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matt

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #40 on: December 03, 2004, 04:17:51 PM »

Both you and Heretic stated the first law of thermodynamics and said that "Matter has always existed."

Here is the objection that I have been trying to get across, but Elisha put it plainly across using Craig's argument.

Elisha's Post:
Quote
You said the universe "as we know it began to exist", but if the universe we know began to exist, then so did matter, time, space, etc. Matter and energy can't have always existed in time, because that leads to absurdities.

I don't have the time to explain much, so I'll be brief. What that amounts to is an actual infinite existing in time, which is demonstrably impossible. William Lane Craig has given such a refutation here. Atheistic philosophers have agreed with him, but usually backslide to the universe beginning to exist from nothing or re-interpreting traditional Big Bang cosmology. No serious scientist or philosopher would say matter has always existed, because that requires time to always have existed and that leads to Craig's arguments against an actual infinite.


You then attempt to take up a quiet obsolete skeptical argument... the infamously rather hilarious lottery ticket analogy. The analogy is WAY off. Try an analogy where someone is blindfolded in the middle of space and RANDOMLY throws a dart into space. That dart would have to hit a target UNIMAGINEABLY small... smaller than an atom.
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- Dawkins God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life
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1 Peter 3:15-16

"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ."

" I think, therefore I am." - DesCartes

TheAntiChrist

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #41 on: December 03, 2004, 04:21:29 PM »

Ok, I rember that reply now.
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matt

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #42 on: December 03, 2004, 04:31:00 PM »

Do you understand that now? The universe began to exist.
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1 Peter 3:15-16

"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ."

" I think, therefore I am." - DesCartes

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #43 on: December 03, 2004, 04:41:56 PM »

In some peoples opinion.
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matt

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #44 on: December 03, 2004, 04:50:37 PM »

Why do you constantly avoid the argument? Then in your opinion, give me a valid argument that proposes that the universe is uncaused and eternal. If you make statements that are false, then obviously you are believing in something that is false.
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1 Peter 3:15-16

"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ."

" I think, therefore I am." - DesCartes

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #45 on: December 03, 2004, 04:53:17 PM »

We all have are own oppinions. Becareful about what you say.
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matt

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #46 on: December 03, 2004, 04:58:16 PM »

Quote
We all have are own oppinions. Becareful about what you say.


So you are saying you believe in your opinion only even if Science intervenes and denies the validity of your belief?

I will be straight up an honest and say that if Science, and not just Science alone, but also other areas of Christianity such as the Bible and etc. were proven to be nonsensical then I would realize that and acknowledge that my belief is false. However, I believe in a God not just through Science but also through faith and personally. I was abused for 8 years by my dad, went through 8 years of court, and I came out through everything because I think that God is the one who helped me. When all hope was lost, God saved me. You might think that is nonsensical or such, however, I don't care, so I am trying to not only prove God through just my personal beliefs but also through Science.
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- Dawkins God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life
- Blind Watchmaker
- The Beak of the Finches
1 Peter 3:15-16

"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ."

" I think, therefore I am." - DesCartes

cimics

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #47 on: December 03, 2004, 06:14:41 PM »

I would please like everyone to hit the "Enter" key once after each line
ends. This way it'll be easier for everyone to read the replies. Thank-you


Actually, if everyone who posted that insanely large number would just edit it to put a space between the zeros at the end of the window, that should solve the problem.
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DevilsAdvocate

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #48 on: December 05, 2004, 02:04:34 AM »

or a *cough*forum mod*cough* could be kind, and do it for them. :)
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Heretic

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #49 on: December 05, 2004, 05:03:59 AM »

Jezuz criminey I wish I had more time.  I'll just say that time, our time, what we measure as time began to exist what was before is unknowable. Matter and energy and "time" could have existed. You can't make an argument to demonstrate ANYTHING that was before TUAWKI. You can posit it was some conscience eternal being of some sort, I can posit (<--sp?) it was just unconscience matter and energy.

Yes, the universe began, TUAWKI. Before that, we probably shall never know. Give me a valid resonable arguement that it was something in the realm of the supernatural.  

A blindfolded man in space chunks a dart in a random direction. What's the chances it will hit this spot right here between my legs? Quite hugh I'm sure.
What's the chances it will hit A spot somewhere? Not so hugh I'm sure. I'd venture to say 1:1. 100%

Edited to add:
Laughable eh? You really think to say some supernatural sky-daddy waved his ghostly hand to make it all happen is NOT utterly laughable?
BooOoOoOOoooOooo.........EeeeeK!  Witches, warlocks and ghosts! Oh My!!
More laughable in my ever-so-humble opinion.
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matt

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #50 on: December 05, 2004, 07:25:30 AM »

Source:
William Lane Craig (The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe)

If the universe never began to exist, then prior to the present event there have existed an actually infinite number of previous events. Hence, a beginningless series of events in time entails the existence of an actually infinite number of things, namely, past events. The series of past events must be finite and have a beginning. But since the universe is not distinct from the series of events, it follows that the universe began to exist.

