Counter to Cosmological Argument

Authors note: This post was a counter response to Matthew (@Redsox_239) who said he'd respond:

but instead did this:

Ah well, I got an interesting post out of it.

****

Matthew (M): "Okay so two options on the table..Necessary being or Necessary Substance (like energy). Its true that both of these would avoid an infinite regress, but the former also makes a lot more sense then the latter."

Me/Bruce (B): I disagree. We know energy is necessary for existence & that it exists. Also, thermodynamics says energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. So eternal energy fits with known physics. An eternal being is an unsubstantiated claim, so obviously eternal energy makes more sense.

M: "A Necessary being has a non-physical necessary mind, and comes with intelligence and ability to create"

B: There is no evidence a mind can exist without a physical structure such as a brain. So this is purely an unsubstantiated claim.

M: "A Necessary substance is simply an existing substance. To create it has to have the ability to do something by itself."

B: Nature has the ability to do things by itself via the four fundamental forces, although this is at risk of anthropomorphizing nature.

M: "So it would have to be conscious. It would have to be intelligence to create a variety of contingent things, and power to do anything. This just starts to sound like a necessary being."

B: As noted above, nature has forces in place that remove the need for a concious being to create things. Eternal energy is just energy constantly changing its state, something we know happens, in fact, it's something we see & do  every second of our lives. Breathing, fusion in stars, walking, eating, water boiling is all just energy changing it's state. No intelligence needed for energy to change state.

M: "So clearly a being makes much more sense. Maybe you know about cosmic fine-tuning. This could perhaps be seen as supporting evidence for a being rather then just some substance as necessary."

B: Nothing clear at all about it. An eternal being requires unsubstantiated claims & presuppositions. With eternal energy, it's unsurprising energy would eventually hit a state that can support life as we know it & it's wholly (pun intended) unsurprising we find ourselves existing at a moment when this is possible since it's the only possible time we could exist.

So in conclusion, I think I have soundly shown that a concious being is not the most probable option since it requires going against known physics while eternal energy fits perfectly within known physics.

A brief history of Yahweh

Yahweh started out as a small time tribal god, just one of many in the Middle East several thousand years ago. He stayed this way for a long time until a guy named Saul, aka Paul, (2) pulled off one of the greatest PR campaigns in history and started convincing Gentiles to follow Yahweh (not having to cut off the tip of their dicks really helped increase the numbers). This set off yet another branch (with many twigs) in the family tree of Judaism.

Then Constantine, the Roman Emperor, stopped the persecution of Christians and eventually declared himself a Christian. While his unfettered support for the Catholic Church surely helped increase Yahweh's stature, it wasn't until Theodosius I made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire that Yahweh really spread throughout Europe…usually at the end of a sword.

In one of the great ironies of history, one of the most persecuted religious sects in history, became, arguably, the greatest persecutors of other religious sects in history. By doing so, they managed to turn a small time Bronze Age tribal god into the most worshipped god in the world…but yeah, Yahweh is totally real.

A response to @adikira

This post is in response to https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/sciencereligion/Rrvnj4gNh6w

By @adikira

In my opinion, I have taken atemporality into account. Putting God outside time means my future is available to God, for lack of better words, as if it's the past or in the same way as my past is. The past is set & cannot change, so if my future is equal to my past to an atemporal deity, then my future is equally set & cannot change. Meaning, per my meme you responded to:

P='What God infallibly knows I'll do/did', the fact he knows this outside my timeline doesn't change the fact there is only one option available…that being P. Unless God is only learning what I'll do, as I do it, there can never be more than 1 choice. It feels like a choice, but it's not. For example: 

I have to choose if I'm going to jump, run or roll. With freewill it looks like this:

A) Jump

B) Run

C) Roll

All are equally viable options & God waits with baited breath, wondering what I'll do. Oh the drama!!

With an omniscient being at play, this being knows I jumped, whether this is foreknowledge or looking ahead in my "book" as per your analogy, or sees all of time simultaneously (as some claim atemporality to be), he knows this infallibly & isn't learning what I'll do as I do it, nor can he be "surprised" (he's read every page of the book at the same time). 

So my choice now looks like this:

P) Jump

P) Jump

P) Jump

To me, it feels like I'm picking A, B or C, but it was always going to be P. To God, it's a boring rerun & he's likely nodded off (explaining the lack of prayer response at the same time).

I appreciate the time @adikira spent responding to me.

Meme Cards

Anyone that follows me on Twitter (@Atheist_Eh) knows I debate theists a lot.  I found I was often typing essentially the same tweets in response to the same arguments from various theists. I started creating what I refer to as "Meme Cards" to capture these standard responses. Since then I've used it to capture some of my counter-apologetic thoughts. Here's all the Meme Cards I've made to date in no particular order.

Feel free to use them anytime you wish, I just ask you leave the credit in take (no cutting off my name, please).

Guest Meme Cards

On a few occasions I have turned other people's tweets into meme cards or worked in collaboration on an idea: