Questions about God?

[worrywort]

Faith isn't like believing my chair I sit in will hold my weight. My chair has been demonstrated to hold my weight thousands of times before and is made of steel-a very strong and stable material. My chair can be tested to hold a given weight independently. I can consult engineers that can evaluate the tensile strength of the steel that my chair is comprised of.

you're still using faith because you don't have absolute 100% certainty that the chair will hold your weight. Only, in this instance, it's a very miniscule amount of conviction that's required.

Comparing the belief you have in your house not collapsing to belief in God is ridiculous.

What about all the gaps in the evolution record? You have faith in Darwinism I assume, so you have faith that one day those gaps will be filled and the evidence will be found. What else could this be other than faith?

What do you think of my argument? Are the premises correct?

Not quite, I'd alter it slightly;

an "honest" God would not say something that isn't true
If the Bible is the word of an "honest" God, it will be 100% true
If anything in the Bible is proven false, it is not the word of an "honest" God

Because, if there is evidence of the supernatural it doesn't automatically follow that the supernatural force is good and true. The God of the Bible could be a liar! However my personal belief is that the God of the Bible IS true, and I would expect the Bible to be inerrant. So in that vein I would personally agree with your original premises, and I would hold the same standard with the prophecies. If you could find one prophecy that was categorically proven to be false then God would not be who the Bible says he is. The problem is, finding 100% proof is going to be difficult. You can throw some objections at me, some I may be able to answer, others I won't, but will it prove that God isn't true. No, it'll just show that you and I don't have absolute knowledge of the universe. Realistically for the argument to have any kind of persuasion you'd need to build up a large amount of errors, the larger your list the harder it'll be to trust the Bible.

You should have looked at the first sentence when it claims that something can't come out of nothing and then says, oh wait, God can and you should have laughed.

I think you've misunderstood the argument. The first premise reads "if something has a beginning to its existence then it must be caused by something". An uncaused first cause does not have a beginning to its existence. There is no contradiction here.

Can you give me the chances this rock I found in the dirt will be in that exact spot, in the exact time, composed of atoms in that exact arrangement? I'd like you to really find this out, find out the chance of that.

well the chances of that are 1. It's 100% certain, but I think maybe you phrased your question wrong. If you meant, the same time, but a day or a week later, then you'd have to work out the number of all possible permutations of atomic arrangements, then factor in the odds of all possible events that could affect the outcome [i.e. if you keep the rock in your pocket for a week, the odds will increase, if you put it back where you found it the odds will decrease], and you may come to a figure like 1 in 10^20 [10 to the power of 20], maybe more, maybe less, I'm not sure. If this occurred, the reason we'd find it astonishing is because we had pre-assigned value to that specific time, location and arrangement.

If, however, you meant what are the chances of one specific rock existing as opposed to any other rock, you may be thinking along the lines that sheer unlikelihood does not point towards a designer. i.e. if you threw a set of scrabble pieces on the floor and recorded the arrangement, there may be billions of possible arrangements, and so to conclude that the one arrangement that appeared, because it had a one in a billion chance of appearing, must point to God, would obviously be ridiculous. If however you threw the scrabble pieces on the floor and they spelt out the message "Thelema, please take the garbage out!", these odds would have significance because they contain specific information from an intelligent mind.

I assume you're aware from your rock argument that the odds that the universe could've evolved in such a way as to support human life are practically zero. Roger Penrose put the figure at 1 in 10^10^(123) [i.e. if you tried to write this number out by putting a zero on every proton and neutron in the entire universe we wouldn't have enough to write the number out!]. So what do you make of this number? How do you explain it away?

 

[Thelema]

you're still using faith because you don't have absolute 100% certainty that the chair will hold your weight. Only, in this instance, it's a very miniscule amount of conviction that's required.

What about all the gaps in the evolution record? You have faith in Darwinism I assume, so you have faith that one day those gaps will be filled and the evidence will be found. What else could this be other than faith?

Not quite, I'd alter it slightly;

an "honest" God would not say something that isn't true
If the Bible is the word of an "honest" God, it will be 100% true
If anything in the Bible is proven false, it is not the word of an "honest" God

Because, if there is evidence of the supernatural it doesn't automatically follow that the supernatural force is good and true. The God of the Bible could be a liar! However my personal belief is that the God of the Bible IS true, and I would expect the Bible to be inerrant. So in that vein I would personally agree with your original premises, and I would hold the same standard with the prophecies. If you could find one prophecy that was categorically proven to be false then God would not be who the Bible says he is. The problem is, finding 100% proof is going to be difficult. You can throw some objections at me, some I may be able to answer, others I won't, but will it prove that God isn't true. No, it'll just show that you and I don't have absolute knowledge of the universe. Realistically for the argument to have any kind of persuasion you'd need to build up a large amount of errors, the larger your list the harder it'll be to trust the Bible.

I think you've misunderstood the argument. The first premise reads "if something has a beginning to its existence then it must be caused by something". An uncaused first cause does not have a beginning to its existence. There is no contradiction here.

well the chances of that are 1. It's 100% certain, but I think maybe you phrased your question wrong. If you meant, the same time, but a day or a week later, then you'd have to work out the number of all possible permutations of atomic arrangements, then factor in the odds of all possible events that could affect the outcome [i.e. if you keep the rock in your pocket for a week, the odds will increase, if you put it back where you found it the odds will decrease], and you may come to a figure like 1 in 10^20 [10 to the power of 20], maybe more, maybe less, I'm not sure. If this occurred, the reason we'd find it astonishing is because we had pre-assigned value to that specific time, location and arrangement.

If, however, you meant what are the chances of one specific rock existing as opposed to any other rock, you may be thinking along the lines that sheer unlikelihood does not point towards a designer. i.e. if you threw a set of scrabble pieces on the floor and recorded the arrangement, there may be billions of possible arrangements, and so to conclude that the one arrangement that appeared, because it had a one in a billion chance of appearing, must point to God, would obviously be ridiculous. If however you threw the scrabble pieces on the floor and they spelt out the message "Thelema, please take the garbage out!", these odds would have significance because they contain specific information from an intelligent mind.

I assume you're aware from your rock argument that the odds that the universe could've evolved in such a way as to support human life are practically zero. Roger Penrose put the figure at 1 in 10^10^(123) [i.e. if you tried to write this number out by putting a zero on every proton and neutron in the entire universe we wouldn't have enough to write the number out!]. So what do you make of this number? How do you explain it away?

No, it's not.

I don't have faith in any scientific theory. The fabulous thing about science is that no faith is required. We didn't have a good idea what gravity was until Einstein, that doesn't mean we didn't know gravity existed.

The difference is that when evidence is presented that refutes my chair and refutes anything in science, it is considered. That's the dividing line-faith is believing when there is little to no evidence and or if there is evidence to the contrary. When X expert says my chair won't support my weight and I try to sit down anyway, that's faith-assuming any chair is able to hold my weight-no matter how flimsy it is, that's faith.

So God had no cause? Wait, but everything has a cause. Until you reconcile that, you have the definition of a contradiction-there is no more contradictory that you can be. Calling it "uncaused" is nonsense if your argument is correct, because it says nothing has no cause. You are saying Every X has a Y and then you go on to talk about the X without a Y.

Yes, we're assuming God is the good one. Otherwise, Satan wrote the Bible and has God locked up in his closet.

100% is 100%, God would never be wrong. You can't have it both ways, the Bible can't be kinda true and God existing in the way you think he does.

Alright, we can go to Tyre which is an easy one.

Nebuchadnezzar never took Tyre. He sacked the mainland city which isn't Tyre. When Tyre was taken, not by Nebuchadnezzar, which the prophecy specifies, and was destroyed by Alexander, Tyre was quickly rebuilt. The prophecy is double wrong.

We don't even need to really get past Genesis when it proposes God first created Heaven and earth. Total nonsense.

I explain it this way: The likelyhood of a rock being composed of atoms in that exact sequence is so astronomically small that it is nearly impossible, yet there it is. You don't propose the rock needed God to intelligently design it that way. So, unlikeliness doesn't mean impossible.

I don't care what some person calculates the likeliness to be, here we are. A rock in your hand is so unique that no identical rock exists anywhere in the Universe. We know that Earth has all the good signs of a habitable place and we also know life can come from non life naturally. There is really no mystery here in terms of the natural processes that allow us to exist. This is an instance of putting two and two together. God need not apply.

You are assuming that our Big Bang is the only one. The Big Bang might have been happening forever and countless Universes may have existed. Roll those numbers.

Show me the letters God left in the sky. The scrabble pieces have an equal chance of landing in any sequence-using that logic, my rock is even more intelligently designed.

What if we couldn't explain how we came to be here naturally, doesn't mean God did it. God keeps being put in our gaps of knowledge. Don't know something? Put God there, problem solved? How is this any different from not understanding lightning and concluding God is behind it? There must be reason why no logical arguments are stacking up-in fact, the logical arguments you present don't even point to a god, they just point to an unknown and then you stick God in there. You can't come up with a single argument that isn't riddled with logical holes that even points to God. If you have one, please present it.

 

[worrywort]

I don't have faith in any scientific theory. The fabulous thing about science is that no faith is required. We didn't have a good idea what gravity was until Einstein, that doesn't mean we didn't know gravity existed.

so would you say that you have never taken a step of faith in your life? Do you have absolute 100% certainty that all of your actions will produce their expected result? If not, what would you call an action taken without 100% certainty of the expected result? What name would you give it and how would this differ from your definition of faith?

So God had no cause? Wait, but everything has a cause. Until you reconcile that, you have the definition of a contradiction-there is no more contradictory that you can be. Calling it "uncaused" is nonsense if your argument is correct, because it says nothing has no cause. You are saying Every X has a Y and then you go on to talk about the X without a Y.

ok, I think this'll have to be the last time I explain it and if you still disagree then we'll have to just agree to disagree. The problem is this;

a] an infinite string of causes is impossible,

So the first immediate thing you can draw from this is that there must exist uncaused causes somewhere in the universe, because an infinite string of causes is impossible. So everything does not have a cause. Are you with me so far?

So that's the first step. Now the next step is how to reconcile this with the the law of cause and effect. i.e. The entire universe seems to follow this law. So where are these uncaused causes? Well, when you start going back in time through the history of the universe, you have to eventually come to a beginning, because a string of infinite causes is impossible. Couple this with all the evidence supporting the big bang, and Einsteins theory of relativity, and it's looking very likely that the universe, indeed, had a beginning. If you disagree and think the universe may have gone back further than the big bang, well, you're still caught with the infinite string of causes that requires a first cause, so the universe must have had a beginning at some point.

so the next question is, what was the cause of the universe? And you only have three options. Either it caused itself, was caused by something outside of itself, or it is the uncaused first cause. But the universe can't be the uncaused first cause because we know that the universe has only existed for a finite amount of time. We know it had a beginning. And it can't have caused itself because before nature was in existence there was no nature. i.e. babies don't give birth to themselves. Therefore it must have been caused by something outside of itself.

Now if you say, well, what caused God? you've gone straight back into the infinite chain of causes again which is impossible and requires an uncaused first cause. Plus, you've smuggled time back in, but before the universe there was no time. Time hadn't been created yet.

And if you say, everything needs a cause so how come God doesn't need a cause? Well you're forgetting the conclusion that we came to in the first step; that an uncaused cause MUST exist. Plus, the actual wording of the kalam argument goes "If something has a beginning to its existence, then it must be caused by something." An uncaused cause, by definition, does not have a beginning to its existence.

Nebuchadnezzar never took Tyre. He sacked the mainland city which isn't Tyre.

"I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword;" [Ezekiel 26:7-8]

When Tyre was taken, not by Nebuchadnezzar, which the prophecy specifies, and was destroyed by Alexander, Tyre was quickly rebuilt. The prophecy is double wrong.

"I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves.They will destroy the walls of Tyre and pull down her towers;" [Ezekiel 26:3-4]
"They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea. I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt," [Ezekiel 26: 12-14]

The use of "they" refers to the many nations.

"He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons." [Ezekiel 26:8-9]

the use of "he" refers to Nebuchadnezzar.

Was Tyre rebuilt? Any buildings [that may have been] built on Tyre have been from other civilisations [I'm still not sure of the true location of original Tyre. Some say it's down the road. Some say it's under water]. It'd be like New York being conquered, demolished, its rubble thrown into the sea and made to look like a bare rock, then centuries later some Indian community build a small village there, then later still some Greeks settle there too. Everything that made New York, New York, everything that gave it its identity; its power, its political presence, was gone.

"the town never recovered its former importance" [Tyre - Encyclopedia Britannica]

On a side note, the vast majority of information available about this prophecy is telling us that the prediction is bang on. To nit pick over the minor details is like going up to a man who has just sailed around the entire world in a tiny row boat, and saying to him, "ah ha, you said you were going to row with red oars, but these oars are pink. Therefore I discount your whole achievement as worthless!"......You'd be missing the big picture.

I explain it this way: The likelyhood of a rock being composed of atoms in that exact sequence is so astronomically small that it is nearly impossible, yet there it is. You don't propose the rock needed God to intelligently design it that way. So, unlikeliness doesn't mean impossible

The difference between the odds of the rock being there and the odds of a life permitting universe is that all or most of the possible sequences of atomic arrangements still end up with a rock of some kind, whereas only 1 of the 10^10^(123) possibilities for the universe will result in life. It's like this; when a child is conceived there are millions of sperm fighting over just one egg, but only 1 will usually make it. So are we surprised at our 1 in a billion shot that we were born? No because ANY of those sperm would've resulted in life. Instead, imagine if your Father was infertile and had been to the doctor and the doctor said, "look, I'm sorry, we've done all our tests and the probability that you could conceive is 1 in 10^10^(123). So you can keep on trying if you wish, you could even keep on trying [hypothetically] for billions of years but your odds would still be no better than 10^10^(122). NOW if your parents actually did conceive and you were born, would you still say, "Oh well, it was just chance, no big deal?". No, your parents would think, this child is a miracle child. This child is infinitely special and sacred to us, and it would break their hearts if you were to just disregard how special you are and go on your own way.

You are assuming that our Big Bang is the only one. The Big Bang might have been happening forever and countless Universes may have existed. Roll those numbers.

Do you really believe this? If there have been an infinite number of universes then that means every single possibility you can imagine, so long as it's logically possible, will have existed at some point. Do you understand what this means? It means unicorns have existed. And so have leprechauns, fairies and dragons, and probably even a flying spaghetti monster! If you hold to a multi universe view then you must allow for all these things to exist too. Like I said before, which view do you think requires more faith?!

 

[Thelema]

so would you say that you have never taken a step of faith in your life? Do you have absolute 100% certainty that all of your actions will produce their expected result? If not, what would you call an action taken without 100% certainty of the expected result? What name would you give it and how would this differ from your definition of faith?

ok, I think this'll have to be the last time I explain it and if you still disagree then we'll have to just agree to disagree. The problem is this;

a] an infinite string of causes is impossible,

So the first immediate thing you can draw from this is that there must exist uncaused causes somewhere in the universe, because an infinite string of causes is impossible. So everything does not have a cause. Are you with me so far?

So that's the first step. Now the next step is how to reconcile this with the the law of cause and effect. i.e. The entire universe seems to follow this law. So where are these uncaused causes? Well, when you start going back in time through the history of the universe, you have to eventually come to a beginning, because a string of infinite causes is impossible. Couple this with all the evidence supporting the big bang, and Einsteins theory of relativity, and it's looking very likely that the universe, indeed, had a beginning. If you disagree and think the universe may have gone back further than the big bang, well, you're still caught with the infinite string of causes that requires a first cause, so the universe must have had a beginning at some point.

so the next question is, what was the cause of the universe? And you only have three options. Either it caused itself, was caused by something outside of itself, or it is the uncaused first cause. But the universe can't be the uncaused first cause because we know that the universe has only existed for a finite amount of time. We know it had a beginning. And it can't have caused itself because before nature was in existence there was no nature. i.e. babies don't give birth to themselves. Therefore it must have been caused by something outside of itself.

Now if you say, well, what caused God? you've gone straight back into the infinite chain of causes again which is impossible and requires an uncaused first cause. Plus, you've smuggled time back in, but before the universe there was no time. Time hadn't been created yet.

And if you say, everything needs a cause so how come God doesn't need a cause? Well you're forgetting the conclusion that we came to in the first step; that an uncaused cause MUST exist. Plus, the actual wording of the kalam argument goes "If something has a beginning to its existence, then it must be caused by something." An uncaused cause, by definition, does not have a beginning to its existence.

"I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword;" [Ezekiel 26:7-8]

"I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves.They will destroy the walls of Tyre and pull down her towers;" [Ezekiel 26:3-4]
"They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea. I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more. I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt," [Ezekiel 26: 12-14]

The use of "they" refers to the many nations.

"He will ravage your settlements on the mainland with the sword; he will set up siege works against you, build a ramp up to your walls and raise his shields against you. He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and demolish your towers with his weapons." [Ezekiel 26:8-9]

the use of "he" refers to Nebuchadnezzar.

Was Tyre rebuilt? Any buildings [that may have been] built on Tyre have been from other civilisations [I'm still not sure of the true location of original Tyre. Some say it's down the road. Some say it's under water]. It'd be like New York being conquered, demolished, its rubble thrown into the sea and made to look like a bare rock, then centuries later some Indian community build a small village there, then later still some Greeks settle there too. Everything that made New York, New York, everything that gave it its identity; its power, its political presence, was gone.

"the town never recovered its former importance" [Tyre - Encyclopedia Britannica]

On a side note, the vast majority of information available about this prophecy is telling us that the prediction is bang on. To nit pick over the minor details is like going up to a man who has just sailed around the entire world in a tiny row boat, and saying to him, "ah ha, you said you were going to row with red oars, but these oars are pink. Therefore I discount your whole achievement as worthless!"......You'd be missing the big picture.

The difference between the odds of the rock being there and the odds of a life permitting universe is that all or most of the possible sequences of atomic arrangements still end up with a rock of some kind, whereas only 1 of the 10^10^(123) possibilities for the universe will result in life. It's like this; when a child is conceived there are millions of sperm fighting over just one egg, but only 1 will usually make it. So are we surprised at our 1 in a billion shot that we were born? No because ANY of those sperm would've resulted in life. Instead, imagine if your Father was infertile and had been to the doctor and the doctor said, "look, I'm sorry, we've done all our tests and the probability that you could conceive is 1 in 10^10^(123). So you can keep on trying if you wish, you could even keep on trying [hypothetically] for billions of years but your odds would still be no better than 10^10^(122). NOW if your parents actually did conceive and you were born, would you still say, "Oh well, it was just chance, no big deal?". No, your parents would think, this child is a miracle child. This child is infinitely special and sacred to us, and it would break their hearts if you were to just disregard how special you are and go on your own way.

Do you really believe this? If there have been an infinite number of universes then that means every single possibility you can imagine, so long as it's logically possible, will have existed at some point. Do you understand what this means? It means unicorns have existed. And so have leprechauns, fairies and dragons, and probably even a flying spaghetti monster! If you hold to a multi universe view then you must allow for all these things to exist too. Like I said before, which view do you think requires more faith?!

There is not only absolute knowledge and faith, that's a false dichotomy.

I thought we already got past this, the argument fails. It's total nonsense.

"In classical logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical inversions of each other. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle’s law of noncontradiction states that “One cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time.”"

Contradiction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"nothing exists without a cause....the first cause had no cause"<--contradiction

If we were to draw a circle containing everything, there would be nothing outside of this circle-if there was, there it would not be a circle containing everything.

This conceptual circle of everything leaves nothing outside of it.

Asserting that everything has a cause places everything within this circle, which means, nothing is outside of it

God can't escape this circle, not even using the word "supernatural" allows anything outside of this circle.

You then assert this circle of everything has something outside of it, which is a contradiction. The word everything leaves nothing outside of it, by its very nature.

Take out a piece of paper, draw a circle and label that everything. Then try to wrap your head around drawing another circle outside of the first and putting anything there.



Nebuchadnezzar's army was an army of many nations-the nations he conquered. His army was the army of many nations which he commanded. We find archeological evidence of Greek buildings on that site. Tyre is still there, plenty of rocks and such. Even after one million years, if Tyre is built upon, that violates the "never" clause.

Adding Alexander to the mix is postdiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postdiction

God even admits that Nebuchanezzar didn't succeed in his campaign

Ezekiel 29:18 "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon drove his army in a hard campaign against Tyre; every head was rubbed bare and every shoulder made raw. Yet he and his army got no reward from the campaign he led against Tyre.

In no way does the prediction stack up.

God is not a man with red oars which fade and turn pink. God is supposedly all knowing and knows full the prediction would be wrong. Remember we agreed that the Bible is 100% or not true? If you were God, would you make such a prediction?

What are you saying? That the unlikeness means God did it? Is that what it boils down to? That it's so unlikely (irrelevant and really unknowable) that the best thing you can think of (argument from ignorance) is that a god, your God (a leap so large Superman couldn't do it) did it?

I believe no such thing-I'm only proving a point. You're argument is assuming that this is the only Universe that has ever existed. We have no idea and we can't calculate how unlikely life is.

You want to frame the Universe as this thing that is so special and our Earth is so unlikely that God just had to do it, I mean, you can't think of anything else, so, that means it has to be God! You don't find any problems with that?

We got lucky, and the chances are very small for us to be here, but we are here. In no way does unlikeliness point to anything supernatural

You're just putting God in the gaps of our knowledge-you're sitting there, and I tell you "I wonder what causes lightning" and you're telling me lightning is supernatural and caused by God. In truth, you know nothing more than I do, you just see fit to throw God in there. Every single time we have a gap in our knowledge, people invariably put God there and then, when we find the real reason behind it, God is removed. What makes this time different? How many times can God be stuck somewhere and removed before we just drop the whole God did it theory?

It's actually sort of interesting. God used to be the explanation for somewhat mundane things, like earthquakes, wind and rain, disease, the travel of the sun across the sky. Now here we are thousands of years later and we've made such great strides in our understanding, but the hardest questions to answer, the things we don't fully understand, like where the matter for the Universe came from and why life exists here but (seemingly) not there, and lo and behold, God is still stuck there.

 

[worrywort]

There is not only absolute knowledge and faith, that's a false dichotomy.

ok, I was just interested to know your views on it. Like when you do those experiments in school where you stand on a table and fall backwards into your friends arms and you have to trust that they will catch you. I was just wondering the name you'd give for that? What if they didn't catch you? That's an option right? I mean, I'd call that faith - conviction based on evidence. There's enough evidence to be pretty sure that they'll catch you, but you still have to make that jump and fall backwards.

I thought we already got past this, the argument fails. It's total nonsense.

ok, I know I probably shouldn't reply to this argument again, but I'm still slightly curious to understand why it is you're drawing these conclusions...

"nothing exists without a cause....the first cause had no cause"<--contradiction

ok so this is the third time you've misquoted me and this'll be the third time I've corrected you. The premise reads "everything that had a beginning must have a cause", the first cause does not have a beginning. Is that still a contradiction? Another way they could write it is "everything under natural law must have a cause". The circles around these premises are not around "everything". They're circles drawn around "everything that had a beginning" or "everything under natural law". My circle of everything would be drawn to include everything outside of nature too.

Now I understand that the idea of something existing outside of nature seems absurd, but check out this video; Dr Quantum visits Flatland...It's absolutely perfect in showing what I'm trying to explain here. It's called "Dr Quantum visits Flatland". This isn't from a theological source either, Dr Quantum [aka Fred Wolf] is a theoretical physicist, so this isn't just a gap I'm trying to fill with God. All I'm trying to do is open you up to the possibility of dimensions existing outside of the known universe.

God even admits that Nebuchadnezzar didn't succeed in his campaign

If you read the prophecy you'll notice the pronoun "He" switches back to "They" in verse 12. Now all the predictions ascribed to the pronoun "They" were the predictions that Alexander the great fulfilled, i.e. looting, throwing timber and debris into the sea, making Tyre like a bare rock, becoming a place to spread fishnets. Now wouldn't that have been a fortunate stroke of luck for Ezekiel to have changed the pronoun "He" to "They" exactly at the point where Nebuchadnezzars fulfilments differ from Alexanders?

God is not a man with red oars which fade and turn pink. God is supposedly all knowing and knows full the prediction would be wrong. Remember we agreed that the Bible is 100% or not true? If you were God, would you make such a prediction?

I think these areas of contention are too vague. You can try building your case this way if you want, but I reckon the best way to prove your argument and disprove the Bible would be to find some categorical logical contradictions and errors. i.e. like 2+2=5, or something that has zero possibility of being explained away. Otherwise all we're going to prove is that you and I don't have all the answers.

What are you saying? That the unlikeness means God did it? Is that what it boils down to? That it's so unlikely (irrelevant and really unknowable) that the best thing you can think of (argument from ignorance) is that a god, your God (a leap so large Superman couldn't do it) did it?

No, like the cosmological argument, the teleological argument is only used to show certain specific attributes, namely a higher intelligence.

You're argument is assuming that this is the only Universe that has ever existed.

well, yea, what evidence is there that other universes have existed?

We have no idea and we can't calculate how unlikely life is.

Are you sure about that? Roger Penrose found a way to do it. [ 10^(10^123) ]. [btw in mathematics, any odds above 1 in 10^50 is considered zero] and Here is a list of 165 of the parameters needed for a life-permitting universe

You're just putting God in the gaps of our knowledge-you're sitting there, and I tell you "I wonder what causes lightning" and you're telling me lightning is supernatural and caused by God. In truth, you know nothing more than I do, you just see fit to throw God in there. Every single time we have a gap in our knowledge, people invariably put God there and then, when we find the real reason behind it, God is removed. What makes this time different? How many times can God be stuck somewhere and removed before we just drop the whole God did it theory?

the cosmological and teleological arguments are not formed from the gaps in our knowledge. They're based on what we know about the big bang and the fine tuning of the universe. They look at the evidence and try to deduce the best explanation. Imagine coming home one day to find that your living room was in a complete mess, and you look in the corner to see your dog, covered in mess, looking very guilty. You would immediately suspect the dog. Now imagine [hypothetically] that for the next few hundred years extensive scientific studies were made on your mess, and it turns out that rather than being just a random chaotic clutter of junk, it is in fact a finely coordinated structure in which every part is profoundly linked to the other. The whole thing is delicately balanced on a knife edge, and when examined in depth it reveals vast chasms of information embedded deep within its architecture, from which we can learn from and draw new theories about our own existence. Presented with this new information we'd be foolish to continue suspecting the dog. We'd think, hang on, this is no ordinary mess, some kind of "superintellect has monkeyed"[link] with this mess. This is designed.

Well, this is what's happening with the advance of science. Instead of pushing God out, we're actually finding more and more evidence in support of the existence of God.

In no way does unlikeliness point to anything supernatural

well then what would convince you that God exists? Because I'm pretty sure that anything you can think of, the odds of a life-permitting universe will dwarf it. i.e. Burning bushes, miraculous answers to prayer, magical letters forming in the side of a mountain, even witnessing someone being raised from the dead would be far more probable than a life-permitting universe.

As the bible says, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." [Luke 16:31]

 

[Thelema]

ok, I was just interested to know your views on it. Like when you do those experiments in school where you stand on a table and fall backwards into your friends arms and you have to trust that they will catch you. I was just wondering the name you'd give for that? What if they didn't catch you? That's an option right? I mean, I'd call that faith - conviction based on evidence. There's enough evidence to be pretty sure that they'll catch you, but you still have to make that jump and fall backwards.


ok, I know I probably shouldn't reply to this argument again, but I'm still slightly curious to understand why it is you're drawing these conclusions...

ok so this is the third time you've misquoted me and this'll be the third time I've corrected you. The premise reads "everything that had a beginning must have a cause", the first cause does not have a beginning. Is that still a contradiction? Another way they could write it is "everything under natural law must have a cause". The circles around these premises are not around "everything". They're circles drawn around "everything that had a beginning" or "everything under natural law". My circle of everything would be drawn to include everything outside of nature too.

Now I understand that the idea of something existing outside of nature seems absurd, but check out this video; Dr Quantum visits Flatland...It's absolutely perfect in showing what I'm trying to explain here. It's called "Dr Quantum visits Flatland". This isn't from a theological source either, Dr Quantum [aka Fred Wolf] is a theoretical physicist, so this isn't just a gap I'm trying to fill with God. All I'm trying to do is open you up to the possibility of dimensions existing outside of the known universe.

If you read the prophecy you'll notice the pronoun "He" switches back to "They" in verse 12. Now all the predictions ascribed to the pronoun "They" were the predictions that Alexander the great fulfilled, i.e. looting, throwing timber and debris into the sea, making Tyre like a bare rock, becoming a place to spread fishnets. Now wouldn't that have been a fortunate stroke of luck for Ezekiel to have changed the pronoun "He" to "They" exactly at the point where Nebuchadnezzars fulfilments differ from Alexanders?

I think these areas of contention are too vague. You can try building your case this way if you want, but I reckon the best way to prove your argument and disprove the Bible would be to find some categorical logical contradictions and errors. i.e. like 2+2=5, or something that has zero possibility of being explained away. Otherwise all we're going to prove is that you and I don't have all the answers.

No, like the cosmological argument, the teleological argument is only used to show certain specific attributes, namely a higher intelligence.

well, yea, what evidence is there that other universes have existed?

Are you sure about that? Roger Penrose found a way to do it. [ 10^(10^123) ]. [btw in mathematics, any odds above 1 in 10^50 is considered zero] and Here is a list of 165 of the parameters needed for a life-permitting universe

the cosmological and teleological arguments are not formed from the gaps in our knowledge. They're based on what we know about the big bang and the fine tuning of the universe. They look at the evidence and try to deduce the best explanation. Imagine coming home one day to find that your living room was in a complete mess, and you look in the corner to see your dog, covered in mess, looking very guilty. You would immediately suspect the dog. Now imagine [hypothetically] that for the next few hundred years extensive scientific studies were made on your mess, and it turns out that rather than being just a random chaotic clutter of junk, it is in fact a finely coordinated structure in which every part is profoundly linked to the other. The whole thing is delicately balanced on a knife edge, and when examined in depth it reveals vast chasms of information embedded deep within its architecture, from which we can learn from and draw new theories about our own existence. Presented with this new information we'd be foolish to continue suspecting the dog. We'd think, hang on, this is no ordinary mess, some kind of "superintellect has monkeyed"[link] with this mess. This is designed.

Well, this is what's happening with the advance of science. Instead of pushing God out, we're actually finding more and more evidence in support of the existence of God.

well then what would convince you that God exists? Because I'm pretty sure that anything you can think of, the odds of a life-permitting universe will dwarf it. i.e. Burning bushes, miraculous answers to prayer, magical letters forming in the side of a mountain, even witnessing someone being raised from the dead would be far more probable than a life-permitting universe.

As the bible says, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." [Luke 16:31]

That's not faith. I have sufficient evidence to believe probably any random person would rather catch me than have me potentially seriously injure myself. It's a totally justified belief.

Hmmm. Maybe I did understand you wrong. Show that God had no beginning- also show these:

1. Show me something supernatural exists

2. Show me a supernatural being.

3. Show me that supernatural being always existed.

4. Show me that supernatural being created the Universe.

5. Show me that supernatural being was the burning bush.

I think these are the steps you need to take to get closer to drawing a connection between God and the Big Bang. Can you get past step 1? Where is your evidence for something supernatural? Science would love to hear about such a discovery. You might get the Nobel for such a thing.

Other dimensions are not supernatural. Ask a physicist at what point dimensions become supernatural, is it 2, 3, 4 , 5 maybe, or is it 14? Also, did these dimensions exist before the Big Bang? If so, how do you know?

Let's say dimension X exists. So what? Does the fact horses exist make it plausible Pegasus exists?

You definitely are putting God in the gap. Probably the biggest gap, the gap before the Big Bang. No physicist will touch that with a 10 foot pole. The gap is ginormous!

Alright, but I still contend that the prophecy is totally false and Alexander is thrown in as duct tape!

It's great we can depend on logic and not "faith."

Do you claim Noah's ark happened? Did Noah have dinosaurs on his ark?

Is my rock fine tuned? All the atoms are stuck in this particular sequence. It doesn't matter if the Universe is very improbable, the Universe might have expanded and collapsed a trillion times before we got this one that allowed us to exist. Saying the Universe is intelligently fine tuned assumes this is the only Big Bang to ever happen.

Show me a peer reviewed scientific paper that shows God is behind life on Earth. It doesn't matter what some person claims-Einstein didn't believe in the Big Bang, Newton thought astrology was neato, Aristotle was philosophically okay with slavery, you can find doctors that believe in UFOs. Just because so and so believes something, even no matter what genius they are, means nothing without evidence.

Strange you would bring up a Moses passage-archeologically, Moses doesn't exist and the Exodus never happened. The likeliness that we would have no evidence for his existence, outside of the Bible, means, God is deliberately keeping archeologists from finding evidence. Because, unlikeness means intelligence, right?

I don't care what some old book of hearsay says. It means astonishingly little to me. I can go and talk to living people that will talk to you about how a UFO brought them up and probed them, doesn't mean it's credible. The Bible can say anything, but until evidence supports it, it's just an old book. I can find lots of old books that talk about raising from the dead and I can find a lot of so called prophets that could do a lot of supposed things.

Prayer? Did you hear about the study that found prayer didn't make dying people any better?

God just needs to show up in a tangible way. It's very simple. Turn the Sun into his face and say "here I am" would be a great start. Better than an old book.

 

[Bar-AKA-Redzer]

Tell me what your told to believe is the answer to this why are there no catholic women priests?

 

[worrywort]

That's not faith. I have sufficient evidence to believe probably any random person would rather catch me than have me potentially seriously injure myself. It's a totally justified belief.

well, this is the way I feel about my faith - justified belief. I've followed the evidence just like you, only I've come to a different conclusion. I think the problem is that there are a lot of religious people who aren't very good at articulating their reasons for their beliefs, and so when someone challenges them about evolution or the existence of evil, they don't have an answer and have to play the faith card, and so faith appears to be this thing you have to believe in despite the evidence. But these people may still have valid reasons, i.e. maybe an undeniable supernatural experience, so that's why they seem so sure. They just can't articulate their faith or show it using evidence aside from experiential.

You definitely are putting God in the gap. Probably the biggest gap, the gap before the Big Bang. No physicist will touch that with a 10 foot pole. The gap is ginormous!

Again, the cosmological argument is only used to prove that there must be a transcendent, immaterial, uncaused first caused. It says nothing of the character of God. I only draw from the argument that which can be logically deduced from it. No more.

Show that God had no beginning-

Anything that exists outside of the dimension of time has no beginning. If space-time had a beginning, then whatever caused it to come into existence must exist outside of the dimension of time.

1. Show me something supernatural exists

First let's just define supernatural....

Other dimensions are not supernatural. Ask a physicist at what point dimensions become supernatural, is it 2, 3, 4 , 5 maybe, or is it 14?

...ok good, that's cool, up until this point all I've been trying to prove is that there exists some sort of force/mind/being beyond our 4 dimensions. That has been my definition of supernatural. So the 5th dimension would be a dimension where you could see time stretched out infront of you like a string of frames in an animation, and you could move freely around time, and would exist outside of time and therefore be timeless and beginningless yourself.

2. Show me a supernatural being.

that would be impossible because a 5th dimensional being passing through our 4 dimensions would appear to us as 4 dimensional. All we'd see is some unexplained phenomena, but as is usually the case we'd just assume that if it occured within nature it must have a natural explanation. We would have to exist in the 5th dimension ourselves to truly see a 5th dimensional being. The best way a 5th dimensional being could prove itself is by accurately predicting the future.

3. Show me that supernatural being always existed.

again, so anything that exists in the 5th dimension and beyond, exists outside of time itself, and therefore must be timeless.

4. Show me that supernatural being created the Universe.

I can give evidence that points to the God of the Bible as being the creator of the universe, as the Bible is the only piece of ancient literature that accurately matches with all the latest scientific findings concerning the nature of the universe.

1. The universe had a beginning - Gen 1:1
2. Time had a beginning - 1 Corinthians 2:7, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2
3. God exists outside of time - Psalm 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8, John 8:58, Exodus 3:14
4. God has no beginning or end - Psalm 102:25-27, Psalm 90:2, Rev 1:8
5. 2nd stage of creation: Dark Nebula - Gen 1:2*
6. 3rd stage of creation: Earliest primitive life forms begin in water - Gen 1:2*
7. 4th stage of creation: Stellar sequence - Gen 1:3-5*
8. 5th stage of creation: The earth cools off - Gen 1:6-8*
9. 6th stage of creation: Earth covered with water - Gen 1:9*
10. 7th stage of creation: Continents were formed - Gen 1:9*
11. 8th stage of creation: Vegetation - Gen 1:11-13*
12. 9th stage of creation: Breaks appear in clouds - Gen 1:14-19*
13. 10th stage of creation: Fish - Gen 1:20-21*
14. 11th stage of creation: Birds - Gen 1:21-22*
15. 12th stage of creation: Mammals - Gen 1:24-25*
16. 13th stage of creation: Man - Gen 1:26*
17. The universe is expanding - Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2
18. Entropy/ Second law of thermodynamics - Psalm 102:25-27, Romans 8:20-21
19. The countless number of stars in the universe - Jer. 33:22, Genesis 22:17
20. The immense size of the cosmos - Isaiah 55:9
21. The circular shape of the earth - Isaiah 40:22
22. The earth is suspended over nothing - Job 26:7
23. Orderly movement of stars in space - Jer. 31:35, Gen. 1:14
...and more

*Peter Stoner - "Science Speaks" [odds of accurately recording the correct order of creation events - 3.1x10^22]

Is my rock fine tuned? All the atoms are stuck in this particular sequence. It doesn't matter if the Universe is very improbable, the Universe might have expanded and collapsed a trillion times before we got this one that allowed us to exist. Saying the Universe is intelligently fine tuned assumes this is the only Big Bang to ever happen.

ok, good, well at least we seem to be agreeing that the explanation for these incredible fine-tuning odds requires something outside of our universe. That's the first step. These odds are so improbable that the universe alone cannot offer an explanation. So we have two possible explanations; [a] There are an infinite number of universes and a higher intelligence has guided our universe.

The first problem is that there is no evidence for [a] aside from the fine-tuning itself. There is no way of gaining direct evidence of these other universes without finding a way out of our universe first. Compare this to , where we have the entire creation to explore for corroborating evidence. We have the big bang, DNA, astronomy etc to search for evidence of a higher intelligence. Then we have the Bible, prophecies, miracles and personal testimony's to examine, plus the existence of a moral conscience, and transcendental arguments etc, and on and on. Secondly, if there aren't an infinite number of parallel universes, then a higher intelligence remains the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. So the burden of proof is on the multiversalists, and as there is no evidence to support it, the more justified belief in this instance is option . Thirdly, even if there are an infinite number of universes I still believe it would be counter intuitive to hold to option [a]. For example, imagine a poker game where your opponent is dealt 4 aces hundreds of times in a row. If his explanation was "well, you shouldn't be surprised, cause if there are an infinite number of universes then there are an infinite number of poker games going on right now, and so chances are in some of those universes I get dealt 4 aces hundreds of times in a row", would you sit down for the next hand, after that explanation?

Alright, but I still contend that the prophecy is totally false and Alexander is thrown in as duct tape!

... ok, fair play

Do you claim Noah's ark happened?

If it's in the Bible then I would expect it to have happened, yes.

Did Noah have dinosaurs on his ark?

I'm not sure. The Bible mentions the "Behemoth" post-Noahs ark, which sounds like a pretty hefty beast. But Noah could have used baby "Behemoths", and there was only two of each "kind" of animal, not every single variation of animal within their "kinds".

God just needs to show up in a tangible way. It's very simple. Turn the Sun into his face and say "here I am" would be a great start. Better than an old book.

If God gave you evidence so overwhelming that it was undeniable, it may well force you to believe in his existence but would it make you love God? Or would you begrudgingly obey him like a slave? More than anything God wants a relationship with us , but for love to be true he must give us the freedom NOT to love. God will provide us with enough evidence that we need, but before all this what he wants more is for us to open up and allow him into our hearts so that he can dramatically change us from the inside out and revolutionise our lives. I know it all sounds like brainwashing cult stuff, but have you ever tried just sincerely praying and asking God to reveal himself to you? it can't hurt to try right?

 

[worrywort]

Tell me what your told to believe is the answer to this why are there no catholic women priests?

That's a tricky one. I'm not sure I'm the most qualified person to answer that question to be honest, but I'd imagine that, to most Catholics, tradition is a very treasured quality. Remaining loyal to past practices of the church and obedient to its elders is a way to keep things pure. I think the original reason the Catholic church would not allow female priests is because they were trying to follow the example set by Jesus and his apostles. Jesus chose 12 male apostles, and those apostles later chose more male apostles to follow them. Whether this is right or wrong is up for debate, but I doubt that it's due to any kind of sexism. Women have had many honoured roles in the Bible, but Catholics happen to believe that a priest is not one of them.

 

[Bar-AKA-Redzer]

That's a tricky one. I'm not sure I'm the most qualified person to answer that question to be honest, but I'd imagine that, to most Catholics, tradition is a very treasured quality. Remaining loyal to past practices of the church and obedient to its elders is a way to keep things pure. I think the original reason the Catholic church would not allow female priests is because they were trying to follow the example set by Jesus and his apostles. Jesus chose 12 male apostles, and those apostles later chose more male apostles to follow them. Whether this is right or wrong is up for debate, but I doubt that it's due to any kind of sexism. Women have had many honoured roles in the Bible, but Catholics happen to believe that a priest is not one of them.

You dont know? no one can seem to answer this. Thre has to be reason behind it and i dont believe its cause jesus had 12 apostles, what about Mary Magdalene....

 

[Bar-AKA-Redzer]

I know it all sounds like brainwashing cult stuff, but have you ever tried just sincerely praying and asking God to reveal himself to you? it can't hurt to try right?

u said in another post if its in the bible then yes i believe it... let me say this:

And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and Jehovah caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left” (Exodus 14:21-22). HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA sure he did! LMAO

It is totally brainwashing stuff like if it was so true then no one would dis-believe it or even question anything about it. if he was real then he would show us himself, u an adult are living your life around a book! what u want love from a "being" surely the love off ur family or wife is enough?. I still cant get why u and so many people want to please this "god" WHY? WHY? what is soo good about him. Ok here is your job convince me otherwise to think better of him.

 

[Thelema]

well, this is the way I feel about my faith - justified belief. I've followed the evidence just like you, only I've come to a different conclusion. I think the problem is that there are a lot of religious people who aren't very good at articulating their reasons for their beliefs, and so when someone challenges them about evolution or the existence of evil, they don't have an answer and have to play the faith card, and so faith appears to be this thing you have to believe in despite the evidence. But these people may still have valid reasons, i.e. maybe an undeniable supernatural experience, so that's why they seem so sure. They just can't articulate their faith or show it using evidence aside from experiential.

Again, the cosmological argument is only used to prove that there must be a transcendent, immaterial, uncaused first caused. It says nothing of the character of God. I only draw from the argument that which can be logically deduced from it. No more.
Anything that exists outside of the dimension of time has no beginning. If space-time had a beginning, then whatever caused it to come into existence must exist outside of the dimension of time.

First let's just define supernatural....

...ok good, that's cool, up until this point all I've been trying to prove is that there exists some sort of force/mind/being beyond our 4 dimensions. That has been my definition of supernatural. So the 5th dimension would be a dimension where you could see time stretched out infront of you like a string of frames in an animation, and you could move freely around time, and would exist outside of time and therefore be timeless and beginningless yourself.

that would be impossible because a 5th dimensional being passing through our 4 dimensions would appear to us as 4 dimensional. All we'd see is some unexplained phenomena, but as is usually the case we'd just assume that if it occured within nature it must have a natural explanation. We would have to exist in the 5th dimension ourselves to truly see a 5th dimensional being. The best way a 5th dimensional being could prove itself is by accurately predicting the future.

again, so anything that exists in the 5th dimension and beyond, exists outside of time itself, and therefore must be timeless.

I can give evidence that points to the God of the Bible as being the creator of the universe, as the Bible is the only piece of ancient literature that accurately matches with all the latest scientific findings concerning the nature of the universe.

1. The universe had a beginning - Gen 1:1
2. Time had a beginning - 1 Corinthians 2:7, 2 Timothy 1:9, Titus 1:2
3. God exists outside of time - Psalm 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8, John 8:58, Exodus 3:14
4. God has no beginning or end - Psalm 102:25-27, Psalm 90:2, Rev 1:8
5. 2nd stage of creation: Dark Nebula - Gen 1:2*
6. 3rd stage of creation: Earliest primitive life forms begin in water - Gen 1:2*
7. 4th stage of creation: Stellar sequence - Gen 1:3-5*
8. 5th stage of creation: The earth cools off - Gen 1:6-8*
9. 6th stage of creation: Earth covered with water - Gen 1:9*
10. 7th stage of creation: Continents were formed - Gen 1:9*
11. 8th stage of creation: Vegetation - Gen 1:11-13*
12. 9th stage of creation: Breaks appear in clouds - Gen 1:14-19*
13. 10th stage of creation: Fish - Gen 1:20-21*
14. 11th stage of creation: Birds - Gen 1:21-22*
15. 12th stage of creation: Mammals - Gen 1:24-25*
16. 13th stage of creation: Man - Gen 1:26*
17. The universe is expanding - Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2
18. Entropy/ Second law of thermodynamics - Psalm 102:25-27, Romans 8:20-21
19. The countless number of stars in the universe - Jer. 33:22, Genesis 22:17
20. The immense size of the cosmos - Isaiah 55:9
21. The circular shape of the earth - Isaiah 40:22
22. The earth is suspended over nothing - Job 26:7
23. Orderly movement of stars in space - Jer. 31:35, Gen. 1:14
...and more

*Peter Stoner - "Science Speaks" [odds of accurately recording the correct order of creation events - 3.1x10^22]

ok, good, well at least we seem to be agreeing that the explanation for these incredible fine-tuning odds requires something outside of our universe. That's the first step. These odds are so improbable that the universe alone cannot offer an explanation. So we have two possible explanations; [a] There are an infinite number of universes and a higher intelligence has guided our universe.

The first problem is that there is no evidence for [a] aside from the fine-tuning itself. There is no way of gaining direct evidence of these other universes without finding a way out of our universe first. Compare this to , where we have the entire creation to explore for corroborating evidence. We have the big bang, DNA, astronomy etc to search for evidence of a higher intelligence. Then we have the Bible, prophecies, miracles and personal testimony's to examine, plus the existence of a moral conscience, and transcendental arguments etc, and on and on. Secondly, if there aren't an infinite number of parallel universes, then a higher intelligence remains the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. So the burden of proof is on the multiversalists, and as there is no evidence to support it, the more justified belief in this instance is option . Thirdly, even if there are an infinite number of universes I still believe it would be counter intuitive to hold to option [a]. For example, imagine a poker game where your opponent is dealt 4 aces hundreds of times in a row. If his explanation was "well, you shouldn't be surprised, cause if there are an infinite number of universes then there are an infinite number of poker games going on right now, and so chances are in some of those universes I get dealt 4 aces hundreds of times in a row", would you sit down for the next hand, after that explanation?

... ok, fair play

If it's in the Bible then I would expect it to have happened, yes.

I'm not sure. The Bible mentions the "Behemoth" post-Noahs ark, which sounds like a pretty hefty beast. But Noah could have used baby "Behemoths", and there was only two of each "kind" of animal, not every single variation of animal within their "kinds".

If God gave you evidence so overwhelming that it was undeniable, it may well force you to believe in his existence but would it make you love God? Or would you begrudgingly obey him like a slave? More than anything God wants a relationship with us , but for love to be true he must give us the freedom NOT to love. God will provide us with enough evidence that we need, but before all this what he wants more is for us to open up and allow him into our hearts so that he can dramatically change us from the inside out and revolutionise our lives. I know it all sounds like brainwashing cult stuff, but have you ever tried just sincerely praying and asking God to reveal himself to you? it can't hurt to try right?

Don't you think if there was evidence, in the age of science which is based totally on evidence, people would just go nuh-huh and science would look away? There has to be some massive conspiracy for your assertion to be true.

Do you just read Christian books and go to Christian websites and watch Christian shows? There's a big world out there that disagrees with all these "facts" that "prove" the Bible and their objections are totally valid.

It is neither sound nor valid. It's the pinnacle of nonsensical. you're sticking God before the Big Bang, we know nothing 0, nadda, about before that. I can't convey how bad it is. It's the the desperate attempt to put God at the Big Bang by using fallacious logic. I can tell you right now, no person has ever put together a both valid and sound logical argument for God. Does that sway you? In thousands of years, no person has ever been able to accomplish a seemingly simple task.

Show me the 5th dimension exists before the big bang. Asserting X dimension is beyond time proves nothing. I can just as easily assert that the matter for the Big Bang came out of this dimension and that deems the Universe eternal. It's also more probable that matter spewed out of this dimension instead of a super all knowing God.

How does the 5th dimension account for a super being exactly? How do you get from A to B? You're just asserting all these qualities to these dimensions that physics doesn't have a good idea about. You're sticking God in these gaps of our knowledge of other dimensions!

Show me a physicist that will claim these dimensions exist in the way you say. You seem to be just asserting some sort of funny business with this extra dimension stuff as some sort of loophole. Give me some science!

What? We can't even perceive this 5th dimensional being, so he shows up as a Jewish tribal deity and talks to a person that archeologically doesn't exist , tells people to mutilate their penis' and then decides to send a son down to die for our sins? Hello? That's the most plausible way a 5th dimensional being would reveal himself?

What do you think about the zero archeological evidence for Moses or Exodus?

Show me the 4 thousand year old dinosaur skeleton and evidence of a global flood. Also show me how a billion (or is it 5 billion? and that's just the species that exist today) species fitted in a practical dingy. Noah's Ark never happened and that is the Bible being majorly wrong. If there was one thing that shows brainwashing, it's believing Noah sailed around a globally flooded Earth with dinosaurs.

"1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Fail. You don't see what I see?

Where are the peer reviewed scientific papers showing that the Bible details the creation of the Universe? I can get you a scientist and a book that will tell you UFOs live in the ocean...So what?

Stop right there with the improbable=impossible gambit. It matters not at all how improbable something is. Anything natural happening is many magnitudes more probable than Jehovah doing it.

Let's play the game where you explain how an all knowing, all powerful Jewish tribal deity existing in the 5th dimension and is totally unknown to science, logic and reason is more probable than a natural explanation which explains everything perfectly well within the limits of our knowledge.

I'm asking for objectivity. Be cold and heartless and look at the evidence without the grading curve the Christian apologetics rely so heavily on. Don't look at something and think "God is most likely involved here unless some evidence points against it." If you look at everything that way, God is everywhere, but also is Thor and Mithra or Shiva, depending on what you believe.

Don't go out looking for God, go out looking for what is there. If God is there, you don't need a Christian apologetic to point it out, you don't need the Bible to tell you, you don't even need to know that such a thing called a Bible exists, the evidence will lead you to God if he is there.

There is a reason why nobody has put their evidence for God through the peer review process, it's because the evidence itself, on its own, not shaded in any apologetic way, not preached and taken as dogma, not shown on a Christian tv show or seen on a Christian website, won't hold up. There's a process, the gold standard, the sieve of objectivity. When science looks at something, it looks at it objectively and actively tried to disproved itself. Scientists will rip bad science to shreds.

 

[worrywort]

u said in another post if its in the bible then yes i believe it... let me say this:

And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and Jehovah caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left” (Exodus 14:21-22). HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA sure he did! LMAO

It is totally brainwashing stuff like if it was so true then no one would dis-believe it or even question anything about it. if he was real then he would show us himself, u an adult are living your life around a book! what u want love from a "being" surely the love off ur family or wife is enough?. I still cant get why u and so many people want to please this "god" WHY? WHY? what is soo good about him. Ok here is your job convince me otherwise to think better of him.

Imagine every street of your town was absolutely covered, 1 foot deep, with 10p pieces. Now imagine that one of those 10p pieces was marked with an X and hidden randomly amoungst the others. If you were blindfolded and asked to wander through these streets and then to choose a place to stop, bend down and pick up one of these 10p pieces, what do you think the chances would be that you'd pick the one with the X on it? Well, hold that thought. Now imagine instead of just your town, the entire UK was covered with 10p's and this time they're two feet deep. What do you think your chances would be now of finding the marked coin? Well, double that figure and you'll still be short of the odds of just 8 of the prophecies in the Bible being fulfilled. [Science Speaks - Peter Stoner]. Now, did you know that there are thousands of prophecies in the Bible. Almost a third of the bible is prophecy, many of which are detailed and specific using names, places, times and events and are verifiable using archaeology and other sources outside of the Bible. Did you also know that the Bible claims that the prophecies are 100% accurate; a record I'm yet to see falsified....and this is just the prophetic evidence, you'll find similar figures when you look into other evidences such as the fine-tuning of the universe and other design arguments, the scientific evidence, the cosmological argument, and on and on.

Personally I'm genuinely baffled that so many people DON'T believe in God. I just don't get it. It seems so obvious to me. The only reason I can think of is that there are so many lies and myths surrounding the Bible that people find it hard to get to the real truth. Like the parting of the red sea for example. You're probably picturing something like the image below, but this, I believe, is a faulty mythological interpretation of what happened.

Firstly, the word "wall" [Chowmah] is the same word used in Nahum 3:8,

"Are you better than Thebes, situated on the Nile, with water around her? The river was her defence, the waters her wall [Chowmah]"

It doesn't literally mean a vertical wall upwards like a canyon. It's just metaphorical. Secondly there have been reports that archaelogists have found the one place most probable that the Israelites would've crossed, and in that exact location there is an underwater land bridge where they've found remnants of chariots and human bones. If this is the case, then a strong wind blowing throughout the night could well affect the water level and expose this underwater bridge.

[Evidence of Red Sea Crossing]

The first thing that got me interested in the Bible was the evidence. The more I examined the evidence the harder I found it to disregard this book. I mean, I was the same as you, why can't God just reveal himself to everyone with a clear sign so that there's no doubt? It does seem like life would be easier that way, but then I'm not sure providing everybody with an easy life is God's objective. I think he's more interested in our hearts. He wants us to search and grow and learn, rather than doing all the work for us.

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" [Matthew 7:7]

 

[worrywort]

...

I think we're getting a little sidetracked. Ok, you asked for evidence for God. I gave you the cosmological argument, the teleological argument and some prophetic evidence. Now, you've raised some very challenging objections but none of these I believe make a dent in the arguments.

The Cosmological Argument
1. If something has a beginning to its existence, then it must be caused by something.
2. Nature had a beginning.
3. Therefore nature must be caused by something.
4. The cause of nature must be either natural [itself] or non-natural [supernatural]
5. Nature cannot cause itself to come into existence
6. Therefore the cause of nature is supernatural

As of yet, the only objection I think I agree with you upon is that we can't know anything for sure at the big bang. But other than that, at this current time, the best explanation is still a non-natural, uncaused first cause. To disagree with this, you'd have to bank on the big bang or the law of cause and effect being disproven at some point.

The Teleological argument
The universe we live in is so vastly fine-tuned that it demands an explanation. Is it by chance, necessity [which we haven't discussed yet] or design? Again, you've given me no convincing refutation of this argument either. You seem to be saying that chances have nothing to do with anything, whilst at the same time proposing the multi universe theory. If chances have nothing to do with it then there's no need to propose the multi universe theory. So which is it? Do chances have anything to do with it? if not, could you help me to see why you think they don't.

And with the prophetic evidence, you've yet to show me one prophecy that has definitely not come true. So at the moment, I still believe God is the best explanation to these problems. Now on to your other questions;

Where are the peer reviewed scientific papers showing that the Bible details the creation of the Universe? I can get you a scientist and a book that will tell you UFOs live in the ocean...So what?
There is a reason why nobody has put their evidence for God through the peer review process, it's because the evidence itself, on its own, not shaded in any apologetic way, not preached and taken as dogma, not shown on a Christian tv show or seen on a Christian website, won't hold up. There's a process, the gold standard, the sieve of objectivity. When science looks at something, it looks at it objectively and actively tried to disproved itself. Scientists will rip bad science to shreds.
Don't you think if there was evidence, in the age of science which is based totally on evidence, people would just go nuh-huh and science would look away? There has to be some massive conspiracy for your assertion to be true.

That's a good question, but I don't necessarily agree. Firstly science only answers the "how" questions, it doesn't answer the "why" questions. i.e. two people can look at the exact same evidence but draw two very different meanings from it. The big bang and the fine-tuning of the universe are well established scientific facts. Whether they point to God is a question for the philosophers. Secondly, do I think the scientific establishment has a fair system that freely welcomes all new theories regardless of their conclusions? No, not really. This film [Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed] exposes the oppressive climate of the scientific world today and how professors who even mention intelligent design in their classrooms are losing their jobs. Thirdly, Christianity is not just another conspiracy theory like ufology, the paranormal, loch ness etc. Here are some quotes from some honoured scientists;

[Albert Einstein - Theoretical Physicist] - "That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God"

[Ed Harrison - Cosmologist] - "The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."

[Tony Rothman - Physicist] - "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it."

[Frank Tipler - Professor of Mathematical Physics] - "From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science."

[Fred Hoyle - Astrophysicist] - "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics"

Fourthly, if you sat a couple in a laboratory and told them to fall in love so that you could test their chemical reactions, do you think it'd be a fair experiment? No, because love, under the microscope, is not true love. My point - God isn't gonna fit in your test tubes. We can only test what we can control. The higher things in life aren't going to bow to our instruments. And finally, am I happy to let scientists decide what the meaning of life is for me? No way, I wouldn't let anybody decide that for me. Scientists may well be very clever, but at the end of the day they're fallible humans with biases just like the rest of us. If God drew the line so that only the intelligent people could find him, that wouldn't be very fair. The line that God draws cuts all people from all walks of life equally.

Show me the 5th dimension exists before the big bang. Asserting X dimension is beyond time proves nothing. I can just as easily assert that the matter for the Big Bang came out of this dimension and that deems the Universe eternal. It's also more probable that matter spewed out of this dimension instead of a super all knowing God.

How does the 5th dimension account for a super being exactly? How do you get from A to B? You're just asserting all these qualities to these dimensions that physics doesn't have a good idea about. You're sticking God in these gaps of our knowledge of other dimensions!
Show me a physicist that will claim these dimensions exist in the way you say. You seem to be just asserting some sort of funny business with this extra dimension stuff as some sort of loophole. Give me some science!

Imagining the tenth dimension

What? We can't even perceive this 5th dimensional being, so he shows up as a Jewish tribal deity and talks to a person that archeologically doesn't exist , tells people to mutilate their penis' and then decides to send a son down to die for our sins? Hello? That's the most plausible way a 5th dimensional being would reveal himself?

yea you're right, sorry. If God is God he should be able to reveal himself as burning bushes, pillars of cloud and fire, etc that's right. I did think about adding that, but I'm trying to keep my responses as brief as possible. My point was that even if a miracle was witnessed, many people would still presume that if it occurred within nature then there must be a natural explanation.

Show me the 4 thousand year old dinosaur skeleton and evidence of a global flood. Also show me how a billion (or is it 5 billion? and that's just the species that exist today) species fitted in a practical dingy. Noah's Ark never happened and that is the Bible being majorly wrong. If there was one thing that shows brainwashing, it's believing Noah sailed around a globally flooded Earth with dinosaurs.

Ok, Noah's ark - If the bible claims that the entire globe was flooded with waters that submerged the highest mountains, killing every living thing, and that Noah gathered two of every species of animals onto an ark that he and his brothers built, then the Bible has major problems. I agree. This story would be very hard to believe. But is that really what the Bible claims? For the truth we'd need to look at the original Hebrew;

Firstly, The Hebrew word used for " Earth " is " 'erets " and it can mean anything from "ground" or "region" up to "the whole earth". The Global flood story was never taught by the church until the 20th century, it was always accepted to be a local flood. Bear in mind that for us today, we are far more globally minded than they would've been in Noah's day. They would have interpreted the idea of the whole earth with a totally different perspective.

Secondly, the Hebrew word for "mountain" is "har" and, again, can mean anything from "mound" or "hill" to "mountain". There's no reason to believe that Mount Everest was covered by the flood.

Thirdly, the two words used in Genesis 6-9 for animals are "Nephesh" and "Basar". The word "nephesh" includes birds and mammals only. The word "basar" refers more specifically to those birds and mammals that contribute to man's livelihood. So, the number of animals on board the ark probably numbered in the hundreds, certainly no more than a few thousand.

Lastly, the only place in the world where massive flooding has occurred since the advent of modern man is the region of Mesopotamia.

What do you think about the zero archeological evidence for Moses or Exodus?

I haven't looked into it much to be honest. Could you show me where you're getting your information for this claim? I mean, what about the Bible? There's more manuscript evidence for the Bible than any other piece of ancient literature but we don't ever question the existence of Plato or Aristotle.....I'll look into it further and see if I can provide some answers for you.

Do you just read Christian books and go to Christian websites and watch Christian shows? There's a big world out there that disagrees with all these "facts" that "prove" the Bible and their objections are totally valid.

It's a shame that you see me that way.

 

[Thelema]

I think we're getting a little sidetracked. Ok, you asked for evidence for God. I gave you the cosmological argument, the teleological argument and some prophetic evidence. Now, you've raised some very challenging objections but none of these I believe make a dent in the arguments.

The Cosmological Argument
1. If something has a beginning to its existence, then it must be caused by something.
2. Nature had a beginning.
3. Therefore nature must be caused by something.
4. The cause of nature must be either natural [itself] or non-natural [supernatural]
5. Nature cannot cause itself to come into existence
6. Therefore the cause of nature is supernatural

As of yet, the only objection I think I agree with you upon is that we can't know anything for sure at the big bang. But other than that, at this current time, the best explanation is still a non-natural, uncaused first cause. To disagree with this, you'd have to bank on the big bang or the law of cause and effect being disproven at some point.

The Teleological argument
The universe we live in is so vastly fine-tuned that it demands an explanation. Is it by chance, necessity [which we haven't discussed yet] or design? Again, you've given me no convincing refutation of this argument either. You seem to be saying that chances have nothing to do with anything, whilst at the same time proposing the multi universe theory. If chances have nothing to do with it then there's no need to propose the multi universe theory. So which is it? Do chances have anything to do with it? if not, could you help me to see why you think they don't.

And with the prophetic evidence, you've yet to show me one prophecy that has definitely not come true. So at the moment, I still believe God is the best explanation to these problems. Now on to your other questions;

That's a good question, but I don't necessarily agree. Firstly science only answers the "how" questions, it doesn't answer the "why" questions. i.e. two people can look at the exact same evidence but draw two very different meanings from it. The big bang and the fine-tuning of the universe are well established scientific facts. Whether they point to God is a question for the philosophers. Secondly, do I think the scientific establishment has a fair system that freely welcomes all new theories regardless of their conclusions? No, not really. This film [Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed] exposes the oppressive climate of the scientific world today and how professors who even mention intelligent design in their classrooms are losing their jobs. Thirdly, Christianity is not just another conspiracy theory like ufology, the paranormal, loch ness etc. Here are some quotes from some honoured scientists;

[Albert Einstein - Theoretical Physicist] - "That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God"

[Ed Harrison - Cosmologist] - "The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."

[Tony Rothman - Physicist] - "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it."

[Frank Tipler - Professor of Mathematical Physics] - "From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science."

[Fred Hoyle - Astrophysicist] - "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics"

Fourthly, if you sat a couple in a laboratory and told them to fall in love so that you could test their chemical reactions, do you think it'd be a fair experiment? No, because love, under the microscope, is not true love. My point - God isn't gonna fit in your test tubes. We can only test what we can control. The higher things in life aren't going to bow to our instruments. And finally, am I happy to let scientists decide what the meaning of life is for me? No way, I wouldn't let anybody decide that for me. Scientists may well be very clever, but at the end of the day they're fallible humans with biases just like the rest of us. If God drew the line so that only the intelligent people could find him, that wouldn't be very fair. The line that God draws cuts all people from all walks of life equally.

Imagining the tenth dimension

yea you're right, sorry. If God is God he should be able to reveal himself as burning bushes, pillars of cloud and fire, etc that's right. I did think about adding that, but I'm trying to keep my responses as brief as possible. My point was that even if a miracle was witnessed, many people would still presume that if it occurred within nature then there must be a natural explanation.

Ok, Noah's ark - If the bible claims that the entire globe was flooded with waters that submerged the highest mountains, killing every living thing, and that Noah gathered two of every species of animals onto an ark that he and his brothers built, then the Bible has major problems. I agree. This story would be very hard to believe. But is that really what the Bible claims? For the truth we'd need to look at the original Hebrew;

Firstly, The Hebrew word used for " Earth " is " 'erets " and it can mean anything from "ground" or "region" up to "the whole earth". The Global flood story was never taught by the church until the 20th century, it was always accepted to be a local flood. Bear in mind that for us today, we are far more globally minded than they would've been in Noah's day. They would have interpreted the idea of the whole earth with a totally different perspective.

Secondly, the Hebrew word for "mountain" is "har" and, again, can mean anything from "mound" or "hill" to "mountain". There's no reason to believe that Mount Everest was covered by the flood.

Thirdly, the two words used in Genesis 6-9 for animals are "Nephesh" and "Basar". The word "nephesh" includes birds and mammals only. The word "basar" refers more specifically to those birds and mammals that contribute to man's livelihood. So, the number of animals on board the ark probably numbered in the hundreds, certainly no more than a few thousand.

Lastly, the only place in the world where massive flooding has occurred since the advent of modern man is the region of Mesopotamia.

I haven't looked into it much to be honest. Could you show me where you're getting your information for this claim? I mean, what about the Bible? There's more manuscript evidence for the Bible than any other piece of ancient literature but we don't ever question the existence of Plato or Aristotle.....I'll look into it further and see if I can provide some answers for you.

It's a shame that you see me that way.

Are my objections valid? If so, the argument is flawed and invalid. Are my objections false? Then tell me why.

You do know that intelligent design isn't a scientific theory, right?

Tyre didn't come true. I can show you photographs of the city which does not not exist on the bare rock which isn't a bare rock that wasn't never rebuilt ever by many a succeeding civilization and was never destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.

If God exists, he manifests in the material world. I thought we agreed? If so, God can be studied and measured. That falls under the realm of science.

You just linked me to a book that supposedly presents scientific evidence that proves Genesis. You have also told me that science is proving more and more the Bible true. You then try and wiggle out of any science that doesn't support you. I guess the only science that is reliable, comes from apologists and christian scientists. Hypocritical?

It is interesting that every conspiracy theorist and pseudo scientist uses the same line or reasoning, they're all too good and beyond scientific scrutiny when their pseudo science doesn't stack up. They will present their bad science and when confronted to come up with something with substance, suddenly, science can't explain things.

I wonder if you think Scientology shouldn't need to explain its claims scientifically? What if they had Scientologist scientists that gave you a book that proved through science what they claim?

Maybe I should go to a Scientologist apologist website, because, that's obviously the best way to learn about real science. We can't trust those skeeming scientists, we've seen those movies about their ways, with their bettering of mankind and curing diseases, they're evil. They have it out for our holy Scientology religion, the only true one. They use all that valid inductive reasoning and that is just Xenu's way of tricking mankind. <---it sounds nuts when we talk about scientology, but you say the exact same thing.

Another good example of the same thing is ghost hunters. Ghost hunters have tons of "evidence" and lots of books and ghost hunters, but all the evidence is pseudo science and falls through. What's the defense? "Oh, well, we have some good stuff and scientists are just closed minded and we don't need to prove it to anyone." In truth, science doesn't care much because no real evidence to warrant any further study has shown up. A ghost hunter can claim all the evidence for ghosts they want, but there's nothing there.

Notice how that video starts at the Big Bang, the beginning of the succeeding dimensions, and how those dimensions did not exist before the Big Bang. Dimension 1 existed, I think, but nothing else. Notice how nobody is willing to go before the Big Bang. You still haven't shown me a being from the 5th dimension (sounds scifi) and how that being is God and how God created the Universe. You haven't given me any peer reviewed science that puts God in that dimension, or at the Big Bang.

Quote mining? Really?

Yes, that's exactly right. People would assume it's a natural phenomenon and they would be right in doing so. We have never witnessed anything outside of natural, so it's absurd to assume something is unnatural until proven so. Wouldn't you agree?

Oh, so intsead of World, it was a small flooded land, and instead of every animal, it was a few sheep and instead of flood, it really just rained hard and maybe instead of boat it was just a house with a new wooden roof and instead of God, it was just an old guy standing outside with a beard.

Noah sounds mundane how you put it, which isn't how most Christians believe it, what's so supernatural about it? It sounds like nothing more than a folk tale.

I believe it was a PBS special on the Old Testament or maybe a History Channel show. They went to Egypt trying to find evidence. According to them no archeologist has been able to find any actual evidence, for Exodus, or the 40 year wandering and Moses as a person has no evidence for him except from stories written much later.

I think you are so willing to see God everywhere that God is the default explanation until someone comes and disproves it, essentially giving all of humanity the task of disproving God to you. The default position is always disbelief. You need positive evidence for God, not neutral. You seem to be towing the apologist line to the exclusion of other skeptical ideas and to the point of seeing a conspiracy against your religion.

Every religious person sees signs of their religion everywhere. If God existed, you wouldn't need anyone to tell you of the secret and this special book and go to this special place to learn about it. If God existed, he'd be like gravity, seemingly mysterious, but easily demonstrated. People thought Einstein was wrong...very wrong...but, the evidence was there and he eventually was accepted.

Science is driven by evidence, and peer review is the place where you are bombarded by scientists trying to disprove you. Ben Stein is correct, science wants to find a weakness, and it shows no mercy and that's why it is good. If Einstein can do it, Ben Stein has no excuse. Every new theory that shakes up old ideas is met with skepticism, but science is science.

(and expelled has received a lot of criticism by a diverse many people, google it)

 

[worrywort]

Are my objections valid? If so, the argument is flawed and invalid. Are my objections false? Then tell me why.

yea, they were good objections...they got me thinking, but personally I don't believe any of them work out, and here's why;

Cosmological argument

Objection no.1
that the universe is eternal - but the impossibility of bridging an infinite string of causes proves this can't be true. Plus the big bang theory shows that the entire universe [space-time included] had a beginning, while Einsteins theory of relativity links all space-time-matter as inseparable.
Objection No.2
alleged contradiction - nothing can exist without a cause - god exists without a cause - but you misquoted me, the first premise is "everything that has a beginning must have a cause" [or "everything under natural law must have a cause"]. Whatever caused space-time-matter to come into existence must exist outside of space-time-matter and anything that exists outside of time would be timeless and therefore would not need a cause.
Objection No.3
I'm just putting God in the gaps - but the cosmological argument is only used to prove that which can be logically deduced from it - namely, an uncaused, non-natural, first cause. I don't deduce from the argument that the uncaused cause can answer your prayers!
Objection No.4
We can't know anything for sure at the big bang - yea, I agree with this objection, but all it means is that we can't have 100% certainty of the conclusion. But still, to deny it we'd have to bank on the big bang or the law of cause and effect being disproven at some point.

Teleological Argument

Objection No.1
sheer unlikeliness doesn't point to a designer - But there is a difference between specified probability and a lottery type of probability. If a million sperm are fighting over one egg, each sperm has a one in a million chance of conception. So is it miraculous when one sperm successfully fertilises the egg? No, because ALL of the sperm would've resulted in life. If however, a man were infertile and given odds of 1 in a million of conceiving. If this man then went on to defy these odds and successfully conceive that truly would be miraculous because only 1 of the million sperm would've resulted in life.
Objection No.2
There could be an infinite number of universes - but [a] we have absolutely no evidence for this, it opens the door to absurdities, i.e. if an infinite number of universes exist then unicorns, fairies and flying spaghetti monsters must exist in some of these universes too. And [c] i still believe it is counter intuitive, i.e. if a man explained away his lucky streak of 4 aces, hundreds of times in a row, by saying that "if there are an infinite number of universes then chances are I get 4 aces hundreds of times in a row in some of those universes" would you accept that as a believable explanation?

Yes, that's exactly right. People would assume it's a natural phenomenon and they would be right in doing so. We have never witnessed anything outside of natural, so it's absurd to assume something is unnatural until proven so. Wouldn't you agree?

I think this is the crux. This is the choice we need to make. We live in a naturalistic world with naturalistic laws and if reality moved along nicely in accord with these laws then we wouldn't have a problem. But unfortunately reality does not seem to be matching up with current naturalistic laws. Universes should not be popping into existence out of nothing. Life should not be evolving against odds of 1 in 10^(10^123). 6th century BC prophets should not be able to accurately foretell the future defying odds of 1 in 10^200 plus. At some point we need to ask ourselves, will naturalistic explanations really suffice for these things? Or is there something else going on here? Is there a better explanation?

and I guess that's the choice that we're both free to make, so if you want to hang tight and wait on the hope that science will one day explain these things then I guess you're free to do so and I want to respect that choice. But for me, I just can't pretend that these problems aren't there. They're too huge. It'd take me more faith to be an atheist than to be a theist right now.

You just linked me to a book that supposedly presents scientific evidence that proves Genesis. You have also told me that science is proving more and more the Bible true. You then try and wiggle out of any science that doesn't support you. I guess the only science that is reliable, comes from apologists and Christian scientists. Hypocritical?

Yea, I had a feeling I should've worded that better! There are some parts of God we can test and some we can't. God has given us enough evidence to believe in him. He has given us the universe and its design, the Bible and its prophecies, and he's given us reason, morality, consciousness and the soul. We can use all these things to build up a secure case for the existence of God. As our technologies grow we will be able to learn more and more about God. But God will always be greater than us so there will always be some aspect that we won't be able to test. Miracles, for example. We can not put God in a laboratory and ask him to perform miracles on demand whenever our scientists tell him to. God is not going to submit to us, we should be submitting to him.

But still, the question of why proof of God is not an accepted scientific theory yet is an intriguing one. On the one hand, I look at the evidence, as do millions of others, and the conclusion seems obvious to us. But then, on the other hand, why haven't the clever people in white coats come to the same conclusion yet?* I think this question gets right to the heart of the nature of truth and faith. What is truth? How do we arrive at truth? And what role does science play in the search for truth? Is truth only that which can be empirically tested? If so, how do you test the truthfulness of that statement itself? Can science measure my passion for art or quantify the love for my family? What has science to say about evil when a young child is brutally tortured? Does the scientific establishment hold the entire monopoly on who gets to decide what the meaning of life is? Should the scientific establishment have that right? To me science is just one of the ways we can arrive at truth. Mathematics, metaphysics, personal experience and philosophy are equally effective, if not more so. The role of science is to examine the universe and to discover how it works. Whether the findings point to God is a much more profound question that every human being is equally entitled to answer. Science can only test things that are repeatable and consistent, but is life repeatable and consistent? If miracles happen sporadically and are hard to test, let alone prove, does that mean they don't occur? What about experiential evidence, or our feelings and desires? If you delved deep into my brain could you find the neuron that would convey how loneliness feels to me, or my yearnings for love. Can science truly reflect reality?

I think the answer is no, not on it's own anyway. If it does then how come a large proportion of leading scientists still believe in God?* How can two people look at the exact same evidence but come to totally different conclusions? There must be more going on. Personal biases and fear of implications play a part too in the conclusions one draws in life.

*Do Scientists Really Reject God? | NCSE - in the latest poll, 40% of scientists [members of the American Men & Women of Science] believe evolution was God guided, 5% believe in a young earth while 55% believe evolution was not God guided, [although a proportion of that 55% may still include deists].

Notice how that video starts at the Big Bang, the beginning of the succeeding dimensions, and how those dimensions did not exist before the Big Bang. Dimension 1 existed, I think, but nothing else. Notice how nobody is willing to go before the Big Bang.

I don't think that first dot was meant to represent the big bang. He's just illustrating how dimensions work. The first 4 dimensions didn't unfold progressively at the big bang. Space-time is linked together, as Einsteins theory of relativity shows.

Oh, so intsead of World, it was a small flooded land, and instead of every animal, it was a few sheep and instead of flood, it really just rained hard and maybe instead of boat it was just a house with a new wooden roof and instead of God, it was just an old guy standing outside with a beard.

Noah sounds mundane how you put it, which isn't how most Christians believe it, what's so supernatural about it? It sounds like nothing more than a folk tale.

don't worry, we've got rivers of blood, plagues of locusts and imperishable clothing to come yet!

I believe it was a PBS special on the Old Testament or maybe a History Channel show. They went to Egypt trying to find evidence. According to them no archeologist has been able to find any actual evidence, for Exodus, or the 40 year wandering and Moses as a person has no evidence for him except from stories written much later.

erm, well this page has some explanations. Firstly the 40 year wandering I'm not sure how much evidence archaeologists can expect to find cause they were living as nomads out of tents in the middle of the desert, and the Bible says they planted no crops, built no cities and their clothing never wore out either! Secondly there does seem to be some possible evidence of the Exodus before and after the 40 years; the destruction of Jericho at 1580BC and a volcano in Thera erupted around 1628BC which seems to coincide with the plagues,

Then the lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness which may be felt.” [Exodus 10:21-22]

Thirdly, this isn't the first time an argument like this has been raised. The Bible repeatedly mentioned this great Hittite empire, but until 1906 there was absolutely no evidence and a lot of people concluded that it must be a myth. But then thousands of clay tablets were found that fully documented this long lost Hittite empire, and the same is happening throughout the Bible. I haven't come across one archaeological dig that contradicts the Bible yet, so I have no reason to doubt the Exodus either.

Tyre didn't come true.

I disagree, but I've already given my reasons twice, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one for now.

If God existed, he'd be like gravity, seemingly mysterious, but easily demonstrated.

What makes you think this?

 

[Thelema]

*Do Scientists Really Reject God? | NCSE - in the latest poll, 40% of scientists [members of the American Men & Women of Science] believe evolution was God guided, 5% believe in a young earth while 55% believe evolution was not God guided, [although a proportion of that 55% may still include deists].

I don't think that first dot was meant to represent the big bang. He's just illustrating how dimensions work. The first 4 dimensions didn't unfold progressively at the big bang. Space-time is linked together, as Einsteins theory of relativity shows.

don't worry, we've got rivers of blood, plagues of locusts and imperishable clothing to come yet!

erm, well this page has some explanations. Firstly the 40 year wandering I'm not sure how much evidence archaeologists can expect to find cause they were living as nomads out of tents in the middle of the desert, and the Bible says they planted no crops, built no cities and their clothing never wore out either! Secondly there does seem to be some possible evidence of the Exodus before and after the 40 years; the destruction of Jericho at 1580BC and a volcano in Thera erupted around 1628BC which seems to coincide with the plagues,

Then the lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even a darkness which may be felt.” [Exodus 10:21-22]

Thirdly, this isn't the first time an argument like this has been raised. The Bible repeatedly mentioned this great Hittite empire, but until 1906 there was absolutely no evidence and a lot of people concluded that it must be a myth. But then thousands of clay tablets were found that fully documented this long lost Hittite empire, and the same is happening throughout the Bible. I haven't come across one archaeological dig that contradicts the Bible yet, so I have no reason to doubt the Exodus either.

I disagree, but I've already given my reasons twice, so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one for now.

What makes you think this?

This is what I'm talking about. If you read such websites, evidence for God must be so compelling to you that it must seem like a no brainer in terms of God's existence.

You read that page and think "well, that's the answer right there, there is evidence." I read that and think "That's a page full of a lot of talk that doesn't say anything"

"However, nomadic people seldom, if ever, leave any evidence of their presence"

"The Bible says that even their clothing did not wear out"

"Unfortunately, extremely strong evidence for the validity of the Exodus has been published only in the scientific journals and never made it to the popular press"

"What is even more interesting is that scientists, using 14C dating and tree rings, have found evidence of a volcanic eruption from the Aegean island of Thera, which has been dated to 1628 B.C.2 This would place the eruption at 45 years prior to the destruction of Jericho, at a time which coincidentally corresponds to the time of the plagues the Lord unleashed upon Egypt. Check out Exodus 10:"

This kind of talk doesn't ring of bs to you? It's basically saying there isn't any evidence. Why? Because it doesn't actually give any. A volcano goes off and it's attributed to Moses? Thunder storms were written down and attributed to Zeus, is that evidence for Zeus?

