Holmes

Well disguise implies a conscious intent and there is none. Yes, it is variation of the argument from contingency I suppose but it is emphasizing how we can reasonably, rationally infer the supernatural from what we know about the universe. I'm not aware that the claim there are "uncaused events" is falsifiable, I see no reason to accept this belief as true. If it is a fact that everything has a scientific explanation then what is the explanation for this fact? You cannot use science to explain science, you cannot use laws of nature to explain the presence of laws of nature. Attributing the material to the material is a paradox. Because "God created the universe" tells us there's some entity that has the capacity to produce a universe and the laws that operate within that universe and that this act was itself not a consequence of some laws but of will, directed, desire, intent - we can understand these concepts because we possess these, we posses will, intent, desire so why is it so hard to accept that as a fundamental aspect of reality? Will gave rise to law, law cannot be the result of law. This is very different to saying there is no explanation at all, if you have a better explanation then lets here it.

I mean is there evidence to warrant a belief that there are things called laws. Please quote my post where I claimed laws of nature have been violated, because I did not say that and this shows that you have misunderstood me.

What a strange thing to say, very strange. Do laws exist? I think I can say they do, so then to what can we attribute the presence of these laws? Is there a law that gives rise to all the other laws? there may well be, there may be a theory of everything but if laws are explained through other laws what explains the presence of laws at all? it cannot be a law can it...

That's right and I think quite obvious when you carefully think about it. How can there be a naturalistic process for the origin of the universe when there can be no such processes until something exists? until laws, matter, fields exist? There can't. My position is that something other than a naturalistic explanation (laws, matter, fields) must be invoked if we want to explain the origin of the universe, for obvious reasons I call that a supernatural explanation and explanation that is not based on laws, matter, fields etc. All explanations displace the explained thing with other - often yet-to-be-explained things, this is a characteristic of scientific explanations, listen to Feynman above.

Because that would not be an explanation, in addition science is about finding explanations it is explanations (aka theories) that give us the ability to predict, one of the main fruits of scientific inquiry. Your position is - the universe has no explanation - which seems rather more vacuous to me. Use whichever terms you prefer my argument is unchanged. Feynman very clearly understood this issue about explanations about "why" (or "how" or whichever way you choose to write this).

No, you misunderstand I think. I'm not seeking to explain the supernatural but the natural. It is clear that something not subject to laws must be the reason there are laws - surely that's something you can appreciate? If you want to reject an explanation for X because it depends on unexplained things Y then you need to stop doing science, everything in science that is explained is explained in terms of things not themselves explained. Science deals with "why" all the time Phi, why is the sky blue? why does the moon always show the same face to the earthbound observer? etc etc.

There's an update to this: https://www.space.com/nasa-investigates-hubble-space-telescope-computer-glitch

Assuming the supernatural is real resolves the paradox of the natural being invoked to explain the origin of the natural, resolving paradoxes is what intelligent reasoning and rationality is all about. Reasoning that leads to paradoxes is anathema to science so how can you seriously regard what you're saying here as an example of science? scientific reasoning? As you wish.

So how can science explain the origin of natural phenomena? how can science explain how laws came to exist? This is not good phraseology, how can you make claims that everything adheres to some pattern unless you've observed everything? how can one even falsify such a claim? I never said I was "doing" science, I said we must abandon science to explain why there is a universe.

Well I say that because to attribute the presence of something to its self is paradoxical, I tend to reject paradoxical explanations personally, all the science I've studied takes that same view too. If someone in this forum said the reason there's a moon is because there's a moon or magnetic fields exist because of magnetic fields I very much doubt you'd agree or regard that as sound scientific reasoning. I "disguised" nothing, I expressed my view as I expressed my view. If you reject the view that things have a cause then on what basis do we even do science? what is a theory if not a mapping of causes/effects?

So you claim a thing can be evidence for itself? The natural, the fact that that is here and we can observe it is evidence of the supernatural, that is a definition in fact of supernatural in fact - some thing that cannot be explained naturalistically (scientifically, laws etc). As you wish.

Really? you really want to descend into such pettiness so soon.

Is that a rebuttal? what specifically did I write that you take issue with and why?

