ATTN PORKENBEANS

[OnlyAmbrose]

(offshoot of this thread: http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=73335&start=345 )

Here, your very own thread for your philosophical thoughts on God. Let's go through this bit by bit.

OK, lets see if I can ask a simple question, and get a simple answer.

Do you have any proof whatsoever, in the existence of the invisible man in the sky ?

We all know very well that there is NONE.

Well I'm glad your mind is made up.

In my previous posts, I was trying to put forth the proof that there is no such being.

And we all know very well that there is NONE. Even atheists will agree to that.

I stated that it is far more likely that all the religions of the world are simply the natural evolution of our primitive superstitions.

Stating something and proving it correct are two very separate things. Give me some anthropological evidence/citations then we'll discuss the origins of religions.

Even if you were to prove that world religions are an evolution of primitive religions, that does not in any way prove that there is no God. Even if your argument that religions evolved from primitive cave man superstitions is bulletproof (which it's not, as you have provided no evidence to that effect), it is STILL a non sequitur in a debate regarding God's existence. A non sequitur being a logical fallacy. Don't I seem to recall you touting logic as your golden rule a few days back? Then why do you abuse it so?

We no longer believe that the world is flat

Christians have been well aware that the world is round since the time of Christ. This has been known to man for millenia. The Church never denied this, Catholic authors and theologians were absolutely of the opinion that the Earth is round (Dante, for instance).

that the sun revolves around Earth

What does that have to do with religion? The idea that the sun revolves around the earth is understandable, minus scientific knowledge. I'm not sure what that has to do with "superstition."

All of these things were once professed as truth, by your Religious leaders.

No, actually, all of them weren't. But those that were "professed as truth" by religious leaders were also professed as truth by scientists until later science proved them wrong. That's generally how science works.

When I said that the children must be taught the truth, I was referring to this truth.

Given that your perception of truth is different from my own, I guess our children will be taught different things.

Stop "brainwashing" them with fantasy.

You have yet to demonstrate to me that what I believe is fantasy. And you continue to use propoganda terms such as "brainwashing" despite the talking-to CA gave you about doing so. For shame.

Seriously, the ad hominems are getting tiring, and that's strike 2 on logical fallacies for this post.

Unless you can show me some empirical evidence to the contrary.

I plan to, now hold your horses.

Now it may be hard for you to believe that my intention is NOT to make you look the fool,

I certainly hope it's not, the irony would kill me.

It is just that, as I put forth my case, It is necessary to show the foolishness of your side when you stand it next to science.

Oh Lord let me check my pulse.... no, still ticking.

Science will continue to chip away at our superstitious past. Of this I have no doubt.

I'm curious as to why you seem to insist that science and religion are mutually exclusive. The leader of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins, is publicly known to be a Christian. I'm sure he'd disagree with your analysis. Most Christians nowadays look at science with joy and see a greater understanding of God's creation.

Speaking from personal experience, science has done nothing to my faith but cause me to give greater glory to God.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 159, states:

"159 Faith and science: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth." "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are."

One day there will only be a pile of dust that remains of that great mountain of ignorance. Those that will live in that time will look back on us in the same manner that we look back on the ignorant idol worshipers of long ago. They will shake there heads and wonder how we ever survived long enough to birth them.

Have you considered a career in poetry?

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, as far as my argument in favor of the existence of God... I'm having difficulty knowing where to start because it's a pretty long and drawn out argument which I've developed over my 2.5 years on CC. I guess I need to begin by establishing some basic premises that we can agree on. Will you agree that, as far as human reason is concerned, something cannot come from nothing? (ie, one of the laws of logic, Causality )

As a preview of things to come, here's how my argument generally works:

1) Show that the existence of the universe defies logic in order to show that existence must be due to some illogical force

2) Use historical evidence to suggest that Jesus Christ is a supernatural being and at the very least a messenger of the creator of the universe, thus indicating the personal nature of said illogical force.

[Aradhus]

Porkchop doesn't have the intellect or the understanding to remotely understand a topic this complex.

