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

Great Debates
121

But I didn’t assume it’s finite. My model makes no assumption either way.

As soon as you apply an infinite number line to represent time, you’ve failed. You’ve assumed the universe is infinite. You can’t do that. I do not accept the very first building block of the premise. You can put no “dot on zero” to represent right now, because that assumes you can have a “now” after an infinite amount of time (is that possible? Isn’t that what we’re testing for? Why have you assumed to be true the very thing we are testing for?) It’s an assumption, and a model-breaking assumption.

You can not get to zero if you start the count at negative infinity, you can not “get to zero” to put the dot there.

At no point, anywhere in my model, do I assume either an infinite or a finite universe to be true, and then draw conclusions based on it.

122

John: I wonder what that girl’s name is

Sam: I wonder too

John: Well, we can at least agree that her name must have at least two letters

Sam: Hm… Yeah, ok, that seems reasonable enough

short silence as John thinks

John: Aha! Look here: I’ve proven that whatever her name is, since it has at least two letters in it, it must start with a vowel.

Sam: But couldn’t it be Mary?

John: I don’t follow…

Sam: I mean, isn’t Mary still on the table of possibilities? It’s got at least two letters, but it doesn’t start with a vowel.

John: You’ve failed. You’re making the assumption that it starts with a consonant! We can’t make that assumption.

Sam: What? No! I’m not assuming anything. I’m just pointing out that your reasoning is flawed, because there’s a potential counterexample you haven’t ruled out… Her name could be Mary; I’m not saying that’s what her name actually is (I have no idea what her name is!), but it’s a logical possibility, and you haven’t shown us why to discard it. What’s wrong with the model name of Mary?

John: It has model-breaking assumptions! Mary starts with a consonant. Her name can’t start with a consonant, because that assumes a name can have at least two letters yet still start with a consonant. (Is that possible? Isn’t that what we are testing for? Why have you assumed to be true the very thing we are testing for?)

Sam: Huh? Wait, but…

John: Stick with me now and I’ll again outline to you my proof, without any such assumptions, that her name begins with a vowel.

Sam: resigned sigh

123

It doesn’t need proof. It’s inherent in the word “exists”.

124

No, that’s in fact where his/her argument breaks down in asserting that ‘an infinite amount of time has passed up until now’ – it assumes a beginning point of time an ‘infinity’ ago, after showing that no two points in time can be infinitely far from each other; this obviously leads to contradiction, but only because of the implicit assumption of a beginning point.

Indistinguishable is perfectly right in citing the number line as a model without a beginning, where still no two points are ever infinitely far from each other; it isn’t assuming the infinity of time, it’s pointing out that such a possibility is still on the table.

125

I’m not making an analogy with time. I’m using your argument, but instead of applying it to time, I’m applying it to the number line. It fails for the number line, why shouldn’t it fail for time?

126

Wouldn’t it be great if we could listen to piped in instrumental versions of popular songs while we watch Sam and John?

Apologies to those who haven’t seen the Comcast broadband commercials with the two turtles. If you have then you should totally get indistinguishable’s reference, even though it has nothing to do with broadband or turtles.

127

Infinite does not exist in reality. When you apply an infinite number line and claim that it represents time, and you “place a dot on zero” to represent right now, you have made a crucial assumption - that you can have a ‘now’ preceded by an infinite amount of time. Your model is hopelessly constrained by this flaw.

I know on a number line, you can start at any point, and shoot off in any direction for infinite. But that’s a theoretical number line, and on any number line, you are required to start somewhere, and then travel either up or down, to a finite destination. You can not “travel to infinite” on a number line - you can not reach infinite when traveling on a number line.

128

Also, you need to explain how you can be on a number line, when you didn’t start on it (as infinite is nowhere to be found on the number line).

129

If that’s true, then time doesn’t only need a beginning, it’d need an end, too. Or else, how is a progression from now into an infinitely far away future different from having a now with an infinite past? The direction of time is largely incidental, anyway.

There is no assumption – you seem to be mislead by our experience of the passage of time.

But the passage of time is not the point at all – the point is that from the determination that no two points in time are infinitely far apart, you conclude that this means that time itself cannot be infinite. This is shown to be invalid reasoning by the example of the number line, or a geometrical line – take one of the other dimensions, length. Does figuring out a point anywhere on an infinitely long line in any way imply that there couldn’t be an infinite length left to it, or right?

So, to sum that up again, from the fact that no two points on x are infinitely far apart, you cannot conclude that the whole of x is finite, as there are x for which this doesn’t hold.

The passage of time becomes only a problem if you assume that there ought to be a point somewhere in the past from which to now an infinite amount of time would have had to have elapsed; but that assumes the existence of a beginning point, which was supposedly what the argument was to show.

In other words, if you say that an infinite amount of time must have passed to reach now, assuming time to be infinite, I’d ask ‘from when?’; and the only answer to that would be ‘from the beginning of time’, which the argument ostensibly assumes doesn’t exist, time being infinite and all, since, if there is a point of time an infinity in the past, it must’ve been the beginning point, because nothing could well have been longer than infinitely long ago, hence, there’s no ‘before’ that point.
Thus, saying ‘an infinite amount of time must have passed until now’ assumes a point from which it must have past, which would have to be the beginning.

I’m sorry if I got confused anywhere, I was interrupted by a phone call in the middle of it all.

130

But you can’t reach an infinite far away future, so if the direction of time is largely incidental, how can there be an infinite far away past?

131

And to make life more fun, while there is a finite distance between any two numbers, I believe there is an infinite amount of demarcations between those two numbers.

Hey, whadda know, CalD posted something I was answering without even knowing it.

