It's fashionable among atheists to claim that the universe "came from nothing". This claim is often made when they're pushed against the corner by the cosmological evidence for the beginning of the universe.
I have no problem with atheists who, wholly based on faith and wishful thinking, actually think (and want to believe) that the universe came literally from nothing, in order to avoid theism. I fully respect the atheist right to hold to this belief (even thought I think it's irrational).
My problem is with atheists who, in order to defend their faith, intentionally mislead the public, conflating "nothing" (=non-existence = total absence of reality) with "something fundamental" (=natural laws, law of entropy, quantum vacuum, law of gravity, etc.). In this group, belong atheistic physicists Victor Stenger, Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss and bunch of hard-core internet atheistic irrationalists.
Consider for example online atheist genius and intellectual superstar John Loftus:
Rational, sane and honest people, regardless of whether they're atheists, theists, pantheists or agnostic, have the moral responsability to expose this kind of charlatanism, sophistry and misdirection and give it a proper butt-kicking debunking.
In his lastest book "A Universe from Nothing", atheist physicist known worldwide as "Mr. 2+2=5 atheist genius" (see the reason of his nickname here) tries to defend the view that the universe came to being from "nothing". But when you read the book, you realize that by "nothing" Krauss is not referring to "non-being" or to "total absence of reality", but to something fundamental from which the universe began. In other words, Krauss' actual position is that the universe come from something (not from nothing).
Let's read Krauss's own words because they're a masterpiece of atheistic irrationality, first-rate illogical thinking and cognitive malfunctioning: "For surely "nothing" is every bit as physical as "something" , specially if it is to be defined as the "absence of something" . It then behooves us to understand precisely the physical nature of both of these quantities". (p. xiv)
Some comments:
1-If "nothing" is as physical as something, then the statement "The universe came from nothing" is misleading, because far from coming from literally nothing, it came from something physical.
2-If nothing is as physical as something, then what the hell is the ontological difference between nothing and something?
3-Krauss misrepresents the concept of "nothing", defining it as "the absence of something", when the proper concept is "the total absence of EVERYTHING". It is in this sense that something cannot come from nothing.
4-But even in Krauss' idiosyncratic definition of nothing as "absence of something", it is hard to see how something could come from that absense: things come from other things, not from the missing parts of that thing. It is the thing itself, its properties and potentialities, which explains the coming to being of other things.
Consider an infectious disease. It is the existence of microbes (and their active pathogenic properties) which explain such disease, not the absence of such microbies. So, it cannot be claimed that infectious diseases come from nothing even in Krauss' misdefinition, they come from something (=microbes). The absence of microbes actually imply the absence of infectious diseases, not the positive presence of them.
Again, Krauss' fallacy is to use the language of nothing to refer to SOMETHING (in this sense, he's acting like the Jesus Seminar scholars who use the language of Christianity but change the meaning of that language in order to defend atheistic or religious pluralistic positions ).
Philosopher Edward Feser comments on the charlatanism, dishonesty, stupidity and intellectual mediocrity of atheists like Krauss: "You might as well say: “Let me explain how this whole house is held up by nothing. Consider the floor, which is what I really mean by ‘nothing.’ Now, the rest of the house is held up by the floor. Thus, I’ve explained how the whole house is held up by nothing!” Well, no you haven’t. You’ve “explained” at most how part of the house is held up by another part, but you’ve left unexplained how the floor itself is held up, and thus (since the floor is itself part of the house) you haven’t really explained at all how the house as a whole is held up, either by “nothing” or by anything else. Furthermore, you’ve made what is really just sheer muddleheadedness sound profound by using “nothing” in an eccentric way.
In his lastest book "A Universe from Nothing", atheist physicist known worldwide as "Mr. 2+2=5 atheist genius" (see the reason of his nickname here) tries to defend the view that the universe came to being from "nothing". But when you read the book, you realize that by "nothing" Krauss is not referring to "non-being" or to "total absence of reality", but to something fundamental from which the universe began. In other words, Krauss' actual position is that the universe come from something (not from nothing).
Let's read Krauss's own words because they're a masterpiece of atheistic irrationality, first-rate illogical thinking and cognitive malfunctioning: "For surely "nothing" is every bit as physical as "something" , specially if it is to be defined as the "absence of something" . It then behooves us to understand precisely the physical nature of both of these quantities". (p. xiv)
Some comments:
1-If "nothing" is as physical as something, then the statement "The universe came from nothing" is misleading, because far from coming from literally nothing, it came from something physical.
2-If nothing is as physical as something, then what the hell is the ontological difference between nothing and something?
3-Krauss misrepresents the concept of "nothing", defining it as "the absence of something", when the proper concept is "the total absence of EVERYTHING". It is in this sense that something cannot come from nothing.
4-But even in Krauss' idiosyncratic definition of nothing as "absence of something", it is hard to see how something could come from that absense: things come from other things, not from the missing parts of that thing. It is the thing itself, its properties and potentialities, which explains the coming to being of other things.
Consider an infectious disease. It is the existence of microbes (and their active pathogenic properties) which explain such disease, not the absence of such microbies. So, it cannot be claimed that infectious diseases come from nothing even in Krauss' misdefinition, they come from something (=microbes). The absence of microbes actually imply the absence of infectious diseases, not the positive presence of them.
Again, Krauss' fallacy is to use the language of nothing to refer to SOMETHING (in this sense, he's acting like the Jesus Seminar scholars who use the language of Christianity but change the meaning of that language in order to defend atheistic or religious pluralistic positions ).
Philosopher Edward Feser comments on the charlatanism, dishonesty, stupidity and intellectual mediocrity of atheists like Krauss: "You might as well say: “Let me explain how this whole house is held up by nothing. Consider the floor, which is what I really mean by ‘nothing.’ Now, the rest of the house is held up by the floor. Thus, I’ve explained how the whole house is held up by nothing!” Well, no you haven’t. You’ve “explained” at most how part of the house is held up by another part, but you’ve left unexplained how the floor itself is held up, and thus (since the floor is itself part of the house) you haven’t really explained at all how the house as a whole is held up, either by “nothing” or by anything else. Furthermore, you’ve made what is really just sheer muddleheadedness sound profound by using “nothing” in an eccentric way.
The “scientific” “explanations” of the origin of the universe from “nothing” one keeps hearing in recent years are really no less stupid than this “explanation” of the house. They aren’t serious physics, they aren’t serious philosophy, they aren’t serious anything except seriously bad arguments, textbook instances of the fallacy of equivocation."
It is not surpirsing that Richard Dawkins wrote the afterword of Krauss' book, after all, Dawkins is more or less in the same level of intellectual mediocrity, stupidity and unsophistication than Krauss, specially when addressing philosophical questions like "Why is there something rather than nothing" (which is the subtitle of Krauss' book):
It is not surpirsing that Richard Dawkins wrote the afterword of Krauss' book, after all, Dawkins is more or less in the same level of intellectual mediocrity, stupidity and unsophistication than Krauss, specially when addressing philosophical questions like "Why is there something rather than nothing" (which is the subtitle of Krauss' book):
Astronomer Sir Martin Rees, in a kudos of the book, realizes the fallacy and in order to avoid being part of such a misdirection, comments: "In this clear and crisply written book, Lawrence Krauss outlines the compelling evidence that our complex cosmos has evolved from a hot, dense state and how this progress has emboldened theorists to develop fascinating speculations about how things really began."
But a "hot, dense state" is not nothing. It is SOMETHING. However, Krauss and a whole army of atheists are intellectually unable to understand it. This is one of the most compelling evidences for my claim that these people are irrational and stupid.
Consider Sam Harris' self-defeating kudos of Krauss book "As it turns out, everything has a lot to do with nothing—and nothing to do with God"
But if everything has a lot to do with nothing and nothing to do with God, then everything has a lot to do with God!
The only way to understand Harris in a no self-defeating way, is to argue that the first "nothing" is not the same than the second "nothing", where the latter cannot be read as "something to do with God", but as "without connection whatsoever with God". But this is to concede that Krauss' use of "nothing" is misleading, provided it refers to something (e.g. an original hot, dense state or to any other kind of basic physical something).
As consequence, I think Sam Harris is being intentionally dishonest in his support of Krauss' book, since he understand the difference between something and nothing.
People like Dawkins, Harris, Krauss and others are simply cranks, intentionally dishonest and misleading sophists who are misleading a public composed mostly of atheists and haters of religion, who are equally unable of rational thinking like them.
As atheist philosopher Daniel Came from Oxford University comments, new atheists like Krauss "seek to replace one form of irrationality with another"
They deserve butt-kicking debunking.
Finally, it has been said that "something coming from nothing" is worst than magic, because at least in magic you have a magician who's doing the trick. But something coming from nothing (in the literal and proper sense of nothing) cannot be explained in any possible way, because the entity responsible of the coming to being doesn't exist either.
Enjoy the following tricks by David Copperfield, in which perhaps you cannot identify exactly how the trick is done, but at least you fully know that Copperfield (and his team) are, somehow, the cause of the amazing effects that you're watching (you won't buy into the idea that such effects "come from nothing", will you? Well, perhaps you will provide you're an atheist...):
But a "hot, dense state" is not nothing. It is SOMETHING. However, Krauss and a whole army of atheists are intellectually unable to understand it. This is one of the most compelling evidences for my claim that these people are irrational and stupid.
Consider Sam Harris' self-defeating kudos of Krauss book "As it turns out, everything has a lot to do with nothing—and nothing to do with God"
But if everything has a lot to do with nothing and nothing to do with God, then everything has a lot to do with God!
The only way to understand Harris in a no self-defeating way, is to argue that the first "nothing" is not the same than the second "nothing", where the latter cannot be read as "something to do with God", but as "without connection whatsoever with God". But this is to concede that Krauss' use of "nothing" is misleading, provided it refers to something (e.g. an original hot, dense state or to any other kind of basic physical something).
As consequence, I think Sam Harris is being intentionally dishonest in his support of Krauss' book, since he understand the difference between something and nothing.
People like Dawkins, Harris, Krauss and others are simply cranks, intentionally dishonest and misleading sophists who are misleading a public composed mostly of atheists and haters of religion, who are equally unable of rational thinking like them.
As atheist philosopher Daniel Came from Oxford University comments, new atheists like Krauss "seek to replace one form of irrationality with another"
They deserve butt-kicking debunking.
Finally, it has been said that "something coming from nothing" is worst than magic, because at least in magic you have a magician who's doing the trick. But something coming from nothing (in the literal and proper sense of nothing) cannot be explained in any possible way, because the entity responsible of the coming to being doesn't exist either.
Enjoy the following tricks by David Copperfield, in which perhaps you cannot identify exactly how the trick is done, but at least you fully know that Copperfield (and his team) are, somehow, the cause of the amazing effects that you're watching (you won't buy into the idea that such effects "come from nothing", will you? Well, perhaps you will provide you're an atheist...):
0 comments:
Post a Comment