"Well I'm glad your mind is made up." - Only Ambrose

You've got some nerve, when I tried to initiate a discussion similar to this with you I ran into a closed-minded wall. Not even remotely interesting in looking at the information you possess from a different perspective.

Knowledge, and information means nothing when you don't have the understanding required to comprehend that knowledge.

[OnlyAmbrose]

You've got some nerve, when I tried to initiate a discussion similar to this with you I ran into a closed-minded wall.

Eh? When was that, what topic, and what specifically did I say? I don't recall ever saying anything remotely like "Atheists are wrong and you know it!" and leaving it at that, nor do I recall beginning with the premise of my own correctness. (if I have engaged in that behavior, you have my sincere apologies, but I have no recollection as such)

Porky here has essentially done both, and he refuses to provide arguments for his "points", just a jumble of irrelevant statements and ad hominems. I would be overjoyed to begin constructing my logical argument and seeing if it holds to his scrutiny, but I need his participation and he is apparently uninterested.

[jonesthecurl]

first, sorry if this appears twice - I typed it all out and seem to have hit the wrong key. So I'm doing it again.

Your basic premise is that "Something cannot come from nothing", or in other words that causality is an absolute, and everything has a cause.

If we grant this there are two possibilities.
(i) The universe, and time itself, have no beginning. Whatever happens is the result of all the things before it, they are the result of earlier things, and so on ad infinitum. We thus have an infinite regression in time, with no place to put a beginning or a creator. The whole "something" that is the universe has not "come from nothing", logic says that it has always been here, world without end or at least world without beginning. This might mean for instance that before the Big Bang there was a Big Suck, which collapsed a previous cycle of galaxies, etc - and maybe that'll happen again, and there'll be a new version if the universe after this one.
or
(ii)The universe and time itslef do have a beginning, and a cause. This cause you may name God. or the gods, or a fluffy Intelligent Design, or whatever. Unfortunately for this argument, the cause/creator must also be a "something", requiring a cause or creator. And then that cause/creator requires a cause/creator, and so on ad infinitum. An infinite regression in causality.
In other words, if God is "something" God requires a cause. If God is "nothing" then of course your opponents have won the argument.


Perhaps we should question your basic premise. There are some things in modern physics/cosmology that look remarkably like "something coming from nothing" after all - both at a subatomic level and in the case of (are they still posited or has this one been tossed out?) White Holes.

What is the consequence of this? That there is a beginning to causality - every event has a cause until we get back to the first event. That is the beginning of time, and to ask "why" at this point is illogical - if there was a "why" this would be the second event. There is, by definition, no "before" for a cause to come from. Logically this is a much simpler model, with no infinite regression, but a straightforward starting point.
The reason we end up at this strange conclusion by applying logic may be that logic doesn't help that much in examining such a remote question: or it may be that time and matter/gravity are fundamentally interconnected (which they are). you can look t this in two ways : without mass, there was no time, and without the passage of time there can be no causality; or you can imagine running the movie of the universe backwards until you reach the first frame at which point all the material there is is concentrated in such a small space that time is affected in much the same way as light is affected by a Black Hole.

I'll look at the reality/divinity of the big J when I've a little more time.

[Snorri1234]

Well I'm glad your mind is made up.

And I am glad to see that you don't try to refute his point by actually providing evidence. Saying "pff, your mind is made up anyway" is a fallacy and you should really mind your own words before attacking others.

In my previous posts, I was trying to put forth the proof that there is no such being.

And we all know very well that there is NONE. Even atheists will agree to that.

Depends on what you take as proof. Undeniably proving that God doesn't exist without a doubt is undoable, but giving arguments and proofs undermining Gods "credibility" is not that difficult.

Even if you were to prove that world religions are an evolution of primitive religions, that does not in any way prove that there is no God. Even if your argument that religions evolved from primitive cave man superstitions is bulletproof (which it's not, as you have provided no evidence to that effect), it is STILL a non sequitur in a debate regarding God's existence.

I really don't want to bother with providing proof for all the shit as it's generally not hard to find. But your dismissal of the argument itself as unimportant does strike me as a little strange. I mean, you do realise that if what he says is correct your personal religious worldview is bollocks, right?

that the sun revolves around Earth

What does that have to do with religion? The idea that the sun revolves around the earth is understandable, minus scientific knowledge. I'm not sure what that has to do with "superstition."

It has to do with religion because at the time this concept took shape the major opponents of it where the christians who considered is blasphemy.

All of these things were once professed as truth, by your Religious leaders.

No, actually, all of them weren't.

Sun revolving around the earth was.

But those that were "professed as truth" by religious leaders were also professed as truth by scientists until later science proved them wrong. That's generally how science works.

True, which is why this whole argument is a silly one to go into anyway. The major opponents of evolution were all scientists at the start (though all religious too).



And the rest of this was way too boring at this time of the night. I will really read it some other time.

[porkenbeans]

first, sorry if this appears twice - I typed it all out and seem to have hit the wrong key. So I'm doing it again.

Your basic premise is that "Something cannot come from nothing", or in other words that causality is an absolute, and everything has a cause.

If we grant this there are two possibilities.
(i) The universe, and time itself, have no beginning. Whatever happens is the result of all the things before it, they are the result of earlier things, and so on ad infinitum. We thus have an infinite regression in time, with no place to put a beginning or a creator. The whole "something" that is the universe has not "come from nothing", logic says that it has always been here, world without end or at least world without beginning. This might mean for instance that before the Big Bang there was a Big Suck, which collapsed a previous cycle of galaxies, etc - and maybe that'll happen again, and there'll be a new version if the universe after this one.
or
(ii)The universe and time itslef do have a beginning, and a cause. This cause you may name God. or the gods, or a fluffy Intelligent Design, or whatever. Unfortunately for this argument, the cause/creator must also be a "something", requiring a cause or creator. And then that cause/creator requires a cause/creator, and so on ad infinitum. An infinite regression in causality.
In other words, if God is "something" God requires a cause. If God is "nothing" then of course your opponents have won the argument.


Perhaps we should question your basic premise. There are some things in modern physics/cosmology that look remarkably like "something coming from nothing" after all - both at a subatomic level and in the case of (are they still posited or has this one been tossed out?) White Holes.

What is the consequence of this? That there is a beginning to causality - every event has a cause until we get back to the first event. That is the beginning of time, and to ask "why" at this point is illogical - if there was a "why" this would be the second event. There is, by definition, no "before" for a cause to come from. Logically this is a much simpler model, with no infinite regression, but a straightforward starting point.
The reason we end up at this strange conclusion by applying logic may be that logic doesn't help that much in examining such a remote question: or it may be that time and matter/gravity are fundamentally interconnected (which they are). you can look t this in two ways : without mass, there was no time, and without the passage of time there can be no causality; or you can imagine running the movie of the universe backwards until you reach the first frame at which point all the material there is is concentrated in such a small space that time is affected in much the same way as light is affected by a Black Hole.

I'll look at the reality/divinity of the big J when I've a little more time.

I have read other posts by you, and have been impressed by your thoughtfulness and wit.

[porkenbeans]

Well I'm glad your mind is made up.

And I am glad to see that you don't try to refute his point by actually providing evidence. Saying "pff, your mind is made up anyway" is a fallacy and you should really mind your own words before attacking others.

In my previous posts, I was trying to put forth the proof that there is no such being.

And we all know very well that there is NONE. Even atheists will agree to that.

Depends on what you take as proof. Undeniably proving that God doesn't exist without a doubt is undoable, but giving arguments and proofs undermining Gods "credibility" is not that difficult.

Even if you were to prove that world religions are an evolution of primitive religions, that does not in any way prove that there is no God. Even if your argument that religions evolved from primitive cave man superstitions is bulletproof (which it's not, as you have provided no evidence to that effect), it is STILL a non sequitur in a debate regarding God's existence.

I really don't want to bother with providing proof for all the shit as it's generally not hard to find. But your dismissal of the argument itself as unimportant does strike me as a little strange. I mean, you do realise that if what he says is correct your personal religious worldview is bollocks, right?

that the sun revolves around Earth

What does that have to do with religion? The idea that the sun revolves around the earth is understandable, minus scientific knowledge. I'm not sure what that has to do with "superstition."

