God or No God - that is the question (for atheists)

Care to elaborate?If by "causeless in the classical sense", do you mean that it is not fully known how the event could have come about naturally. There is no obervational evidence for abiogenesis nor for one species changing into another. It may not be classical science but it is still science (or at least the proponants of it would say it is). Cause is assumed to be there - even if it is not yet known.Can you mention one area of scientific activity where cause is not presumed to lie behind the current state of knowledge. I would have thought that Science is the very pursuit of prior cause to each observation.You're right: that "there must be a cause" is a philosophical statement and is as philosophical as posing the supernatural. Neither is more proofed that the other - given that what is known to have cause says nothing about everything having cause.

Yes, the purpose of science is to find a reason, but there is not reason we can't say "We do not currently have enough information to make an assumption", and "This is the next step to get information". That is what we are doing now.There is also 'This is what we speculate might have happened. Let's see if we can figure out how to test our assumptions' and then test them.

But things DO happen without a cause.
Why does a radioactive isotope decay exactly when it does. Why at one time and not another? The atoms of a U235 source are all the same so why will one decay after a minute and another after a billion yeasr or so?
There would appear to be no cause.And as Rahvin said repeatedly, if time began as the universe started to expand then a cause is physically impossible since that would presume that it occurred before time. Since before implys an earlier time, it is utter nonsense.

No, I mean that events occur, for instance atomic decay, for which there is no immediate preceeding cause.For instance you have n atoms of a radioactive element with a halflife t. After t time has elapsed, half of your n atoms will have decayed. But which ones? It's totally random. Were you to observe an atom as it decayed you would see no specific impetus that caused it to do so; it simply did without cause, as though some kind of internal timer had simply gone off. Well, that's circular reasoning, isn't it? If the only way you can conclude the universality of cause and effect is to assume that it applies universally?We do observe things that occur without a direct cause. The best models to explain those things do not invoke or assume causes. The assertion that cause and effect are universal is simply an assumption, a philosophical position that need not necessecarily be true. The Big Bang. So then it's hardly a compelling basis to assert that the universe must have a cause and that cause might as well be God, now isn't it?

I don't think I really need to repeat myself again. Others have demonstrated other events for which there is no cause, and agreed that the universe could not possibly have had a "cause" that somehow happened before time existed - a straight contradiction in terms.You're wrong iano. Now, as you promised, I expect you to conceed, as I and others have shown that the universe could not have had a cause.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Now wait just a godamn moment.....either you and "others" have privy to some evidence that elludes the rest of the body of science....or you are presupposing a "no cause" universes based on presuppositions. Which is fine, but does not convince.
No one knows the answer to that question (yet). Not you, not me and not even Stephan Hawking.Randomness in the universe and causality are not the same thing. Also remember that the singularity responsible for the big bang is beyond the natural laws the rest of the universe adheres to which by definition is supernatural. IMO. This message has been edited by 1.61803, 08-16-2005 01:11 PM

If one atom decays and another does not, what was the difference between them? What influence did the first recieve that the other did not?There's no scientific answer. Atomic decay of specific atoms is uncaused.

No, we are concluding a "no-cause" universe based on definitions of terms and scientific views on the nature of space-time.If time began at the big bang, there can be no "before" and thus no casue.Other things in nature, like radioactive decay as crashfrog pointed out, do not seem to have a casue either - they simply happen, spontaneously. Opinion is irrelevant. How do you propose there was a cause that somehow happened "before" time itself? What exists on the line before the line is begins? This is a simple contradiction in terms.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Well first off...there is no way of knowing what influence one atom has that the other did not. The whole concept of randomness stems from the problem of never being able to reproduce intitial conditions. Be it on a macro level or quantum level. Schrodingers equations are able to get close enough to pinning down the wave function. But the uncertainty principal still prevails. The simply is no way of knowing. Just as there is no way of knowing all the variables of thoughts within the mind. Even Hawking has admitted this. You can say decay is uncaused. Because the data needed to be certain is at present unattainable. At a quantum level we can not know. At least that is how I interpret it.

If one challenges the assertion that all events have causes with the example of an event that has no cause, and then that example is challenged with the assertion that it does have a cause, we just don't know what it is, then circular reasoning is being committed.Not saying that you're the one committing it, but it looks like you're getting close. The presence of events that have no known cause is more than enough reason to refuse to accept without question a proposition that all events necessitate causes.

If time existed before singularity there could. Time exists, then ceases to exist during singularity, then the Big Bang, then time exists again. If the universe had a cycle of repeated Big Crunches and Big Bangs, then before this last Big Bang your talking about were the final moments of the last Big Crunch. Singularity.

Idle speculation. There is no evidence or reason to assume that the "Big Crunch" version of universal annihilation is true. The expansion of the universe is actually speeding up! Besides, you can speculate about other universes and such as much as you want - the fact is there is no evidence that they exist. It's all speculation and philosophy at this point. String theory is a bit better, but even it doesn't claim some repeating universe. Not really. If time ceases to exist in the Singularity then there is still no before. Before is a term that requires a relation to time - if time existed only as a single point in the Singularity (which is EXACTLY what is understood today), there can BE NO BEFORE! Wrong. Singularity is the point at the beginning of the line. Time existed in the sinularity as a single point, with no past or future. There could be nothing on the line if the line did not exist!

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Fine...
I can play this game.
Does free will exist in the universe?
If the universe is deterministic then free will is a illusion a standard atheist position.
If there is randomness in the universe then the universe is not pre determined. Aha!!!! Free will does exist in the universe!! We even have freaken atheist now on this side of the fence. woo woo. Does the universe have a cause?
Since the decay of a atom is uncaused....SCREEEECCCCHHH!!!
hold on... who said it was uncaused? It may be random but that does not mean that this randomness is uncaused. A random event occuring does not mean it is uncaused. I can design a computer program to run random. I can hit run progam and "cause" my random program to unfold. Ok so my example trumps your postion.. or are YOU going to circle the wagons of your argument.??

No a baby isn't an atheist either. A baby is neutral and has no belief in anything.Your mindset is annoying.

I do not know. And neither do you. Who is making the assumptions of things they do not have full knowlege of?