Re: The Problem with Atheism
Reply #494 –
But let's play some more with this counter-argument that James chose for us:
Imagine C and E are the cause and the effect. If C were to vanish before the time at which E is produced, would E nevertheless come into being? Surely not! But if time is continuous, then no matter how close to E’s appearance C’s disappearance takes place, there will always be an interval of time between C’s disappearance and E’s appearance. But then why or how E came into being when it does seems utterly mysterious, for there is no cause at that moment to produce it.
No offense to Dr. Craig (who seems a nice enough fellow, and both industrious and sincere) but he's no Zeno of Elea!
A little mathematics? He's using "continuous" in an odd sense, much as Zeno did in his story of Achilles and the tortoise. Summing an infinite series of successively halved terms gives a finite result. Similarly, Craig would have us accept mathematical continuity as physical reality — which is plainly wrong.
The "utterly mysterious" he cites stems from his own misunderstanding of the mathematical concept, together with a naive application of it.
The argument's author, Jason Dulle, continues: "Arguably all causal relationships entail some sense of simultaneity between cause and effect."
Can we dispense with his "arguably" and "some sense of"…? Good! (Because, in this case, they're weasel words!) So, he seems not to have heard of Einstein's theories of Relativity, too… But he gets it almost right, nonetheless.
What he fails to take heed of is the nature of physical reality.
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In this case it's Hawking who changed the definition of cause and thought no one would notice. Context, dude!
Come now, ersi, why would you expect a 20th century theoretical physicist and mathematician — to use Ancient/Medieval definitions? For terms of physics? Dude!