The Bible is an historical text, I have no doubt that a lot of the things it says concerning empires and cities existing would be true. I wouldn't be surprised if some Moses existed and some sort of exodus happened, but until the Biblical account has some supporting evidence, it's like Paul Bunyan.

And saying there's some secret evidence they've seen, but no archeologists(I know of) seem to have viewed it, but don't actually include it? Don't link to it? Don't even give the journal it's in?

Do you think that the best place to get objective information is a christian apologetic website?

We're talking things that might undermine their faith, they're not going to say "Here's some damning evidence against our ideas that we have no response to." We need to get objective here. I'm not going to click on apologetic websites, I'm not interested in slanted evidence.

Link me to objective sites that aren't connected with any religion to prove your points. If God exists and everything you claim is true, you don't need a Christian website to point out some sort of secret evidence we can only get there.

Searching for Moses and Exodus, turning up literally tons of Christian sites. I did not find a single objective site offering any supporting evidence for Moses and Exodus (at least in the Biblical sense). Interesting and should show you why you shouldn't just get information from only Christian sites.

NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS

"Meyers: The Moses of the Bible is larger than life. The Moses of the Bible is a diplomat negotiating with the pharaoh; he is a lawgiver bringing the Ten Commandments, the Covenant, down from Sinai. The Moses of the Bible is a military man leading the Israelites in battles. He's the one who organizes Israel's judiciary. He's also the prophet par excellence and a quasi-priestly figure involved in offering sacrifices and setting up the priestly complex, the tabernacle. There's virtually nothing in terms of national leadership that Moses doesn't do. And, of course, he's also a person, a family man.

Now, no one individual could possibly have done all that. So the tales are a kind of aggrandizement. He is also associated with miracles—the memorable story of being found in a basket in the Nile and being saved, miraculously, to grow up in the pharaoh's household. And he dies somewhere in the mountains of Moab. Only God knows where he's buried; God is said to have buried him. This is highly unusual and, again, accords him a special place."

Evidence of the Exodus

Q: You and other scholars point out that there isn't evidence outside the Bible, in historic documents and the archeological record, for a mass migration from Egypt involving hundreds of thousands of people. But it may be plausible that there was a much smaller exodus, an exodus of people originally from the land of Canaan who were returning to it. Is that right?

Meyers: Yes. Despite all the ways in which the exodus narratives in the Bible seem to be non-historic, something about the overall pattern can, in fact, be related to what we know from historical sources was going on at the end of the Late Bronze Age [circa 1200 B.C.E.], around when the Bible's chronology places the story of departure from Egypt.

Now, what is the evidence? First of all, during this period there likely were a lot of people from the land of Canaan, from regions of the eastern Mediterranean, in Egypt. Sometimes they were taken there as slaves. The local kings of the city-states in Canaan would offer slaves as tribute to the pharaohs in order to remain in their good graces. This is documented in the Amarna letters discovered in Egypt. So we know that there were people taken to Egypt as slaves.

There were also traders from the eastern Mediterranean who went to Egypt for commercial reasons. And there also probably were people from Canaan who went to Egypt during periods of extended drought and famine, as is reported in the Bible for Abraham and Sarah.

So Canaanites went to Egypt for a variety of reasons. They were generally assimilated—after a generation or two they became Egyptians. There is almost no evidence that those people left. But there are one or two Egyptian documents that record the flight of a handful of people who had been brought to Egypt for one reason or other and who didn't want to stay there.

Now, there is no direct evidence that such people were connected with the exodus narrative in the Bible. But in our western historical imagination, as we try to recreate the past, it's certainly worth considering that some of them, somehow, for some reason that we can never understand, maybe because life was so difficult for them in Egypt, thought that life would be greener than in the pastures that they had left.

And it's possible that a charismatic leader, a Moses, rallied a few of those people and urged them to make the difficult and traumatic and dangerous journey across the forbidding terrain of the Sinai Peninsula, back to what their collective memory maintained was a promised land.

"hat prompted a reporter to ask about the Exodus, and if the new evidence was linked in any way to the story of Passover. The archaeological discoveries roughly coincided with the timing of the Israelites’ biblical flight from Egypt and the 40 years of wandering the desert in search of the Promised Land.

“Really, it’s a myth,” Dr. Hawass said of the story of the Exodus, as he stood at the foot of a wall built during what is called the New Kingdom."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/africa/03exodus.html

Going to a Christian site makes Exodus and Moses out to be-unbelievable and doesn't actually offer evidence, but promises some sort of secret evidence. Objective sources reveal lack of evidence for Moses or Exodus, basically disproving the Biblical account, but leave the possibility for some Jewish leader named Moses and some sort of exodus that was turned in to a tall tale. See? It's not so hard to look at objective sources for information and look what we've learned!

Wait, I thought scientists were committing virtual murder to Christian intelligent design? So, if scientists aren't necessarily against religious ideas, what could their motivation be to for not bending over backwards for pseudo science?::

Actually, among top level scientists, I believe something like 88% (I think) are agnostic or atheist. It doesn't really matter too much to me tho, I don't care about scientists, they're just men. Science doesn't rely on some sort of plea to authority (logical phallacy).


Because there is no downside to an easily demonstrable God, even if God still wants to be slightly mysterious. Can you think of one? There are many many downsides to an indemonstrable God. (I think it's important here to add that all Gods have the attribute of indemonstrability. If only one of them would go "No, I'm so powerful, I'll show up right to your face")

 

[worrywort]

This is what I'm talking about. If you read such websites, evidence for God must be so compelling to you that it must seem like a no brainer in terms of God's existence.

You read that page and think "well, that's the answer right there, there is evidence." I read that and think "That's a page full of a lot of talk that doesn't say anything"

What is this? Can't attack the arguments so attack the arguer instead? Come on man, give me a little more credit! I never said I believed this evidence to be conclusively true. I said there may be "some possible evidence". Of course to verify it would take further investigation. I just wanted to offer some possible explanations if you wanted to research further. The reason I gave you the link was because I wanted you to know that it was from a Christian source, so you wouldn't take it to the bank yet. Besides, just because a website is affiliated with Christianity doesn't mean everything it says is a lie. Of course it's only one side of the story, but if the arguments are philosophically sound and sources are given to confirm evidences then it's a fine place to get started. If you wanted to discover if Sikhism was true a good place to start would be to ask a Sikh himself, rather than listening to hearsay. Go to the source and see how the religions advocates defend their beliefs, then you can look elsewhere to test and weigh the evidence to see if it holds up. The link I gave offers references for all its main claims. Also, you seemed not to have noticed that just inches above that link is another I gave from Eugenie Scott, a leading critic of creationism and intelligent design.

Going to a Christian site makes Exodus and Moses out to be-unbelievable and doesn't actually offer evidence, but promises some sort of secret evidence. Objective sources reveal lack of evidence for Moses or Exodus, basically disproving the Biblical account, but leave the possibility for some Jewish leader named Moses and some sort of exodus that was turned in to a tall tale. See? It's not so hard to look at objective sources for information and look what we've learned!

What are you trying to prove exactly? That the Bible is not historically reliable? Because I can provide plenty of evidences where archaeology and the Bible have matched perfectly. Or are you saying that because there are parts of the Bible yet to be confirmed by archaeology it must be false? Because that would sound a little like an "Atheism of the Gaps" argument there! If there were multiple, strong, archaeological evidences that positively contradicted biblical events then maybe we'd have a case against the Bibles historical reliability. But from all the archaeological evidence I've come across I think the best we could argue is that the Bible may sometimes adopt an allegorical treatment of events, rather than being specifically literal.

Why has no evidence been found of the exodus?

'Then he [Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, the head of the excavation] offered another theory, one that he said he drew from modern Egypt. “A pharaoh drowned and a whole army was killed,”.....“This is a crisis for Egypt, and Egyptians do not document their crises.” [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/wo.../03exodus.html ]'

I was thinking the same thing. The escape of thousands of its slaves was probably an embarrassment to Egypt. I doubt its a story they would've rushed to record in their historical records for later generations to find out about. At the most they may have downplayed the whole controversy;

"But there are one or two Egyptian documents that record the flight of a handful of people who had been brought to Egypt for one reason or other and who didn't want to stay there" [ NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS ]

Plus, in the documentary it shows that the Egyptians were willing to lie about Israel to protect their own self image - [1:07-2:20] - so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a little bitterness toward the Israelites.YouTube - 1/13 The Bible's Buried Secrets (NOVA PBS)

Wait, I thought scientists were committing virtual murder to Christian intelligent design? So, if scientists aren't necessarily against religious ideas, what could their motivation be to for not bending over backwards for pseudo science?

Social, political, economic? Lots of reasons. Darwinism is not just an idea it's an ideology. It has thoroughly saturated our entire culture and changed the way people fundamentally view the world. There are branches of Darwinism in psychology, law, literature, and we have social Darwinism and economic Darwinism, etc. So it's not so much a question of whether ID is true or not but rather a question of what will its affect be on the world? It's the implications of ID that I'd imagine hold a lot of people back. In most debates on the subject the questions most commonly asked revolve around topics such as what will we teach our kids, and the image of the American scientific establishment if it were to embrace ID, or the nature of the scientific method itself.

The definition of truth is very different to the definition of science. If science is the search for natural explanations for the physical universe then the supernatural, by definition, will never be considered. But this means that even if the evidence is overwhelming, if you presuppose that the supernatural is false, then a natural explanation will always be more likely. But this is crazy. Wherever the evidence points that's where we should go, and if it happens to come with massive metaphysical and idealogical implications, well, so be it. This is where truth and science differ. Science only considers explanations within a limited predecided range, whereas truth simply looks to the best explanation, regardless of it's implications.

ID is not just any old discovery, its findings come heavily loaded with implications that will thoroughly change the way we see the world and even the very definition of science. So change is not gonna happen over night. ID may well be true, but the process of bringing that truth out of the labs and into our homes is gonna be a lengthy one. It'll be rigorously tested by many different filters, not just scientific but political, social, psychological etc. I think it's just a matter of time.

Because there is no downside to an easily demonstrable God, even if God still wants to be slightly mysterious. Can you think of one? There are many many downsides to an indemonstrable God. (I think it's important here to add that all Gods have the attribute of indemonstrability. If only one of them would go "No, I'm so powerful, I'll show up right to your face")

What evidence would you accept as proof of God? Because I'd suspect that if God [a] revealed himself in a demonstrable, repeatable fashion, like gravity, the skeptics would simply assume it's another part of nature and widen their naturalistic circle to include God within their definition of Nature. Whereas if God revealed himself in a sporadic, non-repeatable fashion, such as huge signs and wonders, the skeptics would still assume that if it happened within nature then there must be a natural explanation, no matter how inexplainable or improbable the event. So, for example, if God created a huge cross on the moon for all to see, what would your reaction be? I think many people would think it's a trick, maybe an optical illusion, or maybe the Russians have a secret space program, or maybe aliens did it, or a hundred other reasons before they would accept God as an explanation.

I'd imagine that whatever evidence you think of that you'd accept as proof of God, the evidence God has already given us will outweigh it; The creation of the universe out of nothing, the fine tuning odds of 1 in 10^(10^123), the unfathomable complexity of DNA, the existence of morality, consciousness, reason and the soul, the Bible and the prophecies, miracles and personal testimonies of life change and supernatural experience, all these things, gathered together I believe show that God IS easily demonstrable. Doubt comes, not from lack of evidence, but from an unwillingness to accept that evidence for fear of its implications.

The materialist view presupposes that the supernatural is false and therefore even the most powerful evidence to the contrary will never reach them unless they open up to the possibility that the supernatural may exist.

 

[Thelema]

What is this? Can't attack the arguments so attack the arguer instead? Come on man, give me a little more credit! I never said I believed this evidence to be conclusively true. I said there may be "some possible evidence". Of course to verify it would take further investigation. I just wanted to offer some possible explanations if you wanted to research further. The reason I gave you the link was because I wanted you to know that it was from a Christian source, so you wouldn't take it to the bank yet. Besides, just because a website is affiliated with Christianity doesn't mean everything it says is a lie. Of course it's only one side of the story, but if the arguments are philosophically sound and sources are given to confirm evidences then it's a fine place to get started. If you wanted to discover if Sikhism was true a good place to start would be to ask a Sikh himself, rather than listening to hearsay. Go to the source and see how the religions advocates defend their beliefs, then you can look elsewhere to test and weigh the evidence to see if it holds up. The link I gave offers references for all its main claims. Also, you seemed not to have noticed that just inches above that link is another I gave from Eugenie Scott, a leading critic of creationism and intelligent design.

What are you trying to prove exactly? That the Bible is not historically reliable? Because I can provide plenty of evidences where archaeology and the Bible have matched perfectly. Or are you saying that because there are parts of the Bible yet to be confirmed by archaeology it must be false? Because that would sound a little like an "Atheism of the Gaps" argument there! If there were multiple, strong, archaeological evidences that positively contradicted biblical events then maybe we'd have a case against the Bibles historical reliability. But from all the archaeological evidence I've come across I think the best we could argue is that the Bible may sometimes adopt an allegorical treatment of events, rather than being specifically literal.

Why has no evidence been found of the exodus?

