I disagree. Atheists, to me, recognize the true scope of science which explains the natural world in ever increasing clarity, and the true limits of philosophy and religion which are never able to definitively answer the questions they have been designed to it seems. When done right philosophy helps us to think more clearly and when done right religion helps us to act more morally, but in spite of all the hubbub they just can't seem to answer fully the ultimate question of existence.

"Big Bang universe from Nothing" wrongly conflates the "Big bang" and the possible emergence of the universe from nothing. Quantum fluctuations (the "from nothing" bit) aren't miraculous. Cosmological inflation (the "big bang" bit) is a plausible hypothesis. "Scientistic", on the other hand, appears to be a derogatory neologism trying to deride people who think that it's better to look at the data and work out how it could have happened rather than just going with what gives a warm, fuzzy feeling.

🙄

@@davidgould9431 You are comfortable taking the most profound mystery -- being-from-nothing -- and with a semantic wave of the hand, CALL it "Quantum fluctuations," thus imagining you have solved the mystery of existence. I, on the other hand, am skeptical.

@@turbogg7213 I have no firm idea whether quantum fluctuations have anything to do with how the universe got here (always assuming there was some sort of nothing "before", about which I also have no firm idea). The scientists are looking into it (and other hypotheses). I'm happy to stand on the sideline and watch the game.

Right! It looks a bit weird.

Thank you for postingd

I was thinking the exact same thing.

Hart has no facts God exists,he just has sophisticated Faith...most Ancient Historians would school him!!

Lauren B kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mLedgKmC39ipo5c.html

Lauren B KEN HUMPHREYS: ON JESUS: kzfaq.info/sun/PLxle3WF_KAEnRFn0q9CXlYNsMLvbgLOJf

Why, Hart is wrong is everything his says..just metaphysical Apologetics and nonsense..Dr Richard Carrier would destroy him!!

Opposite approaches though

University* Livin that hemorrhoid-free lifestyle 🤜🐥

I think its some were in Notre Dame University where Hart works. Depend on when this was shot.

Have you ever been to a mall?

@@RootinrPootine Have I ever not been to one?

Can you explain. It's not a word I use so I can't quite tell how he used it as opposed to what word he should have used.

yes, I think they meant to say indifferent or apathetic

They didn’t

@@paulallenscards they absolutely did

No, I don't think they did. "Ambivalence" can be used to refer to "indifference", but the two terms are not quite equivalent. Ambivalence indicates a simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from a thing. In this context, the term would seem to refer not to an uncaring stance in regard to contemporary Christians appraising cosmology, but rather a genuine interest restrained by the understanding that pursuing the avenue as a course of academic study will not answer the ultimate question being proposed. This would appear to correspond to the stance Dr. Hart articulated. (And in fact, this definition actually comes from his favorite dictionary, Webster's New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition!)

If by cosmology you mean natural philosophy, then you may be right. If cosmology is only empirical knowledge plus the scientific method, then it cannot provide any information about the beginning or eternity of the universe.

@@chanting_germ. wait how are you disagreeing with me?

God is _essentially_ eternal, but an eternal universe would _just happen to be_ (i.e., be contingently) eternal. Just that is the crucial difference. Also the universe would be eternal in the sense of 'eternally going through time' but God would be eternal in the tense of transcending time. Thus, all round, God and creation would not be 'co-eternal' in exactly the same sense, so it would be, as DBH says, irrelevant to the theological concept of creation whether the universe was eternal or not.

Pasquino 0 Please explain why you have a problem with a dualist epistemology and why you think a monistic approach would be better

In relation to the discussion above, my problem with dualism relates to the notion of a "beginning" and a contingency. If the Logos "God" is the underlying principle at work in the universe then as Hart recognizes questions of beginning verse an infinite regression are somewhat irrelevant. An orthodox Christian and Platonic world view are lacking in evidence, as Bertrand Russell recognized. Only a very small number of parapsychologists - on the fringe of science - attempt to demonstrate otherwise. It seems to me, that even if one is going to entertain a dualistic world view, for it to be coherent ie not Manichean, perhaps it must ultimately come under the umbrella of monism.

In short, I think the view of God that is going to make sense of reality as we know it in the 21st century, will have to come closest to a pre-socratic philosophical and mystical perspective. That is a monistic outlook. If we wish to reject the destructive nihilism of modernity then the Logos of Heraclitus will have to usurp the duality that Christianity claimed to have bridged by the Logos of the gospel of John, in order for "religion" to remain culturally relevant.

@@pasquino0733 Brother, I think you need to look into psychical research more. From the kakie sittings, to the replicated EEG and fMRI correlation studies, to the debate between Hyman and Honorton, to the work that Bierman replicated, etc. Frankly, the evidence for psi is overwhelming, *but* that actually is not relevant to the question of theism vs atheism and many parapsychologists think that psi effects are just part of biology and partly rooted in our evolutionary history. I'd be happy to get into the data with you if you'd like, although I really don't think the reality of psi would help theism at all. Secondly, Hart is *very* open to the idea of an infinite *linear* regress. I.e. he's open to the idea that the universe (or the mega-verse) has an *infinite* past/history. Feser (e.g. in his 2017 "Five Proofs") likewise is open to the idea of an infinite past. Aquinas was also open to this philosophically (he denied it on scriptural grounds, but he did not think you could demonstrate this philosophically, UNLIKE Craig, of whom I have mixed thoughts). *However*, there is a *different* kind of regress that Hart (and Feser) deny could be infinite, and that's a here-and-now hierarchical regress of simultaneously-acting causes, which they argue at length and forcefully must terminate with a "First" member or a most fundamental member. They argue at length rather than merely asserting it. You really need to engage their actual (and worthy) arguments IMHO. Moreover, Feser dedicates a lot of space to arguing why this First Member (or why the most Fundamental Member) of the hierarchical regress must have consciousness/will/intelligence or be Mindlike. I am not sure how I feel about those latter arguments, but Feser's case for the necessity of such a first member seems very strong to me, and I'm an agnostic who lacks belief in God... Third, with respect, Russel's arguments *against* theism are greatly overrated, I'm genuinely sorry to say. Mackie was a more persuasive atheist.

