This is to be expected, though. Given that there is an infinite number of possible things that could have existed, it is natural that they all had very low to infinitesimal probabilities to begin with.

...Which makes the concept of an external cause existing, which must be vastly more complicated than us, absolutely less than 0%. ;)

It's an odd question either way. Does God need a cause? Does the Big Bang need a cause?

When Bush Sr. invaded Panama, he called it "Operation Just Cause". Which raised the question:

Q: Why did you invade Panama, President Bush?

A: Just Cause.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...

I do not understand your point about his "Just Cause" pun. Other than that it can mean two things simultaneously depending on how it is interpreted.

They're making a joke.

I think the point was that it is circular reasoning.

I'm not sure a pun this bad is allowed to have a point.

"Just Cause" was certainly not intended by Bush or his minions to be a pun. Remember, this is the same family that gave us "Mission Accomplished".

Conservatives aren't known for their sense of humor, which is usually limited to punching down and demeaning weaker opponents, not insightful self depreciation and candor. Case in point:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_%C2%BD_Hour_News_Hour#Rece...

The "Just 'Cuz" interpretation was pointed out by critics of Bush's otherwise unjustifiable invasion. The US created the original problem by supporting and paying Noriega while turning a blind eye to his abuses and corruption for so long.

The operation plan it came from was called the "Prayer Book", so circular reasoning was the essential justification of its self fulfilling prophecy, just like with any religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Pana...

>Origin of the name "Operation Just Cause"

>Operation plans directed against Panama evolved from plans designed to defend the Panama Canal. They became more aggressive as the situation between the two nations deteriorated. The Prayer Book series of plans included rehearsals for a possible clash (Operation Purple Storm) and missions to secure U.S. sites (Operation Bushmaster).

>Eventually, these plans became Operation Blue Spoon which was then, in order to sustain the perceived legitimacy of the invasion throughout the operation, renamed by the Pentagon to Operation Just Cause. General Colin Powell said that he liked the name because "even our severest critics would have to utter 'Just Cause' while denouncing us." Critics, however, renamed it Operation "Just 'Cuz", arguing that it had been undertaken "just [be]cause Bush felt like it."

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/war-and-rhetoric/

>The incursion into Panama, which came to be derisively known as “Operation Just ‘Cuz,” is the hardest to justify on Realist grounds. The rationale for going in doesn’t stand up to the test of time but made some sense at the time. The Panama Canal was indeed a longstanding American interest. And the war on drugs angle was important, as was the the complicated relationship with Noriega. Regardless, we certainly didn’t go in to make Panama more safe for democracy. Nor did we stay for years nation-building. It was a limited incursion, over in less time than an NBA postseason.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210603051719/https://www.lonel...

>The US reaction was swift and unrelenting. In the first hour of December 20, 1989, Panama City was attacked by aircraft, tanks and 26,000 US troops in ‘Operation Just Cause,’ though the US media often labeled it ‘Operation "Just 'cuz."’ Although the stated intention of the invasion was to bring Noriega to justice and create a democracy, it left more than 2000 civilians dead and tens of thousands homeless, and destroyed entire tracts of Panama City.

I can ask the question, so yes, they do.

God has to have a cause because you can ask the question? To me, that logic seems rather suspect...

I don't know about the logic of it, but I think it makes sense. Everything else has a cause, making a special exception for gods seems suspect.

You assume that God is bound to the system of causality in which you exist?

Why would I complicate things by assuming otherwise? In any case, it seems like a small thing to ask of a diety to at least be capable of manifesting that way.

I demand it, really. Why should I put any stock in a god who can't explain (1) where they came from and (2) what endows them with any authority? It's a very low bar for entry.

You assume we exist. DonHopkins effectively assumes we don't exist, so reaches an opposite conclusion

On just cause ;), cyclical explanations create a giant hamster wheel. Why the wheel at all? So I think he implies the need for a prime mover. I.e. a force outside the system that defines the system. Kinda like axioms are needed to make maths work

Just my 2p

You don't need an "external cause". You would still have the same trouble of explaining that. You only need many attempts, same as with evolution. Life in space can be explained with Anthropic principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle

Nothing can be explained by the Anthropic Principle, it's an observation not an explanation.

"Why did you punch me in the face?"

"Because if I hadn't, you wouldn't have a broken nose"

That isn't an explanation why the punch happened, it is observing that the nose would not have been broken without a punch.

This fits the pattern of discussion I often see about the anthropic principle. Someone (I'll label them the "Creationist", though it could just as well be an advocate of intelligent design) asserts that the probability of things "just happening" is vanishingly small. Sometimes the Creationist cites some generally-accepted science, and sometimes does a probability calculation, resulting in a very small probability that things happened by purely naturalistic means.

Someone else (call them the "Evolutionist") responds with the anthropic principle - that, if no intelligent life had arisen in this universe, there would be nobody here to observe that there was no intelligent life. And this is completely logically correct. It is also irrelevant. The Creationist never asserted that it was improbable that life arose in this universe, but rather that it was improbable that it arose purely by naturalistic means. The question isn't whether we're here; the question is how or why.

The Creationist was saying, either we're here by purely naturalistic, evolutionary means, with some probability (call that Pe), or by being created, with some probability (call that Pc). As far as I can see, Pc is unknowable, even in principle. But the Creationist argument is that Pe is so low that it seems reasonable that Pc is higher. That is, it seems reasonable to suppose that we are here due to creation, not just evolution.

The anthropic principle doesn't answer that argument at all. It gives an argument about "whether", not about "how".

Or to put it in different terms: The anthropic principle says something like, if there are a billion universes, and life only arose in a thousand of them, we have to be in one of those thousand to be having this conversation. (Note that I don't actually believe in multiple universes; this is just to make the probability discussion clearer.) But the Creationist never denied that. The Creationist says: Of those thousand universes, if life arose by creation in 998 of them and by evolution in only 2 of them, it seems reasonable to suppose that we're in a universe where life originated by creation, not evolution. The anthropic principle, which asserts that we're in one of the thousand, doesn't address the Creationist's argument at all.

Unless.

It seems to me that everyone who pulls out the anthropic principle in this situation implicitly assumes that Pc is precisely zero. They never explicitly state this assumption, but I think it's there in their thinking. So for the Evolutionist in this conversation, Pe and the probability of life at all are exactly the same, and the anthropic principle does address the actual claim.

But, instead of being irrelevant, in this case the anthropic principle is begging the question. The Evolutionist starts with the conclusion that they are arguing for. That's invalid logic. That's so invalid that, to the degree that the Evolutionist relies on the anthropic principle to support their position, to that degree they should doubt their position.

(I think the Evolutionist pulls out the anthropic principle for an additional reason - it's easy. It lets them "win" the discussion without having to disprove the Creationist's big scary probability number.)

You say "us" existing, but I think the more interesting way to phrase it is "anything" existing. Why there is something instead of nothing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_there_is_anything_at_all

I distinctly remember being 6 or 7 drifting to sleep one night and suddenly visualising what it would be like if there existed nothing at all, not even empty space but nothing, no Universe and nothing ever happening ever or anywhere. It was terrifying.

It was about the same time that a family member had died so I was coming to terms with the fear of dying for the first time, so I guess that's what triggered this.

That page is strangely far in the Wikipedia game from getting to Philosophy. I expected it to get there much sooner.

The 'Existing' article is the one to blame... 'Philosophy' is there as the second term, but 'reality' is the first term and that one takes you on a pretty long detour

I agree. I believe that the infinite engineering prowess observed in the proton and so many other aspects of creation (Like the eye! Wow!) point directly to the existence of God.

But then again, I've never met anyone who became a believer through observing creation. Just as my confirmation bias leads me to see God in these stories, I imagine unbelievers tend to receive confirmation of the absence of God.

Well you believe in the absence of Zeus, don't you? Then why doesn't that make you an atheist? (Hint: it does, since you're atheistic about a hell of a lot more Gods than any you might choose to believe in. So you're at least 99.99% atheist, or 100% atheist as the number of Gods goes to infinity.)

You believe your argument don't you? But how can you, when there is such an infinity of arguments you don't believe in?

This is word chopping, not an interesting philosophical argument. Truth is exclusionary, and the space of excluded hypotheses is at a minimum exponentially larger than the non-excluded ones, if not super-exponentially, if not some variety of simply infinitely larger, depending on how you count. Appealing to the size of the universe of false statements and/or "things you don't believe" is not meaningful.

No? Atheist literally is A-Theist, similar to amoral being A-Moral ("a" being a common prefix for "anti" or "opposite"). A-Theist means one does not believe Theism, the "belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities."

In which case, by believing in one specific God, one is not an atheist in any sense toward other religions. Believing in one specific God literally means that you do have "belief in the existence of a supreme being or deities," your only dispute is to which one.

Note that a- is a different prefix than anti-. a- means "without", whereas anti- means "the opposite of". So, being a-theistic means that you are "without god(s)". Being anti-theistic would meant that you oppose god(s). An amoral thing is a thing to which morality doesn't apply (for example, weather phenomena are amoral). Anti-moral would mean something that is opposed to morality, which would probably make it immoral (such as a human killing another human that hasn't wronged them in any way).

> imagine unbelievers tend to receive confirmation of the absence of God

Another interesting question to ponder though: Who's fault is this? Is it God for not jumping out of the shadows screaming "I am he, worship me!"? Or is it an unbeliever who makes assumptions about how a God would act, and finds there is no God because he doesn't fit the unbeliever's assumptions? In which case, what is the unbeliever but a God himself?

I remember my first joint.