It has to do with religion because at the time this concept took shape the major opponents of it where the christians who considered is blasphemy.

All of these things were once professed as truth, by your Religious leaders.

No, actually, all of them weren't.

Sun revolving around the earth was.

But those that were "professed as truth" by religious leaders were also professed as truth by scientists until later science proved them wrong. That's generally how science works.

True, which is why this whole argument is a silly one to go into anyway. The major opponents of evolution were all scientists at the start (though all religious too).



And the rest of this was way too boring at this time of the night. I will really read it some other time.

I have found you as well to be in possession of a keen intellect. Go get em. These other two guys just give me a headache. I do not know how to talk to them frankly.

[FabledIntegral]

first, sorry if this appears twice - I typed it all out and seem to have hit the wrong key. So I'm doing it again.

Your basic premise is that "Something cannot come from nothing", or in other words that causality is an absolute, and everything has a cause.

If we grant this there are two possibilities.
(i) The universe, and time itself, have no beginning. Whatever happens is the result of all the things before it, they are the result of earlier things, and so on ad infinitum. We thus have an infinite regression in time, with no place to put a beginning or a creator. The whole "something" that is the universe has not "come from nothing", logic says that it has always been here, world without end or at least world without beginning. This might mean for instance that before the Big Bang there was a Big Suck, which collapsed a previous cycle of galaxies, etc - and maybe that'll happen again, and there'll be a new version if the universe after this one.
or
(ii)The universe and time itslef do have a beginning, and a cause. This cause you may name God. or the gods, or a fluffy Intelligent Design, or whatever. Unfortunately for this argument, the cause/creator must also be a "something", requiring a cause or creator. And then that cause/creator requires a cause/creator, and so on ad infinitum. An infinite regression in causality.
In other words, if God is "something" God requires a cause. If God is "nothing" then of course your opponents have won the argument.


Perhaps we should question your basic premise. There are some things in modern physics/cosmology that look remarkably like "something coming from nothing" after all - both at a subatomic level and in the case of (are they still posited or has this one been tossed out?) White Holes.

What is the consequence of this? That there is a beginning to causality - every event has a cause until we get back to the first event. That is the beginning of time, and to ask "why" at this point is illogical - if there was a "why" this would be the second event. There is, by definition, no "before" for a cause to come from. Logically this is a much simpler model, with no infinite regression, but a straightforward starting point.
The reason we end up at this strange conclusion by applying logic may be that logic doesn't help that much in examining such a remote question: or it may be that time and matter/gravity are fundamentally interconnected (which they are). you can look t this in two ways : without mass, there was no time, and without the passage of time there can be no causality; or you can imagine running the movie of the universe backwards until you reach the first frame at which point all the material there is is concentrated in such a small space that time is affected in much the same way as light is affected by a Black Hole.

I'll look at the reality/divinity of the big J when I've a little more time.

The Bible presupposes that God already existed. What are the first three words of Genesis? "In the beginning" Thus time is not infinite. Thus if we are taking or arguing for the side of Christianity, your entire first argument isn't relevant to the topic.

To take into account your second argument, that the universe itself does have a beginning, which is something Christians have to argue for (I would presume), there is nothing to state that some God or "gods," would require a beginning. God itself is supposed to be supernatural, why are you suddenly enforcing basic cause and effect science on some entity that would have "created" that natural laws of science in the first place. Although God presumably created science and the laws that exist in His universe does not require for Him to participate in whatever laws he created, which why himself is, by definition, supernatural, or above the natural. Thus from what we perceive to be "everything that is a something must come from something else" does not apply to the supernatural, rather only the natural.

I am not a believer in the Christian God, rather I believe you simply posed a flawed argument against "Him." You're coming in with the notion that God is subject to the natural when Christians already proclaim that he is supernatural.

P.S. I understand you were responding to OA about his post - I don't necessarily believe what he said was valid either.

[OnlyAmbrose]

@ Snorri:

And I am glad to see that you don't try to refute his point by actually providing evidence. Saying "pff, your mind is made up anyway" is a fallacy and you should really mind your own words before attacking others.

I began my argument at the bottom of my post. In case you didn't read that far.

Depends on what you take as proof. Undeniably proving that God doesn't exist without a doubt is undoable, but giving arguments and proofs undermining Gods "credibility" is not that difficult

I understand what you mean, but porkenbeans was attempting to make a positive argument for the nonexistence of God. He seemed to think that uncited anthropological claims prove for certain that there is no God.

I really don't want to bother with providing proof for all the shit as it's generally not hard to find. But your dismissal of the argument itself as unimportant does strike me as a little strange. I mean, you do realise that if what he says is correct your personal religious worldview is bollocks, right?

The questions is: "Does God exist." The history of organized religion is not relevant to that.

The history of religion is by no means a certain topic. You can't expect me to say "Oh, well porkenbeans says that Christianity is an evolution from cave man religions, so he must be right!" But either way, it's a separate topic.

It has to do with religion because at the time this concept took shape the major opponents of it where the christians who considered is blasphemy.

And they were wrong. This has to do with whether or not God exists, how?

True, which is why this whole argument is a silly one to go into anyway. The major opponents of evolution were all scientists at the start (though all religious too).

I absolutely agree, discussion of this apparent "war" between science and religion always irks me.

@ jones

(i) The universe, and time itself, have no beginning. Whatever happens is the result of all the things before it, they are the result of earlier things, and so on ad infinitum. We thus have an infinite regression in time, with no place to put a beginning or a creator. The whole "something" that is the universe has not "come from nothing", logic says that it has always been here, world without end or at least world without beginning. This might mean for instance that before the Big Bang there was a Big Suck, which collapsed a previous cycle of galaxies, etc - and maybe that'll happen again, and there'll be a new version if the universe after this one.
or
(ii)The universe and time itslef do have a beginning, and a cause. This cause you may name God. or the gods, or a fluffy Intelligent Design, or whatever. Unfortunately for this argument, the cause/creator must also be a "something", requiring a cause or creator. And then that cause/creator requires a cause/creator, and so on ad infinitum. An infinite regression in causality.
In other words, if God is "something" God requires a cause. If God is "nothing" then of course your opponents have won the argument.

My point exactly. Infinite regression and an uncaused cause both defy logic. They are, however, the only two options, as you said. Therefore, existence defies logic. If you'll refer back to my OP, that was point 1in my argument.

Perhaps we should question your basic premise. There are some things in modern physics/cosmology that look remarkably like "something coming from nothing" after all - both at a subatomic level and in the case of (are they still posited or has this one been tossed out?) White Holes.

To my knowledge there is currently no well-respected scientific theory which posits that something can happen without a cause. If you could link me to a reliable source which says otherwise, please do. Even currently unexplainable anomolies of quantum mechanics only occur under certain conditions. The beginning of the universe by definition predates all conditions.

What is the consequence of this? That there is a beginning to causality - every event has a cause until we get back to the first event. That is the beginning of time, and to ask "why" at this point is illogical - if there was a "why" this would be the second event.

I absolutely agree with you, and again if you'll refer to my OP that was point 1 in my argument. I'm glad we've gotten this far together

[CrazyAnglican]

Okay so logically everything has to have a cause. I'm with you there at least everything that I've seen has had one.

Big Bang Theory:

Everything coalesced into a single point and blasted outward into the stars, planets, etc. Good model, good creation story. As Jonsey states though when you get to a first action if something caused it, it's the second action; and we get to start over again. It violates logic to think anything "just happened".


A Christian would say- what if God started it?
An atheist quite rightly might counter then what started God? (even though FI rightly posits that, being supernatural, he doesn't need a beginning- which still defies the same rule of logic)

All we can really say is that we're here and nobody has a truly logical explanation for that. Assuming, of course, that nobody has vanished in a puff of logic yet. Science might maintain that everything started by natural processes. A Christian might quite rightly counter, what caused those processes? An atheist might just as rightly reach for an asprin.


So, as far as I can tell nobody has a logical explanation as to why we are here, but in our ignorance we are here nonetheless. Right?

