Negative atheism? (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, December 23, 2014, 21:09 (3413 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: (Under “Yellowstone”): As for other universes. Of course God might have done this before. He has eternities. But we are here now. Let's just discuss this one. We can't learn anything about past ones before the BB. -We are dealing only in hypotheses here. You believe that life and our universe are too complex to have arisen by chance, and the odds against chance are too astronomical to even consider. Some atheists hypothesize that our universe sprang from nothing. You believe that is not possible, and hypothesise that life and our universe were created by a first cause conscious mind that has always existed. I have pointed out that the odds against chance would not be so astronomical if our universe had been preceded by countless billions of others. You have agreed that your God might have done it before - and since he has eternities, there is no limit to the number of universes he might have created. However, instead of your hypothetical first cause conscious energy, I have offered hypothetical first cause non-conscious energy forever transmuting itself into matter - or into universes. Countless billions of them. And so the odds against chance are no longer so astronomical. You cannot escape the problem of what preceded the BB, and none of us can do anything except hypothesise. Of course you are free to favour one hypothesis over the other, but since your whole hypothesis depends on what preceded the BB, you can hardly dismiss other hypotheses on the grounds that we don't know what preceded the BB.