'Then he [Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, the head of the excavation] offered another theory, one that he said he drew from modern Egypt. “A pharaoh drowned and a whole army was killed,”.....“This is a crisis for Egypt, and Egyptians do not document their crises.” [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/wo.../03exodus.html ]'

I was thinking the same thing. The escape of thousands of its slaves was probably an embarrassment to Egypt. I doubt its a story they would've rushed to record in their historical records for later generations to find out about. At the most they may have downplayed the whole controversy;

"But there are one or two Egyptian documents that record the flight of a handful of people who had been brought to Egypt for one reason or other and who didn't want to stay there" [ NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS ]

Plus, in the documentary it shows that the Egyptians were willing to lie about Israel to protect their own self image - [1:07-2:20] - so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a little bitterness toward the Israelites.YouTube - 1/13 The Bible's Buried Secrets (NOVA PBS)

Social, political, economic? Lots of reasons. Darwinism is not just an idea it's an ideology. It has thoroughly saturated our entire culture and changed the way people fundamentally view the world. There are branches of Darwinism in psychology, law, literature, and we have social Darwinism and economic Darwinism, etc. So it's not so much a question of whether ID is true or not but rather a question of what will its affect be on the world? It's the implications of ID that I'd imagine hold a lot of people back. In most debates on the subject the questions most commonly asked revolve around topics such as what will we teach our kids, and the image of the American scientific establishment if it were to embrace ID, or the nature of the scientific method itself.

The definition of truth is very different to the definition of science. If science is the search for natural explanations for the physical universe then the supernatural, by definition, will never be considered. But this means that even if the evidence is overwhelming, if you presuppose that the supernatural is false, then a natural explanation will always be more likely. But this is crazy. Wherever the evidence points that's where we should go, and if it happens to come with massive metaphysical and idealogical implications, well, so be it. This is where truth and science differ. Science only considers explanations within a limited predecided range, whereas truth simply looks to the best explanation, regardless of it's implications.

ID is not just any old discovery, its findings come heavily loaded with implications that will thoroughly change the way we see the world and even the very definition of science. So change is not gonna happen over night. ID may well be true, but the process of bringing that truth out of the labs and into our homes is gonna be a lengthy one. It'll be rigorously tested by many different filters, not just scientific but political, social, psychological etc. I think it's just a matter of time.

What evidence would you accept as proof of God? Because I'd suspect that if God [a] revealed himself in a demonstrable, repeatable fashion, like gravity, the skeptics would simply assume it's another part of nature and widen their naturalistic circle to include God within their definition of Nature. Whereas if God revealed himself in a sporadic, non-repeatable fashion, such as huge signs and wonders, the skeptics would still assume that if it happened within nature then there must be a natural explanation, no matter how inexplainable or improbable the event. So, for example, if God created a huge cross on the moon for all to see, what would your reaction be? I think many people would think it's a trick, maybe an optical illusion, or maybe the Russians have a secret space program, or maybe aliens did it, or a hundred other reasons before they would accept God as an explanation.

I'd imagine that whatever evidence you think of that you'd accept as proof of God, the evidence God has already given us will outweigh it; The creation of the universe out of nothing, the fine tuning odds of 1 in 10^(10^123), the unfathomable complexity of DNA, the existence of morality, consciousness, reason and the soul, the Bible and the prophecies, miracles and personal testimonies of life change and supernatural experience, all these things, gathered together I believe show that God IS easily demonstrable. Doubt comes, not from lack of evidence, but from an unwillingness to accept that evidence for fear of its implications.

The materialist view presupposes that the supernatural is false and therefore even the most powerful evidence to the contrary will never reach them unless they open up to the possibility that the supernatural may exist.

The Odyssey has proved archeologically true too. So what? Should we use the archeological findings legitimizing parts of it and extrapolate a 5th dimension Jewish Tribal Deity that demands animal sacrifice, details how to drive out demons to cure the sick and commands we stone witches because they might hurt us with their magic?

I wasn't attack you, I was pointing out how if you go to such places to find objective and possible critical information, you can be easily misled. You would never, and I mean never, go to Scientology site looking for critical information. Right? Imagine if you went to a political site looking for critical information about themselves. Think you will find any?

I don't believe Christian sites will lie, but present only favorable facts and figures and spin those things in a favorable light. And if you read only those sites, you will have pretty weird beliefs about reality. Imagine if someone just read sites supporting UFOs and conspiracy theories-they might see fit to believe in 6th dimensional aliens that live in the moon.

(although that site you posted with the secret archeological evidence nobody has ever seen should post it or they're either lying or delusional)

When you first post something from a Christian site, you give the impression that you can't support your argument with objective information.

Will you admit that there is no archeological evidence for Moses or Exodus? I think I've shown, from two objective sources, there isn't. You have also not been able to find supporting evidence. (your links don't work for me, maybe I'll reevaluate when you can fix them for me)

The video you posted supports Israel in the land of Canaan, a fact that I have no problem with. Nor do I have a problem with a man named Moses existing and a few hundred Jews leaving with him from Egypt. but even that is not currently supported by the evidence. Nothing about the archeology supports the slightest thing supernatural.

What is clear from the evidence? Hundreds of thousands of Jews never left Egypt with the help of God. We can conclusively say that. There would be some evidence, a broken cup from the wandering nation, some historical record of hundreds of thousands of people wandering for 40 years, graves, the inescapable crumbling of the Egyptian economy.

There is zero evidence for the Biblical account of Exodus and you must admit that, even if you still believe the account is true.

Darwinism? What the heck is Darwinism?

Imagine a scientific theory that contradicts the Bible that even religious scientists accept. Imagine that sell.

There is hundreds of years of evolution study and evidence that has had to fight against thousands of years of religious beliefs. Evolution has been independently proven the World over. There is no question. Evolution is as much a fact as gravity, it has been shown in the lab, it lines up with the fossil record, in every way is the theory valid. If you wish to throw out evolution, you also must throw out all of science as flawed, because science has done a number on evolution and evolution still stands.

Trying to disprove evolution doesn't make creationism more plausible somehow. You actually need to conduct scientific studies and have them peer reviewed. Creationism/intelligent (God did it) design isn't scientific, it's pseudo science that some people made up because they are so helplessly convinced that no amount (literally one of the most scientifically studied phenomenon in human history. There is no more we can do as humans to prove this thing) of evidence will sway them. If you want to show ID, conduct some studies, (have you ever heard of an ID scientific study?) until then, it's on the same level as the flat earth theory and phrenology.


Skeptics? There are over a thousand denominations of Christianity, not to mention Judaism and Islam, of which you've all killed one another over who is right and are all sure the other guy with burn in Hell (except the Jews) for being so wrong. Not even religious people can agree what the "evidence" supports.

You haven't given any evidence, you've given things that don't lead anywhere. Most of your evidence boils down to not being able to understand something and therefore you put God there-"I can't understand how this isn't the work of God" isn't a valid argument. Or you point out a gap-the Big Bang-Cambrian explosion, and stick God in there.I'm reluctant to respond to your logical arguments because they are so absurd that I feel like just a passing glance can show they are terribly flawed in both their premises and their structure.

I believe the divide is that you have put God on a pedastal. I can point to several instances of special pleading, God is exempt from all usual standards of evidence-he doesn't need to abide by our rules of proof. Well, yes, he does. If you want a non believer to be convinced, you can't expect them to put God on a pedestal. A non believer sees God as just another thing that must be proven by evidence. And you do too-about every other God. You would not be swayed by such evidence for any other religious claim. Every other belief you look at it the same way I do, but this one thing you think of as special and deserving of a free pass.

I can't even know exactly what you believe when you freely edit the Bible using our greater knowledge-proclaiming that woman didn't really come from a man's rib and reinterpreting the Noah story-that's editing. You are taking parts of the Bible and changing them to fit with what you believe. You might as well start ripping out pages and rewriting your own.

You say that if you saw a seemingly supernatural event, you would have to conclude it was supernatural. But I don't think you believe that. If you saw Shiva walking down the street, or any other supernatural event (Buddha floating in the sky, Hercules lifting a building), you would not conclude it was supernatural. You would not get down on your knees and start worshipping anything else, except if it lined up with your religious beliefs. People of every religion have religious events that are proposed to be supernatural. You don't believe because X person saw Y event that we should listen to them, they're probably crazy. So you really don't believe we should accept a seemingly supernatural event at face value.

Why are we justified in not concluding a seemingly supernatural event is supernatural? Because no substantiated supernatural event has ever occurred. You can find people that claim God spoke to them, but you can also find people that claim UFOs abducted them for breeding experiments. Their word for it isn't enough. On the other hand, hallucinations are well documented. On that basis alone, we have to conclude that if what we see is physically impossible, it's most likely not happening. The mind plays tricks, our eyes aren't foolproof, and sometimes we go crazy.

So you're saying that people killing each other over God's existence is a better strategy than God at least attempting to show himself in a reliable fashion, such as-"God, we have assembled the world's leaders, per Gabriel's instruction, can you show up, we have some questions for you?" and then repeat such an event once a year. That's worse than war?

 

[worrywort]

When you first post something from a Christian site, you give the impression that you can't support your argument with objective information.

aah yea I can understand this. This definitely was not my intention. I didn't mean to make it sound like I was saying, "you're wrong and here's the proof! ah ha!" - then link to a one-sided Christian website! I meant it more like, "here's a problem neither of us know the answer to. Well this website offers some possible explanations, I'll send the link. Maybe it'll lead onto something more substantial, maybe not."...sorry for the confusion!

Will you admit that there is no archeological evidence for Moses or Exodus?

yea no problem! I've just been throwing some possible explanations at you. But the evidence is thin, yes I agree.

your links don't work for me, maybe I'll reevaluate when you can fix them for me

they were just the same links you posted to me. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/africa/03exodus.html - NOVA | The Bible's Buried Secrets | Moses and the Exodus | PBS

Nothing about the archeology supports the slightest thing supernatural.

yep, I agree, again. The historical reliability of the Bible is just a trust builder for me. If time after time its stories are confirmed through archaeological digs then I can feel more assured that when it tells stories like Jesus being resurrected, etc that these stories are probably true as well. If the Bible was full of lies it'd make it harder to trust it. But the fact that truth seems to permeate this book helps me to feel more confident about it.

Darwinism? What the heck is Darwinism?

Imagine a scientific theory that contradicts the Bible that even religious scientists accept. Imagine that sell.

There is hundreds of years of evolution study and evidence that has had to fight against thousands of years of religious beliefs. Evolution has been independently proven the World over. There is no question. Evolution is as much a fact as gravity, it has been shown in the lab, it lines up with the fossil record, in every way is the theory valid. If you wish to throw out evolution, you also must throw out all of science as flawed, because science has done a number on evolution and evolution still stands.

Trying to disprove evolution doesn't make creationism more plausible somehow. You actually need to conduct scientific studies and have them peer reviewed. Creationism/intelligent (God did it) design isn't scientific, it's pseudo science that some people made up because they are so helplessly convinced that no amount (literally one of the most scientifically studied phenomenon in human history. There is no more we can do as humans to prove this thing) of evidence will sway them. If you want to show ID, conduct some studies, (have you ever heard of an ID scientific study?) until then, it's on the same level as the flat earth theory and phrenology.

I don't think that's what the intelligent design debate is about. Here's my understanding of the issue; I totally agree with evolution, i.e. change over time through the processes of random mutation and natural selection, I just don't believe it was a unguided process, and here's why; There are several problems with Darwin's theory of evolution that have emerged in the light of new discoveries. Firstly, at the time when The Origin of Species was written, scientists believed that the single cell was the smallest, most simple building block of life and could've easily made the leap from non-life. But now we've discovered that a single cell is actually incredibly complex, containing large amounts of DNA code, so the leap from non-life to life has suddenly turned from a small step into a ginormous chasm. On top of this it's been discovered that the processes of random mutation and natural selection actually require DNA to function, which begs the question, how did DNA itself evolve? Secondly, Darwin's original theory proposed that all life forms would evolve by a very gradual change over time [Phyletic Gradualism] and he assumed that in the coming years scientists would unearth masses of these transitional forms proving his theory. But instead the fossil records seem to be showing periods of sudden rapid change and explosions of life, followed by very smooth progressions with little evolutionary change [Punctuated Equilibrium]. The Cambrian Explosion is a good example of this, where it seems that in a very short space of time most of the major species suddenly appeared in fairly advanced stages of evolution, and then gradually refined themselves, turning the tree of life on its head. And lastly there is the problem of irreducible complexity. If Darwin's theory is correct every single stage of evolution should be a very small step, with no overly large jumps, but there appear to be many organisms that are made up of several complex parts that only function when all the parts are there and working together. Take one part away and the organism would no longer function adequately [the Bacterial Flagellum for example]. So for these complex organisms to have evolved merely by random mutation would seem incredibly unlikely.

The reasons why I think these new findings may point to God is, firstly, because of the odds. There are too many giant leaps for it to be purely down to chance and random mutation. But secondly, it's the design element that interests me the most. The amount of design, information and complexity inside DNA is mind boggling. Bill Gates put it like this; "DNA is like a computer program but far far more advanced than any software we've ever created", and Physicist Paul Davies wrote "How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software? … Nobody knows …". It's the instructional element of DNA that I find hardest to align with a random mutation theory, and leads me to believe that some sort of higher intelligence would make a better explanation.

I'm reluctant to respond to your logical arguments because they are so absurd that I feel like just a passing glance can show they are terribly flawed in both their premises and their structure.

well, if you find an answer please let me know cause the Teleological and Cosmological arguments are two pretty strong pillars in my faith at the moment, so if you think you can refute them please tell me.