[OnlyAmbrose]

That's basically what I'm getting at. Before I move on to point two I'm waiting to see if Jones and Snorri agree with the following so that we can move on:

Existence defies human logic. Christians choose one illogical explanation for the universe, while atheists do not choose any particular explanation for the Universe, but concede that the true explanation (whatever it may be) must defy logic.

(I think jones basically said that in his post, I just want a confirmation before we move on )

PS- FabledIntegral you are more than welcome to participate as well.

[porkenbeans]

first, sorry if this appears twice - I typed it all out and seem to have hit the wrong key. So I'm doing it again.

Your basic premise is that "Something cannot come from nothing", or in other words that causality is an absolute, and everything has a cause.

If we grant this there are two possibilities.
(i) The universe, and time itself, have no beginning. Whatever happens is the result of all the things before it, they are the result of earlier things, and so on ad infinitum. We thus have an infinite regression in time, with no place to put a beginning or a creator. The whole "something" that is the universe has not "come from nothing", logic says that it has always been here, world without end or at least world without beginning. This might mean for instance that before the Big Bang there was a Big Suck, which collapsed a previous cycle of galaxies, etc - and maybe that'll happen again, and there'll be a new version if the universe after this one.
or
(ii)The universe and time itslef do have a beginning, and a cause. This cause you may name God. or the gods, or a fluffy Intelligent Design, or whatever. Unfortunately for this argument, the cause/creator must also be a "something", requiring a cause or creator. And then that cause/creator requires a cause/creator, and so on ad infinitum. An infinite regression in causality.
In other words, if God is "something" God requires a cause. If God is "nothing" then of course your opponents have won the argument.


Perhaps we should question your basic premise. There are some things in modern physics/cosmology that look remarkably like "something coming from nothing" after all - both at a subatomic level and in the case of (are they still posited or has this one been tossed out?) White Holes.

What is the consequence of this? That there is a beginning to causality - every event has a cause until we get back to the first event. That is the beginning of time, and to ask "why" at this point is illogical - if there was a "why" this would be the second event. There is, by definition, no "before" for a cause to come from. Logically this is a much simpler model, with no infinite regression, but a straightforward starting point.
The reason we end up at this strange conclusion by applying logic may be that logic doesn't help that much in examining such a remote question: or it may be that time and matter/gravity are fundamentally interconnected (which they are). you can look t this in two ways : without mass, there was no time, and without the passage of time there can be no causality; or you can imagine running the movie of the universe backwards until you reach the first frame at which point all the material there is is concentrated in such a small space that time is affected in much the same way as light is affected by a Black Hole.

I'll look at the reality/divinity of the big J when I've a little more time.

The Bible presupposes that God already existed. What are the first three words of Genesis? "In the beginning" Thus time is not infinite. Thus if we are taking or arguing for the side of Christianity, your entire first argument isn't relevant to the topic.

To take into account your second argument, that the universe itself does have a beginning, which is something Christians have to argue for (I would presume), there is nothing to state that some God or "gods," would require a beginning. God itself is supposed to be supernatural, why are you suddenly enforcing basic cause and effect science on some entity that would have "created" that natural laws of science in the first place. Although God presumably created science and the laws that exist in His universe does not require for Him to participate in whatever laws he created, which why himself is, by definition, supernatural, or above the natural. Thus from what we perceive to be "everything that is a something must come from something else" does not apply to the supernatural, rather only the natural.

I am not a believer in the Christian God, rather I believe you simply posed a flawed argument against "Him." You're coming in with the notion that God is subject to the natural when Christians already proclaim that he is supernatural.

P.S. I understand you were responding to OA about his post - I don't necessarily believe what he said was valid either.

You are not allowed to use the bible as a source for literal fact. If you do, I can tear it apart with all the provable non-truths that abound within its covers. Just take the statement of , 7 days to create the earth. Science has proven without a doubt that it took millions of years. But when the bible was written, this was not known. And do you really believe in slavery ? the bible gives a blue print on how it should be conducted. And do you believe that women are property. I could go on and on. The bible was clearly written by mortal man, with the accepted views of that time. It has no place in the reality of what we know today to be the truth.

[OnlyAmbrose]

Porky you'll forgive me if I ignore your posts, but Snorri, jones, and I are talking about Causation right now, you're more than welcome to join if you'd like to stay on-topic, but I'm getting a little peeved at what appears to be your intentional derailment of the thread.

[porkenbeans]

Porky you'll forgive me if I ignore your posts, but Snorri, jones, and I are talking about Causation right now, you're more than welcome to join if you'd like to stay on-topic, but I'm getting a little peeved at what appears to be your intentional derailment of the thread.

Then you should not have titled the thread as you did.

[OnlyAmbrose]

Porky you'll forgive me if I ignore your posts, but Snorri, jones, and I are talking about Causation right now, you're more than welcome to join if you'd like to stay on-topic, but I'm getting a little peeved at what appears to be your intentional derailment of the thread.

Then you should not have titled the thread as you did.

It was designed to catch your attention so I could provide you with my argument for God, which you had been demanding in a thread on a totally different topic. The idea was to prevent you from derailing that thread by giving you this one to talk about my evidence for God.

So if you could do me a favor and not derail this thread as well, I'd appreciate it. So again I will invite you to join our chat about causation, we will be moving along from that as soon as jones and Snorri reply, and then you will have ample time to doubt the historical claims of the Bible.

[rob8888]

Wow, you guys talk about religion a lot. I mean, half the topics in this forum are on religion, mainly Christianity.

[FabledIntegral]

first, sorry if this appears twice - I typed it all out and seem to have hit the wrong key. So I'm doing it again.

Your basic premise is that "Something cannot come from nothing", or in other words that causality is an absolute, and everything has a cause.

If we grant this there are two possibilities.
(i) The universe, and time itself, have no beginning. Whatever happens is the result of all the things before it, they are the result of earlier things, and so on ad infinitum. We thus have an infinite regression in time, with no place to put a beginning or a creator. The whole "something" that is the universe has not "come from nothing", logic says that it has always been here, world without end or at least world without beginning. This might mean for instance that before the Big Bang there was a Big Suck, which collapsed a previous cycle of galaxies, etc - and maybe that'll happen again, and there'll be a new version if the universe after this one.
or
(ii)The universe and time itslef do have a beginning, and a cause. This cause you may name God. or the gods, or a fluffy Intelligent Design, or whatever. Unfortunately for this argument, the cause/creator must also be a "something", requiring a cause or creator. And then that cause/creator requires a cause/creator, and so on ad infinitum. An infinite regression in causality.
In other words, if God is "something" God requires a cause. If God is "nothing" then of course your opponents have won the argument.


Perhaps we should question your basic premise. There are some things in modern physics/cosmology that look remarkably like "something coming from nothing" after all - both at a subatomic level and in the case of (are they still posited or has this one been tossed out?) White Holes.

What is the consequence of this? That there is a beginning to causality - every event has a cause until we get back to the first event. That is the beginning of time, and to ask "why" at this point is illogical - if there was a "why" this would be the second event. There is, by definition, no "before" for a cause to come from. Logically this is a much simpler model, with no infinite regression, but a straightforward starting point.
The reason we end up at this strange conclusion by applying logic may be that logic doesn't help that much in examining such a remote question: or it may be that time and matter/gravity are fundamentally interconnected (which they are). you can look t this in two ways : without mass, there was no time, and without the passage of time there can be no causality; or you can imagine running the movie of the universe backwards until you reach the first frame at which point all the material there is is concentrated in such a small space that time is affected in much the same way as light is affected by a Black Hole.

I'll look at the reality/divinity of the big J when I've a little more time.

The Bible presupposes that God already existed. What are the first three words of Genesis? "In the beginning" Thus time is not infinite. Thus if we are taking or arguing for the side of Christianity, your entire first argument isn't relevant to the topic.

To take into account your second argument, that the universe itself does have a beginning, which is something Christians have to argue for (I would presume), there is nothing to state that some God or "gods," would require a beginning. God itself is supposed to be supernatural, why are you suddenly enforcing basic cause and effect science on some entity that would have "created" that natural laws of science in the first place. Although God presumably created science and the laws that exist in His universe does not require for Him to participate in whatever laws he created, which why himself is, by definition, supernatural, or above the natural. Thus from what we perceive to be "everything that is a something must come from something else" does not apply to the supernatural, rather only the natural.

