<p>I don't see the proof there. Care to explain it to one of the skeptic idiots? </p>
<p>Something else because i did not get the baseball thing: Infinite digress is impossible? Why does there have to exist a first cause. Why don't we take the open interval of rational numbers (0,1) and sequence all of the numbers. This is possible since the rationals are countable. What is the "first" number in this sequence? If you don't agree with this. Then how about we sequence events at rational points in time. Starting with now. where n is now. (0,n] or [0,n] We know that this sequence is bounded below by zero, and that it is monotonically decreasing. Thus it converges. What we do not know is if this sequence includes zero or not, i.e if it is an open or closed set. Thus it is possible for one to have a infinite regress.</p>
<p>EVEN IF, you establish that there is a first cause, you know nothing else. You do not know how the first cause "caused" the universe. If you define this first cause as God, this still does not prove that he actively "created" the universe nor does it prove that he is omnipotent, or loves everbody or the usual. It just proves that the universe had a beginning, which still leaves the question of "what" wide open.</p>
<p>Yeah, in my mind, whether there was a first cause or an infinite regress of causes is completely unanswerable. I've only been on this earth a mere 17 or so years; how am I supposed to know what happened billions and billions and billions of years ago? (Unless you're truly hard-core creationist, and the universe is 6,000 years or so old, but in the interests of rationality, we'll say billions and billions. And billions.)</p>
<p>Care to explain it to one of the skeptic idiots?</p>
<p>First of all, I dont like it when skeptic idiots are so hard on themselves. </p>
<p>Second, I would be glad to explain it. </p>
<p>Ask yourself, can an infinite task ever be completed? </p>
<p>Infinite regress explains that in order to reach a certain end, an infinite amount of steps would have preceded that end. Yet, how would you reach a certain end if an infinite series of causes came before that end? If there were an infinite regress of causes, then all of the causes occurring RIGHT NOW would never be reached because an infinite amount of causes preceded what is occurring right now. Yet, we are all living right now and observe numerous causes around us. </p>
<p>If we have reached the present day, then the infinite series of causes must be completed up to this point. But you can never complete an infinite series of anything. Could you ever complete a paper that was assigned to be an infinity of pages long? </p>
<p>Ok, if THIS step in time cannot be reached, how about the step right before this one? Could that ever be reached? Or the step before that one? Or the one before that one just mentioned? No. No steps would ever be reached because an infinite amount of steps always precedes any given step. </p>
<p>Therefore, there has to be some first cause, or step, from which everything else is derived, or arrived at, and therefore dependent on that first step or cause.</p>
<p>Ok. Motion is therefore impossible. Before I move from point A to point B, I have to go half way to point C. To go from Point C to B I have to go half way to D. Before I go from point D to B i have to go half way to E. ETc. This is an infinite series. (1/2) + (1/2)^2 + (1/2)^3 ... (1/2)^n as n tends to infinite. If we could not sum up this infinite series then i could technically never move from one spot to another because there would be an infinite number of points that i would have to travel through to get there, thus an infinite number of distances. Your argument reminds me of an argument in Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, something about transcendental reason. New, valid, doubts have been cast upon Kant's arguments with the new sciences.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Subway is pretty healthy compared with the other fast food chains. I feel like getting a toasted footlong cheesesteak on Italian herbs and cheese.</p>
<p>No matter how many posts i make, I can't seem to get past 119. How strange.</p>
<p>ok, well lets see how much I can get through here...</p>
<p>
Well now we're just back to my first point - by stating that everything that exists has an originator, you posit that god also has an originator. Also, I wouldn't call the human brain an unfathomable concept... in fact, it is far from it. But even if it were so "unfathomable", it doesn't prove that its creator is god.</p>
<p>
[quote=superduper87]
Yes, the theory that everything happened by chance also works, but to what absurd extent. Why is our planet the only one with life till this date? Why are we at the exact distance from the Sun?
Are you so naive that you actually believe that our planet, out of the billions and billions in the universe, is the only one that harbors sentient life? Please. The possibility that life developed on Earth purely by chance is not absurd at all, especially considering the size of the universe.
And I'm not going anywhere with the definition of god I suggested. I'm just putting it out there as a common definition that most people can agree on for the sake of argument.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Are you so naive that you actually believe that our planet, out of the billions and billions in the universe, is the only one that harbors sentient life? Please. The possibility that life developed on Earth purely by chance is not absurd at all, especially considering the size of the universe.
And I'm not going anywhere with the definition of god I suggested. I'm just putting it out there as a common definition that most people can agree on for the sake of argument.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>There is a coherent rare-earth model that specifies that the probability of another life-supporting planet in a universe of the size that we estimate is not high enough for any other planets to support life. I don't think that we know enough of the variables that go into creating intelligent life from chaos, and even if we did, could we actually collect enough data on a universal scale to infer a reasonable probability?</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
No matter how many posts i make, I can't seem to get past 119. How strange.
<p>So you say that there is a study that says the probability of another life-supporting planet is super-low, then immediately state that we don't have enough data to even try to get a reasonable probability... do you see the same contradiction problem I see?
And I'd like to see a link to this "coherant rare-earth model", please.</p>
<p>"There is a coherent rare-earth model that specifies that the probability of another life-supporting planet in a universe of the size that we estimate is not high enough for any other planets to support life. I don't think that we know enough of the variables that go into creating intelligent life from chaos, and even if we did, could we actually collect enough data on a universal scale to infer a reasonable probability?"</p>
<p>Because we are only familiar with life on Earth, which is all related, it is virtually impossible to deterime what is necessary to define something as 'life,' or what is needed for life to be possible. With that limitation on our perspective, how could we possibly estimate the number of life-supporting planets in the Universe and the freqency of life occurring on those planets?</p>