WRT: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/37765

--- In mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com, "Raihan " wrote:


[Raihan]>
>
> The "3O" God was a misunderstanding (sorry for that) but it has no
correlation with my article, anyway.
>
> I think "3O" issue has been explained elsewhere. Moreover,
beside "3O", GOD does have many other
>attributes as well, according to Quran (for example).

Response: I am not interested about Quran at all. I thought your
article was dealing with the issues of theism and atheism in a
generic sense, hence I showed interest. If your intention is to
debate on Quran, then change the title of the thread. If you try to
prove God's existence through Quran, and then again Quran's divinity
by accepting the existence of God, then you are in the circle.
Moreover, (various concepts) of God was there long before Quran came
to us.

Anyway, thanks that you realized that you had misunderstood the
concept of "3O God". Prof Stenger mentioned it twice in his slide
very precisely. What expected was you would read the slides
carefully and then write.


[Raihan] Moreover his last five points have not yet been proven
scientifically:
>
> 1. Universe can arise from a quantum fluctuation..... .
>


Response: Perhaps your knowledge is not updated about modern
physics. No scientist are saying that Universe has definitely arose
thru a quantum fluctuation, what they are saying that it 'can' arise
thru quantum fluctuation, naturally. Kindly note that no scientific
theory relies on any 'absolute truth', not theory of gravity,
quantum fluctuation, not string theory. That's why science in not
a 'dogma'. Anyway, If we look at latest findings of astrophysics,
the beginning of the universe can be explained through the
theological significance of Inflationary Cosmology (which has been
accepted by many renowned physicists at this time) and it is as
follows: it shows- how the universe might have formed out of
nothing, in complete chaos (maximum entropy), and have order formed
spontaneously without violating any known laws of physics. That is
to say- it provides an economical explanation about the origin of
the universe without creation or design hypothesis.

Indeed a universe can arise through a quantum fluctuation and Edward
Tryon was first to publish this idea in Nature, one of the
leading scientific journal in 1973. With appearance of the
inflationary cosmology in 80s, several physicists developed models
in which inflation is triggered by an initial quantum event. Here
are some:

David Atkatz and Heinz Pagels, "Origin of universe as Quantum
Tunneling effect" Physical review D25 (1982): 2065-73;

S.W. Hawking and I.G.Moss "Supercooled Phase Transitions in the very
early Universe", Physics letters B110(1982):35-38;

Alexander Vilenkin, "Creation of Universe from Nothing" Physics
letters 117B (1982) 25-28,

Andre Linde, "Quantum creation of the inflammatory Universe," Letter
Al Nuovo Cimento 39(1984): 401-405 etc.

I am giving a link of Alexander Vilenkin's famous paper describing a
mathematical derivation of how Universe can arise from nothing
through quantum tunneling process. This is one of his earliest works
and was published in the reputed physics journal, Physics Letters.

http://www.mukto-mona.com/science/physics/a_vilinkin/universe_from_nothing.pdf

Also take a look on the following paper of A. Velenkin, "Quantum
Origin of the Universe", published in Nuclear Physics, B252 (1985),
pp 141-152 :

http://www.mukto-mona.com/science/physics/a_vilinkin/quantum_origin_universe.pdf

Prof. Victor Steger has also written a paper describing mathematical
models for a Scenario for a Natural Origin of Our Universe:

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Godless/Origin.pdf

Alan Guth, the father of Inflationary model has written a book ("The
inflationary Universe) for lay people describing how the whole
universe can come out out of nothing in a natural quantum process.
Kindly check out the book from your library and read it.

If you think the universe cannot arise through natural process as
mentioned above, burden of proof lies upon your shoulder to point
out the mistakes of the above models. Mind it, those papers were
all published in peer-reviewed journals.

By calling their work "unscientific", you are basically ignoring
established scientific facts and phrasing your own dogmatic belief.



Raihan:

>Some of his arguments seem rather trivial.
>


Response: As if this statement could refute Prof Stenger's any of
the argument! One can use the same preposterous words for your
Bangla article too. :)




Raihan:
> Well, then how Prof Stenger says "How science shows that God does
not exist" in the first place! I don't
>think any sensible person would say that GOD's issue is purely
scientific.
>


Response: Read the slides once again, you will get the answer. Prof
Stenger clearly stated that his attempt was to refute presumed
attributes (such as Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent, all-loving, perfect,
all-merciful etc)
which are commonly used to define God. Those attributes clearly
suffer from logical inconsistency. If you do not understand the
issue, here are some other link to go through:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/incompatible.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/evil.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/logic.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/graham_oppy/god.html

So the issue is, the term 'God' cannot be defined in a consistent
way, cause, its attributes suffers from various logical
contradictions. What Prof Stenger points out - the term God needs some
logically inconsistent attributes, thus it does not exist, just as
a "squared circle" does not exist.



Now questions to ponder :

1. Does any natural explanation of origin and existence of universe
in scientific literatures and papers exist?

2. Can anyone prove any kind of God's existence scientifically?

If the answer of the first question is 'yes' and the second answer
is 'no', then no need to continue the debate. The case dismissed.



[Raihan] > My article addresses (dozens of) varieties of issues. For
example, it has exhaustively refuted the notion of "multiple gods"
for the first time (I suppose) that many people have been using for
centuries....the article still stands on many other points.
>

Response: Kindly read philosophy and science more in details before
bragging your own article, this is just my humble suggestion.
I see you quoted Dawkins probably from a third party source in your
article, without even reading a single book of Dawkins. I am sure if
I challenge you you will not be able to point out the source from
Dawkin's book. You also wrongly address Einstein's philosophy in
your article. So, before portraying that your articles addressed some
issues for "first time", you need to know the work and philosophy of
Brihospoti, Charvaka, Dheeshan, Buddha, Nagarjun, Thales,
Democritus, Lucretius, Epicurus, Anaximenes, Heraklitos, Hipocritus, Socrates,
Plato, Giordano Bruno, Voltaire,
Aristotle, Lock, Hume, Beckon, Nietzsche, Russel, Thomas Paine, Einstein,
Darwin, Jefferson, Laplace, Feuerbach, Stuart Mill,
Karl Marx, Dawkins and many others. Not only this, you have to know the social
studies and social researches too about the origin of religions in the earth.
Preaching divinity of a particular religious book, or phrophet in the Net may
give you emotional thrive, but will not enlighten you for sure. Keep in mind
that the arguments for the Existence of a God (such as design argument,
cosmological arguments, moral argument, ontological argument, transcendental
argument etc.) has been refuted so many times. Unfortunately, you did not
address any new straw in the stalks of theistic arguments in your article.

Avijit.