I am not a believer in the Christian God, rather I believe you simply posed a flawed argument against "Him." You're coming in with the notion that God is subject to the natural when Christians already proclaim that he is supernatural.

P.S. I understand you were responding to OA about his post - I don't necessarily believe what he said was valid either.

You are not allowed to use the bible as a source for literal fact. If you do, I can tear it apart with all the provable non-truths that abound within its covers. Just take the statement of , 7 days to create the earth. Science has proven without a doubt that it took millions of years. But when the bible was written, this was not known. And do you really believe in slavery ? the bible gives a blue print on how it should be conducted. And do you believe that women are property. I could go on and on. The bible was clearly written by mortal man, with the accepted views of that time. It has no place in the reality of what we know today to be the truth.

You misread the entire context then. We are analyzing whether or not the Christian God can be a valid entity or not, according to science. The entire basis of Christian thinking is that it is not within the realm of science, and that science would be contradicting itself through the laws of cause and effect (causality) if some supernatural force did not exist in the first place. That is the thinking - and the Bible, stating there is a beginning, doesn't contradict it. You can use the Bible as a source to analyze to see if what it contains is valid or not with what we know, although I agree you can't use it as if it were factual (as I personally don't even believe it is).

What I am saying is very different than what you're saying. What you're saying is "you can't use the Bible to answer the question 'how do you know God is real?' and answer it with 'because the Bible says so.'" Agreed, completely, that you should need more than that, although it is sufficient to a surprisingly large proportion of people.

The time context, while a valid argument, is still irrelevant to the topic at hand. Porky it seems what you're doing is making arguments (which ARE valid arguments) against God in general, but which AREN'T pertinent to the specific points you're referring to. It's like discussing whether or not the earth is 3000 years old vs 4.5 billion years old, and you coming into the argument saying God was very cruel and thus can't be considered a loving God... well it's irrelevant to what's being discussed at hand even if it makes sense. Although this topic is apparently dedicated towards you, take it where you wish, yet please try to keep your responses pertinent to what is being discussed.

And while the earth is, in scientific terms, "proven" to be 4.5 billion (ish) years old, there is various claims of inaccuracy and doubt with the testing methods because they go off LARGE amounts of assumption, something which people believe is too much to determine it as fact.

[Backglass]

Wow, you guys talk about religion a lot. I mean, half the topics in this forum are on religion, mainly Christianity.

And 99% of them are are started by the christians you will notice, yet they get very upset when challenged.

[mpjh]

You have to give that to Porken, you did dedicate the thread to him.

[jonesthecurl]

I've been stymied by a naughty keyboard today.
I may have time to respond later now that I've dug an old and clunky (but working!) one out and plugged it in.

[CrazyAnglican]

Wow, you guys talk about religion a lot. I mean, half the topics in this forum are on religion, mainly Christianity.

And 99% of them are are started by the christians you will notice, yet they get very upset when challenged.

Ten threads out of the top fifty. 20% doesn't seem that much considering the climate (with an atheist/agnostic clan and a Christian clan that largely get along with each other quite well). I think backglass is exaggerating a little about 99% being started by Christians. Mpjh and Juan are responsible for half of the religion threads and they are atheists. I kinda like it when ya' challenge me too. Makes for a boring debate otherwise.

[Neoteny]

I've been stymied by a naughty keyboard today.
I may have time to respond later now that I've dug an old and clunky (but working!) one out and plugged it in.

Does it have that old hardware smell?

[muy_thaiguy]

I've been stymied by a naughty keyboard today.
I may have time to respond later now that I've dug an old and clunky (but working!) one out and plugged it in.

Does it have that old hardware smell?

I just gonna say a brand spanking new Dell, but either works in this case.

[mpjh]

A spanking Dell, where is she from?

[muy_thaiguy]

A spanking Dell, where is she from?

Mole People City.