Nothing's the matter with atheistic materialism

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Dad-O-Lot
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Excellent article from Word on Fire.

Nothing's the matter with atheistic materialism

Quote:

The central problem with atheistic materialism is nothing, really. Metaphysical nothing, to be exact.

Any worldview, including atheism, should be able to give some sort of coherent answer to the rudimentary question of why the universe exists. I don't mean, "Why does this universe exist rather than another?" I mean, "Why does there exist anything, rather than nothing?"

Dr. Victor Stenger, in a recent Huffington Post piece on how to debate religion, claims to have an answer. It turns out to be the standard materialist response given by many atheist scientists:
Quote:

How can something come from nothing? "Nothing" is notoriously difficult to define. To define it you have to give it some property. But then if it has a property it is not "nothing." So this is an incoherent question unless you define nothing as an empty vacuum.
There are several reasons why this answer is wrong, even incoherent and self-refuting:
So, what is "nothing"?
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Dad-O-Lot
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exactly: and it is still "in our universe". It has dimensionality. A true "nothing" from which a universe comes; would ostensibly have no dimensions.
People of integrity expect to be believed, when they're not, they let time prove them right.
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Sapper Redux
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Dad-O-Lot said:

exactly: and it is still "in our universe". It has dimensionality. A true "nothing" from which a universe comes; would ostensibly have no dimensions.


Are you going "no true Scotsman" on the concept of "nothing"? It seems like you assume a duality between "something" and "nothing" in which nothing must be the absense of everything. But what support is there for that?
Dad-O-Lot
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Dr. Watson said:

Dad-O-Lot said:

exactly: and it is still "in our universe". It has dimensionality. A true "nothing" from which a universe comes; would ostensibly have no dimensions.


Are you going "no true Scotsman" on the concept of "nothing"? It seems like you assume a duality between "something" and "nothing" in which nothing must be the absense of everything. But what support is there for that?
I think it reflects an inherent problem with trying to describe a state of being prior to an existence of the universe. We use the word "nothing", but then can only define or describe it within the context of the universe we know.

We are relegated to using analogies and metaphors.
People of integrity expect to be believed, when they're not, they let time prove them right.
Aggrad08
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I don't understand the supposed superiority of pretending at knowledge vs acknowledgement of ignorance. Nor do I see how an eternal universe, or at least some part of it needs answering "how did this come from nothing" anymore than "how did an omnipotent being come from nothing".
We can't imagine anything coming from nothing, which is why I think nothing never was. Whether you are a theist or not you don't think there was ever nothing.
kurt vonnegut
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Aggrad08 said:

I don't understand the supposed superiority of pretending at knowledge vs acknowledgement of ignorance. Nor do I see how an eternal universe, or at least some part of it needs answering "how did this come from nothing" anymore than "how did an omnipotent being come from nothing".
We can't imagine anything coming from nothing, which is why I think nothing never was. Whether you are a theist or not you don't think there was ever nothing.
ramblin_ag02
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This is one of the oldest problems in philosophy

https://cot.gbcnv.edu/~schwandt/S10_FPs_pub/John_S/nothingness.html

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/

Turns out that trying to use an absolute version of nothing makes the universe into a fairly absurd place. It's also not somewhere that theology necessarily has an edge. It wasn't until a bit later that Christians and some Jews believed in creation ex nihilo instead of molded from some preexisting matter. Even once creation from nothing was standard teaching God was there always. So even in Christianity the idea of pure nothingness doesn't really apply
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Quad Dog
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What's wrong with saying "We don't know"
Woody2006
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Quad Dog said:

What's wrong with saying "We don't know"

It's unsatisfactory as hell. That doesn't mean it isn't the right answer, though.
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