@@chanting_germ. You are mistaken on the whole. There’s no doubt that SOME of the research has methodological problems, and also no doubt that a portion of the literature that’s at least equal in size does NOT have methodological problems. French and Wiseman say otherwise, but the actual issues have been hashed out, and I invite people to actually study the evidence (Cardena 2018, Hodgson 1898, etc)

@@chanting_germ. ..alright?

the question theists are asking isn’t “what started existence” it’s “why does anything exist at all”

Paul Anthony, you didn’t listen to the video at all. Listen to it again.

What?

How on earth does that refute harts argument

Colin Dowson how did it “create itself” if it didn’t yet exist to pull that off

Strigoi What I mean is,we have a mathematical model that shows, assuming a Multiverse,the Universe can create itself....of course Theists will say who made the Maths and Multiverse...God is always being pushed back when Science moves forward! At the moment,Science doesnt fully understand origins but neither do Theists unless you can find Quantum Field theory,DNA Einstein's Field Equations in Genesis! Why cite God when the problems get hard!! The Bible is neither divine or historical! What's the difference between Myth and historical Fiction?

That model *presupposes* the existence of quantum states of affairs/quantum vacuum/ etc. It doesn't explain *why* that quantum state exists in the first place. Literally, "the universe created itself" is self-defeating. So it's not even a logical possibility. I know what you meant but I just hate that phrasing. David Albert has a damning critique of Krauss' book at www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html Krauss replied by saying that Albert is "just a philosopher." Er, except Albert's PhD is actually in *theoretical physics.* Ooops...

meow meowmeow Ever hear of String Theory which shows a Multiverse probably exists...you can't keep citing God...that's a fallacy of Composition... conflating Causality with Being!

meow meowmeow We actually have a mathematical model by a Christian at Princeton...which shows a Universe can create itself into another ..more evidence for a Multiverse not God

He has no dog in the fight on whether the universe has a beginning or not. Not whether it's God free or not. He thinks it requires God no matter what.

@@ArchHades Ah, good point. I suspect that your explanation still includes his not wanting to discuss whether a god-free universe is possible. Because he thinks it isn't. Anyway, I was being a bit of a grumpy old man. There is no such thing as a "wasted interview": you always learn something, even if you have to "read between the lines" to do so. Thanks for the heads-up: I should have paid more attention to the preceding question.

@@davidgould9431 There have been plenty of theists throughout time who believed in an eternal universe, such as Avicenna. Me personally I believe because of the Big Bang theory that Space-Time does not go eternally into the past, so there was legitimately a 1st day/a day with no yesterday. But as Hart says that doesn't mean that there wasn't an underlying physical state responsible for giving us the first day. Probably a quantum mechanical physical system. Anyway, Cosmology not only cannot answer the question of God, it can't even ask it. The concept of God is a question of ontology.

David, you are just wrong here. You are conflating “god free universe” with “eternal universe,” even though most cosmological arguments for theism do NOT presuppose a finite universe. You miss understood Hart and clearly don’t know his positions. Your comments are outrageous misrepresentations. Hart has no problem discussing the possibility of reality without God, though he comes to conclusions that you may not agree with. He doesn’t think there can be an explanation for reality unless we invoke classical theism. This is a short interview that barely scratches the surface.

@@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns Thank you for misrepresenting my original post and ignoring my mea culpa reply.

No. Actually he is not. The original meaning of the "God of the gaps" is a God of some parts of nature and not of other. But he is arguing for the God of all nature, not just the gaps. These days "God of the gaps" also sometimes merely means an "argument from ignorance" fallacy that has God as its conclusion. This expanded meaning does not apply either. His reference to the contingency cosmological arguments do not commit any such fallacy. Still there is the common new-atheist usage of "God of the gaps" which seems to apply to anything at all in any context as being taken as evidence for God being automatically a fallacy. But that is not so much a fallacy by Theists, but simply new-atheists rationalizing their evidence immunity.

He's literally doing the opposite. He actually said explicitly that "even if" cosmologists could explain the origins of the universe down to the Big Bang, or demonstrate an eternal universe, none of this would touch on the ontological issue of contingency that he's getting at. He's fine following the science on cosmology, but thinks it's a category error to confuse this with ontology. You're arguing with a strawman.

If you think that's his approach then you obviously have no clue what you're talking about. I would never make such an equally false and uncharitable interpretation of Dawkins, or Harris, or Mackie, etc, so please don't do it with Hart. The fact that Hart is *open* to an eternal mega-verse/multi-verse should be a breath of fresh air to atheists. His case has nothing to do with cosmology. For the record, I don't believe in God.

Eddie King You had this playing in the background while you played Candy Crush, no ? You are saying he stands for the position he is arguing against. The questioner says “You have no dog in the fight of whether the universe had a beginning or not” with which Hart agrees and goes on to criticize those who believe the Big Bang strengthens the argument for a creator God creating from nothing.

@@gyanw9612This Eddie King fella is very good at *ignoring* the philosophical principle of charity.

More like: "None of the working models addresses the point of where the working models came from."

Translation of your comment: I fling playground insults around on the internet to assuage my deep inferiority next to minds of actual substance