than I can.

[Indistinguishable]

What is the logical objection? What stands in the way of the model of seconds in time as corresponding to integers?

There is no integer such that 0 is infinitely greater than it. All the same, there are infinitely many integers below 0.

[CalD]

@DrFidelius

Okay, I’ll play.

How does the argument for God’s existence rest on the concept of you not paying a dollar until infinite time has passed?

Or did I miss something?

The next step in the argument is to ponder whether the universe came in to existence through a cause, or was uncaused. Step 1 is supposed to remove the “Maybe the universe has existed forever?” argument.

[Indistinguishable]

@Alive_At_Both_Ends

But numbers don’t count by themselves. You have to start the count. And when counting numbers, you can start the count anywhere you please - at zero, one, or -34 if you like. Time is different - it is already flowing, you don’t start it off by yourself. If there is an infinity of past time you have no option but to start the “count” of time at negative infinity. And from there you can never reach the present.

I can’t make any sense of this. You don’t have to “start” the count of time anywhere, if there isn’t any start of time. You’re question-begging.

Suppose I argued “There are only a finite number of miles to my left. Why? Well, otherwise, the ‘count’ of distance would have to start at negative infinity and could never reach here.” Can you see the problem with that? It’s the same problem with this argument.

You all seem to agree that time can stretch infinitely far into the future? Well, take that model of the universe, that reel of film, and just reverse it. Flip the t coordinates, so to speak. Boom! A model of the universe where time stretches infinitely far into the past. There’s nothing logically contradictory about such a thing, in itself.

The very fact that we can easily draw up a simple model of time with no starting point (e.g., the integers, or rather, the real numbers) makes it impossible for any a priori argument to prove otherwise. One must use considerations of a different flavor; e.g., empirical.

[CalD]

@Indistinguishable

You all seem to agree that time can stretch infinitely far into the future? Well, take that model of the universe, that reel of film, and just reverse it. Flip the t coordinates, so to speak. Boom! A model of the universe where time stretches infinitely far into the past. There’s nothing logically contradictory about such a thing, in itself.

Time can theoretically go on forever. We would never “reach” the point of infinity, as infinity can not be reached.

An event can not happen after an infinite amount of time has lapsed, hence, infinity can not be preceding me hitting the ‘Post’ button… now!

[Indistinguishable]

Do you understand that there is a distinction between “Time stretches on infinitely into the past, with no first point” and “There is a moment in the past after which an infinite amount of time has currently elapsed”? You are arguing against the latter, but this does not disprove the former. Consider, as always, the integers, with 0 modelling the present…

[The_Hamster_King]

@CalD

The next step in the argument is to ponder whether the universe came in to existence through a cause, or was uncaused. Step 1 is supposed to remove the “Maybe the universe has existed forever?” argument.

The typical refutation of this line of attack is to point out that any argument you use to “prove” that the universe must have a creator can be applied to God himself.

So if the universe cannot have existed for an infinite amount of time, then neither can God. If God came into existence at some point was that event caused or uncaused? And so on.