You may not be able to reach infinitely distant points. But you certainly can start at any arbitrary point on the line. Why do you think you can’t reach an infinite far away future? Just exit the universe and re-enter at your selected point. Simple! Easy! A child of five could do it.

132

Alternately, you can just wait for an infinite amount of time to pass.

133

Why? Hell, why did ANYBODY who wasn’t high give any of Zeno’s paradoxes more than a cursory glance and a derisive, “That’s the dumbest shit I ever heard?”

As for Olber’s Paradox, that’s “the dumbest shit I ever heard” from the initial assumption that there is an infinite number of stars. Near as I can tell, nobody but Olber ever said there was an infinite number of stars, just an awful lot of them, and you know that BECAUSE the universe is NOT wall to wall stars. Philosophers actually get PAID for thinking up crap like that? And mathematicians get paid to prove or disprove it?

*Olber: Assuming there was an infinite number of stars…

Sensible Person: But there isn’t. If there were then everywhere you look you’d be looking at a star.

Olber: That was going to be my point. So, assuming…

SP: What is the point of assuming an infinite number of stars? If there was an infinite number of rubber duckies everywhere you looked you’d be looking at a rubber ducky. That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?

Olber: No, it just SEEMS obvious. Philosophy exists to…

SP: …prove or disprove what appears, on the surface, to be obvious to the layman? Dude, that may pretend to work with subjective things, like the existence of God, but it’s idiotic to extend it into the objective.*

And as for the OP, he hasn’t been around more than one atheist if he expects a “standard” atheist response to any question besides, “Is there a God?” It’s not like there’s a Baltimore Catechism for atheists.

134

Draw a circle on the ground. Walk along the outside perimeter of the circle until you get to the end.

135

There are different sizes of infinite. The amount of even numbers is infinite. The amount of all numbers in twice that ,a bigger infinite.

136

In fairness to Zeno and the classical philosophers, they didn’t have the math to resolve these paradoxes. It wasn’t until modern calculus was invented in the seventeenth century that it was possible to give provable solutions to these problems.

137

Actually, that last part isn’t right. The number of all integers is the same as the number of all even integers. As a proof: If you can make a one-to-one and onto function between two functions, they have the same size. That makes sense. If you have one set of {A, B, C} and another set of {D, E, F}, you can make a function f(A) = D, f(B) = E, and f(C) = F. So, you have one set, X, of all integers and another set, Y, of all even integers. For every y in Y there is an x such that, y = 2*x.

(Sorry, that’s one of the few proofs I know with all the proper terminology and stuff, so I like to throw it out there)

However, you are right in your initial statement, there are different sizes of infinities. For example, the number of all real numbers is different than the number of all integers.

But if time is infinite, then there was no start in the first place. We wouldn’t have started at -∞ and counted to 0. We would not have started at all.

Here are two more arguments.
Suppose we have two number lines. One is the standard number line, which is infinite. The other is truncated so it only has the numbers -10 to 10. For both, we ask, is it possible to put a dot on a number infinitely to the right of zero? In both cases, the answer is no. Since one is finite, and the other is infinite, clearly the answer to that question gives no indication as to whether the whole thing is finite or infinite.

Now, suppose a magically perfect clock. It’s perfectly accurate, never wears down, and isn’t cyclical. It just displays a number. Right now, that number is N. One second ago, it displayed (N-1). A second before that it was (N-2). A billion seconds ago it was (N-10^9). A googol seconds ago it displayed (N-10^100). Obviously, it has never displayed -∞. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is an X such that the clock displayed (N-X), but not (N-X-1). Remember, saying “Well, it had to start at some time”, is assuming that it started.

138

You’re assuming there’s a start…

One way the temporal structure of the universe could be, which the premises of your argument do not rule out, is like the following:

Today, I am at 3.
Yesterday, I was at 2.
The day before, at 1.
The day before that, at 0.
The day before that, at -1.
The day before that, at -2.
…
However, there was no first day.

Today, I am at 3.
Tomorrow, I will be at 4.
The day after that, at 5.
…
However, there is no last day.

On day -94, someone said to me “If you wait for an infinitely long time, starting now, I’ll give you a dollar”. Pity; it’s only been 97 days so far. Sly businessman, that fellow. I’ll never get that dollar.

Come to think of it, I got the same offer yesterday, too. And last week. People keep making these offers, and no one is ever able to redeem them.

All the same, look back at the “calendar” above. There was no first day, just as there is no last day.

Since the premises of your argument do not rule out such a possibility, your argument is invalid in making a conclusion incompatible with such a possibility.

139

That’s the standard line. But it’s bullshit. You don’t need the calculus to see the problem with these paradoxes; an unsupported inference is an unsupported inference.

Consider the most basic, most famous of Zeno’s paradoxes: in order to move a distance, one must first move half that distance. Thus, in order to move 1 mile away, one must first move 1/2 a mile away. And then one must move to 3/4 a mile away. And then to 7/8 a mile away. And then to… . There are infinitely many such points we have to move to before we can get to 1 mile away. At this point, we are encouraged to throw our hands up and say “We can’t possibly complete this supertask in finite time”

Only that last step is manifestly fallacious. Forget calculus, forget infinite sums, none of that is needed. Just look at the basic argument being proposed: “If there are infinitely many events which occur between times A and B, then A and B cannot be finitely far apart.” Why not? Just look at the number line, at the very example you’ve just pointed out: 0 and 1 are manifestly finitely far apart (a distance of 1, quite finite indeed), and yet there are infinitely many points inbetween them. There’s no good reason in the world to think an infinite number of points can’t lie in a finite interval; you don’t need calculus to see that this is a spurious, clearly false assumption.

140

Indeed. Zeno’s paradox essentially halves the moment of time per each movement.