Sophie's Room: A Model of The Universe

This reminds me very strongly of arguing with and discussing these topics with my best friend the jesuit priest. Tricky fucker he was. Like every jesuit you had to watch every word for a gotcha in discussion. He also loved this kind of “I will give you a scenario but not ALL the information” nonsense until I started smashing his arse at croquet. The tough kind of croquet not the modern pussy rules. Then he laid off to concentrate, and of course drink copious quantities of good red wine.
As a pastime it filled its purpose, as an intellectual exercise to even evidence the probability of a god? nah. Get real. Its wordplay. Only works on those without outside frames of reference.

7 Likes

IN THE END: Even if someone came up with a valid and sound argument for the existence of a god, all they would have is an argument for god. They would still need to produce the god. An argument, regardless of how lame, is not the god thing.

3 Likes

This is already an appeal to the existence of a light source, and the conclusion is essentially just a restatement of it. It is a tautology. :woman_shrugging:t6:

That is why we can remove the middle, it is unnecessary.

Try starting over without the story if it isn’t necessary, imo. And if it is necessary, that necessary part needs to be added as a numbered premise (repeat this process until you can get rid of the story).

1 Like

This seems–at least to me–to be similar to the Kalam Argument, or the “prime mover” argument . . . which has been repeatedly debunked.

The frosted window–being the only source of light–shines light on everything else, which is reflected around to the other objects, which is why I seem to see the Kalam Argument in these points.

In the “real world” (rather than inside mathematical and/or philosophical abstractions), we see objects and occurrences that don’t have a cause. The virtual particles that pop into and out of existence all of the time are an example . . . and they are responsible for the Casimir Effect, which pushes two metal plates apart.

Also, just because we don’t understand how something happens doesn’t mean we should automatically invoke God. If we invoked God every time that we don’t understand something, then women would still be dying from infection after childbirth instead because it’s “God’s will” (instead of handwashing and antibiotics) which ends the discussion.

It may seem like “common sense” that everything must have cause . . . but common sense is often unreliable. The idea that women are inferior to men is an example of common sense, yet this is wrong.

It’s common sense that all gay people are paedophiles, and it’s common sense that woman will get raped if she dresses a certain way . . . yet all of these ideas are wrong.

The idea that the Universe must have an ultimate cause may seem like common sense, but we don’t know this to be true.

And even if the Universe has no cause, why assume that this means that everything is meaningless? There are other ways to find meaning besides resorting to God. And why can’t we simply appreciate the Universe for its own sake rather than having to use God to define meaning?

4 Likes

Or… what evidence do you have for a “created” light source over a naturally occurring light force? We have a million examples of naturally occurring light sources, and the only ‘created’ light sources I have ever seen were created by men. Can he show us a non-naturally occurring light source that was not created by men? (I can’t think of one.)

3 Likes

You’ve had Sophie come to a conclusion with insufficient evidence. She could have as easily come to the conclusion that she had a magic glowing window. You still have no explanation for the first light source. Am I supposed to assume it’s god? It all just just seems like another one of your bad analogies, like when you compared demanding evidence for god to asking for sex on a first date.

3 Likes

Having offered just 2 (failed) premises in your incomplete first cause argument, and failed to offer any of the “objectively verifiable evidence” you claimed to have for a deity, you want to offer less?

It’s hard to debate unsupported assertions.

A new claim, when will that happen? What happens to the previous claims you have failed to properly support?

It was your claim, one assumes you understood what it meant when you made it, why would I need to clarify what you meant in your own claim?

I am inclined to agree, if this is essential groundwork, then this hypothetical deity doesn’t seem to want to save many people, you can almost here them trudging off disappointingly away from the light.

“Steep is the path and narrow is the way”, that can be arsed to muddle through cryptic abstract arguments that tap dance around claims without any objective evidence ever materialising.

I wholeheartedly second that.

She would need to have a separate argument, like the one @Cognostic suggested of taking a piece of the window to a dark part of her room, to show that the object that is bright by itself because it generates its own light that the argument concludes to is just the window.

But whether the window is or isn’t a bright object by itself makes no difference to her argument. It is not a counter example. As long as there is some object that is bright of itself then Sophie is vindicated.

Could you show how Sophie has insufficient evidence? She thinks she does and showed you her evidence. All you’ve given her so far is a “counter” example that isn’t a counter example because it is perfectly in agreement with Sophie’s argument.

See where I explained this before:

This is not relevant to Sophie’s argument. She is not arguing for the existence of a created light source.

1 Like

Yet it is to yours, so one wonders when we are going to get down to it?

Well science already has a model of the universe, why do we need your analogous argument here? What is it you’re trying to say? Perhaps try to be more clear and concise, and less cryptic, might help us understand precisely what it is you’re trying to do here?

3 Likes

@Kevin_Levites thanks for your comments.

There is one thing I really want to emphasize in response to what you said

No theist with a modicum of credibility in the entire history of thought has ever said that everything has a cause. No one. If you can find one, let me know, because you will teach me something surprising.

The only folks who say “everything must have a cause” are the atheist who craft straw men arguments of the theist positions, and the naive religious (usually Christian) apologists who repeat what the atheists say.

1 Like

No indeed, as they have their special pleading fallacy cocked and ready to excuse their imagined deity of choice from this notion, but I’ve seen apologists of all stripes assert that “whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning.” It is the first premise in the KCA, this forum abound with theists and apologists making that claim.

Oh I think we will need some objective evidence from you to support that absurd claim. It seems like a no true Scotsman fallacy to me if ever I saw one. Incidentally William Lane Craig has repeatedly made the assertion that “whatever begins to exist has a cause of its beginning.” Whilst there is objective evidence to support this, it is the characteristically sloppy and inaccurate wording we see so often in arguments crafted by theists who start with an a priori belief, and seek only to affirm that belief.

The best we can say is that when we have observed and understood something to begin, we also observe a cause, note the tone is a little less sweeping and absolute, and of course immediately doesn’t apply to the first premise of the KCA, as we only observe this within the physical temporal universe, and in every single instance it is a natural cause.

2 Likes
  • Either this other bright object is also not bright of itself and is reflecting the light of another, or it is bright of itself.

WTF?
Are you reading your own argument? What other bright object? How did you get to a bright object? All you have is light. You can’t even assert it is coming through a frosted window at this point. How does she know it is coming through the window? How did she figure out it is not manifesting in the room and going out of the window? You are applying what we already know about light and light sources to sophi, a woman trapped in a dark room. You argument isn’t going to fly. Move on., What do you have for a god thing.

6 Likes

Just for once can I say “Told ya so!” Jesuit trickery without the finesse. I dearly adored Fr Fagan he taught me so much about this kind of trickery. And how to imbibe quality red wine coupled with a really vicious form of croquet. His bishop actually cursed at me after I sent him into the further reaches of the rhododendrons for the third time in a row. Good times. .

4 Likes

I smell something burning…stick a fork in it…

1 Like

Instead, when challenged, s/he added to the story:

And,

6 Likes

Oh for fuck sake… is he still trying to rescue the frigging analogy? Dude, just give us a reasonable argument for your god thing, and please don’t make it a lame first-cause argument. Do you know how many times the God of the Gaps has been debunked?

2 Likes

Well, I know, but to reveal that would likely require far more than a single post…

3 Likes

I could do it, but first can someone give a lengthy explanation of what they expect this debunking to be? :face_with_raised_eyebrow: :smirk:

1 Like

Hi there - I’ve gotten really sick so I’m gonna keep ignoring y’all for a few more days until I come back to something half resembling life. :wave: