Some Flaws in Creationist Epistimology
Creationists reason as if there were a binary choice:: Currently Accepted Scientific Theory vs. Biblical Literalism. This dichotomy is irrational, and it's at the heart of why nobody who understands science takes Young Earth Creationists very seriously in intellectual terms
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A process need not be "sapient" to "create" things in the sense of causing greater order to come into being. The more we study the Universe, the more we discover evolutionary processes operating in it, and all of them are similar. The products of some random, heritable variation are filtered through some sort of selection, imposed by the environment, and then the variation and selection are reiterated. Galaxies, star systems, and life all come about through such processes.
There is also no evidence that there is any god or gods who are sapient and capable of creating anything -- let alone benevolent to ourselves. The reason why, faced with a gap in our knowledge, we choose to imagine Zeus or Yahweh filling it, rather than Azathoth or Satan, is purely based on our emotional preference to have a being we can conceptualize as an approachable if sometimes irascable dominant-male creature (like our fathers and grandfathers) instead of an indifferent or malign cosmic force). And the emotional preference is really and painfully obvious, as are the reasons for it.
The cause of the universe must be something outside and beyond the universe.
Not necessarily -- though I incline to that -- it may be that what we think of as a "universe" may occur as a quantum fluctuation in a larger and longer-lasting Universe of, mostly, Nothingness. However, I think it's much more likely that our Universe descended from an earlier one -- there are clues to this in the synchronization of physical constants in ways that not only permit but demand the extensive formation of singularities. One obvious possibility is that Universes are, essentially, alive -- and reproductive.
That'a a long way from saying what exactly that supernatural cause is, but it does defeat naturalism.
This assumes that "outside our Universe" is identical to "not natural." This in turn is a relic of a Ptolemaic Cosmology, in which the Earth is "natural" but what lies outside it is progressively "above Nature" (because the Earth is the center of the Universe and each crystal sphere is further out).
If there are multiple Universes -- a theory for which we are starting to see astrophysical evidence -- they are every much a part of Nature as is our own, just like multiple planets are natural and multiple stars are natural and multiple galaxies are natural, etc. etc. We're simply discovering that our world is larger than we imagined fifty ago, that's all -- let alone than we imagined five thousand years ago.
I am flummoxed by the apparent utter ignorance of the modern scientific community that the discipline of metaphysics even exists. I cannot help but attribute it to denial.
I attribute it to most of them being aware that the argument you presented is based on unproven, and in some cases disproven, assumptions of the Medieval Scholastics.
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There is also no evidence that there is any god or gods who are sapient and capable of creating anything
Oh, rubbish. Complete utter hogswallow. This is exactly what I meant in my post about category errors and unacknowledged presuppositions. There is ALL SORTS of evidence of the supernatural. There is no evidence of the supernatural that is provable by natural physical science. Natural things that are claimed to be the results of supernatural causes can be evaluated by science, but about the supernatural causes themselves, natural science must be silent. The category mistake is this: why should (and indeed, how can) the supernatural be evaluated by a scientific method designed to evaluate natural things? Your unstated presupposition is: "Only natural things, which can be evaluated by natural science, exist." It's fine if you want to believe that, but (a) you should admit it openly, and (b) this belief, in itself, cannot be proven by natural science alone.
The reason why, faced with a gap in our knowledge, we choose to imagine Zeus or Yahweh filling it [...]
I specifically said earlier: That's a long way from saying what exactly that supernatural cause is. How is your exercise in pop psychoanalysis pertinent to what I said?
Not necessarily -- though I incline to that -- it may be that what we think of as a "universe" may occur as a quantum fluctuation in a larger and longer-lasting Universe of, mostly, Nothingness.
This assumes that "outside our Universe" is identical to "not natural."
No. This is what I meant in my post about failure to understand metaphysics. I am talking about things that do not originate within or conform to the laws of matter, energy, space and time with which we are familiar. I am asking about the efficient causes, and ultimately the first efficient cause, of the universe -- whatever "level" that includes, be there one "Universe" or a "Multiverse." But you answer me with nothing but material causes.
If there are multiple Universes -- a theory for which we are starting to see astrophysical evidence
What evidence? Not that this strictly applies to my point, but I am unaware of any.
I attribute it to most of them being aware that the argument you presented is based on unproven, and in some cases disproven, assumptions of the Medieval Scholastics.
Please point me to this disproof of Scholastic philosophy and even one example of a physical scientist citing it.
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What?
Stars neither eat nor prey. I have no idea what you're talking about.
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As I understand most of the currently accepted scientific theory, the Big Bang resulted in the formation, not of atoms, but of subatomic particles. Just protons and electrons(basic matter). The only element that would have formed from this material would have been hydrogen. The processes of covalent bonding, valence shells, and gravity brought this hydrogen together into clumps that would eventually become stars(much like amino acids clumping into proteins, wouldn't you say?).
The nuclear furnace of fusion turned that hydrogen into helium, lithium, oxygen, all the way up to iron. But that is as far as fusion will take matter. Its not until a star dies, not of hydrogen depletion, but first iron poisoning, that the explosion hyper-compresses the star's remaining elements into heavier metals and gasses like argon and titanium.
These materials then serve as the make-up of a large cloud which begins to coalesce...but this time, planets can form thanks to the heavier elements. Their greater weight is even what keeps them from being drawn into the formation of the central star as they are flung outward by rotational forces.
And there you have it: 'cosmic evolution'.
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Evolution through heritable variation by means of natural selection is not limited to life. All one needs is some source of variation (different vectors for gas or dust particles in a nebula) something which preserves variation (gravity clumping the particles together into larger bodies) and something which selects (the gravity of other objects either allowing objects to remain in orbits in system or casting them out of the system) -- and you get evolution. The concept is larger than biology.
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