The universe is evidence of something it cannot be evidence of itself and it cannot be evidence of anything subject to laws so it must be evidence for something else, something different, something that is not itself a law. Thus it is an inference, a rational inference. If one is steeped in philosophical materialism, mechanistic reductionism then I understand, such a view insists that all explanations be mechanistic, reductionist, "physical" yet we have no right to insist that this is true, it is a belief and must be abandoned if it leads to paradoxes and believing laws are the origin of laws is such a paradox. Well that's no surprise, again if one believes that the material realm can be explained only in terms of the material realm then you will hold the view you do, but it is paradoxical and we must reject any belief that leads to a paradox if we want to make sense of reality. When a mathematician discovers a paradox, contradiction in his/her reasoning they understand that the reasoning is flawed or that one or more of the axioms is flawed. Putting all this together we can infer that the universe was created in a way that cannot be described scientifically, that was not the result of laws acting on things, so we can also infer that there is a thing we can call "will" an innate ability to act not in accordance with deterministic laws.

God is that which brought the universe into existence, God can be rationally inferred from that observation, it is a definition of God. We cannot logically, ever have a scientific explanation for the presence of the universe ("universe" being all matter/energy/laws/fields etc. that exist) it is beyond the ability of science to explain it's presence. All theories in physics refer to pre-existing material quantities, refer to laws that underpin material interactions, therefore in the absence of material quantities and laws no theory could be developed, the true "theory of everything" would be a blank sheet of paper. The explanation for the presence of the universe (matter, energy, fields, laws) must be non-scientific, therefore scientific explanations are not the only form of legitimate explanation.

I think you're being a bit too generous to Dawkins here, this is what he wrote in English, the man has an excellent vocabulary, his knowledge of English is certainly very good, yet he wrote: Things that are not born cannot be referred to as "people" it is not the kind of language I'd expect from a serious, competent scientist. Dawkins is mainly a pop-science writer though. I don't regard Dawkins as a scientist in any traditional sense, he is primarily a writer of popular science books, his contributions to science are somewhat intangible. Consider this from an article published in 2016 in the UK's The Independent (emphasis mine) I also don't see how you can expect anyone to prove their beliefs, even in the physical sciences we never prove anything as I'm sure you know.

Yes, it may have, I cannot prove that of course. There seems to be evidence that believing in the supernatural did not inhibit the study and exploration of the natural, you can look at the list in that Wikipedia list. Well of course people in the past prior to more recent discoveries will not have been aware of those more recent discoveries, that an always-true statement. Beliefs always change because they are beliefs, there were scientists who believed eugenics was a way to improve society for example but very few seem to believe that today.

The statement "most people don't exist" is not a scientific statement. It is not testable experimentally, it is IMHO meaningless. Consider: most members of the set X are not members of the set X. Like much of Dawkins' writing it is fancy, word play, speculative.

I think the various TV series from James Burke are about as good as it gets when teaching science to the uninitiated or younger students. For example consider this for starters:

Richard Dawkins has a poor understanding of science to be honest, his celebrity is often mistaken for competence. In this though he has a lot in common with many - not all - atheists, a weak grasp of philosophy and the foundations of science. When I read claptrap like "Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born" I know he's reached the limits of his understanding, how one can say "most" about things that don't exist escapes. Most things will never cease to exist because they are never going to exist - see? Dawkins often represents much of what is intellectually poor in atheism and sadly far too many take him seriously.

This arises primarily from the nature of MOS transistors which are used to build everything, even the basic logic gates are made from such transistors. With CMOS there are two switches (transistors) in series and where they meet is the "output" by design only one of these switches is ever "on" (which is where the term "complimentary" comes from, they switch on/off in opposite senses when they are activated). When a state change occurs then the transistor that is on goes off and the transistor that is off goes on, imagine two mechanical switches geared together so the when you switch one on the other goes off and vice versa. There is a problem though and that is that the transition from off-to-on or on-to-off is never instantaneous, it takes time, perhaps picoseconds but there is a point in time where both switches are half on and half off, that means some current is flowing - very briefly - through both switches and that is where the waste comes from. In a static digital circuits CMOS consumes close to no power at all, no transistors are passing current power is only consumed when there are transitions, other technologies can switch faster (or this was the case, not so sure nowadays) but always consume some power whether a switch is on or off. So with CMOS the higher the clock rate the higher the number of times we get this half on/off state and so the higher the number of times current is flowing.

Belief in God and Christian doctrine may have spurred science forward actually. Most of the seminal contributors to the scientific developments from Copernicus onwards all had a form belief in God, in design, and so on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christians_in_science_and_technology