If the universe did not begin to exist a finite time ago, then the present moment could never arrive. But obviously, it has arrived. Therefore, we know that the universe is finite in the past and began to exist.


Quote
I'll just say that time, our time, what we measure as time began to exist what was before is unknowable.


The universe began from a state of infinite density. . . . Space and time were created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe. It is not meaningful to ask what happened before the Big Bang; it is like asking what is north of the North Pole. Similarly, it is not sensible to ask where the Big Bang took place. The point-universe was not an object isolated in space; it was the entire universe, and so the answer can only be that the Big Bang happened everywhere.

The Big Bang Theory requires the creation of matter from nothing (infinite density).

Thus, what the Big Bang model of the universe seems to require is that the universe began to exist and was created out of nothing.

Te universe has a cause of its existence. In fact, I think that it can be plausibly argued that the cause of the universe must be a personal Creator. For how else could a temporal effect arise from an eternal cause? If the cause were simply a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions existing from eternity, then why would not the effect also exist from eternity? For example, if the cause of water's being frozen is the temperature's being below zero degrees, then if the temperature were below zero degrees from eternity, then any water present would be frozen from eternity. The only way to have an eternal cause but a temporal effect would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time. For example, a man sitting from eternity may will to stand up; hence, a temporal effect may arise from an eternally existing agent. Indeed, the agent may will from eternity to create a temporal effect, so that no change in the agent need be conceived. Thus, we are brought not merely to the first cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator.
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Reading List
- Dawkins God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life
- Blind Watchmaker
- The Beak of the Finches
1 Peter 3:15-16

"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ."

" I think, therefore I am." - DesCartes

Elisha

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #51 on: December 05, 2004, 07:47:35 AM »

Thanks for that Craig quote, Matt.

Quote
Yes, the universe began, TUAWKI. Before that, we probably shall never know. Give me a valid resonable arguement that it was something in the realm of the supernatural.


I'm not online with my laptop, so I can't copy/paste an article I wrote on this.  Thankfully, Matt has provided some reasoning.  

Quote
A blindfolded man in space chunks a dart in a random direction. What's the chances it will hit this spot right here between my legs? Quite hugh I'm sure.
What's the chances it will hit A spot somewhere? Not so hugh I'm sure. I'd venture to say 1:1. 100%


The chances are huge that a man blindly throwing a dart in space will hit a point smaller than an atom?  The calculations of that happening are mind-boggling!  I remember reading a book where one of the greatest physicists alive (an atheist) admitted that it is hard for the mind to comprehend the chances of that.

You're saying the universe came to exist through mind-boggling chances - nothing even close to a lottery analogy.  In fact, the one analogy I used was based off of one single complexity argument.  There are dozens of others that atheists admit.  Once you add all of those together, it's safe to say the probability of the universe coming into existence by chance is as close to 0 as you can possibly get.

The better atheist position is that the universe came into existence not by chance, but necessity.  That I'll admit.

Quote
Laughable eh? You really think to say some supernatural sky-daddy waved his ghostly hand to make it all happen is NOT utterly laughable?
BooOoOoOOoooOooo.........EeeeeK!  Witches, warlocks and ghosts! Oh My!!
More laughable in my ever-so-humble opinion.


Appealing to emotion won't help you out here.  That's something my little brother does to me when I talk about God. ;-)

Perhaps you should put down the Carlin tapes/DVDs and watch some William Craig debates or read Swinburne's The Existence of God.  You'll learn that such a thing isn't laughable.  Every serious scholar alive (theist or not) knows it isn't laughable.  If it were laughable, then Stephen Hawking and Einstein wouldn't have wasted their time on the subject.
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matt

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #52 on: December 05, 2004, 08:07:27 AM »

Ross states in his book: The Creator and the Cosmos

Quote
By definition, time is that dimension in which cause and effect phenomena take place. If time's beginning is concurrent with the beginning of the universe, as the space-time theorem says, then the cause of the universe must be some entity operating in a time dimension completely independent of and pre-existent to the time dimension of the cosmos. This conclusion is powerfully important to our understanding of who God is and who or what God is not. It tells us that the creator is transcendent, operating beyond the dimensional limits of the universe. It tells us that God is not the universe itself, nor is God contained within the universe.


Hawking said in: A Brief History of Time pg. 144

Quote
When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities...In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down.


In other words, God according to the Bible transcends "real time", would not be confined to boundaries and singularities, but human beings and the physical universe, both of which are limited to real time, would be so confined.
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Reading List
- Dawkins God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life
- Blind Watchmaker
- The Beak of the Finches
1 Peter 3:15-16

"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ."

" I think, therefore I am." - DesCartes

Heretic

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #53 on: December 06, 2004, 12:15:38 AM »

All these wonderful arguements explaining how any possibility is confined to 'real time' etc etc. Yet you get your God out of these constraints by claiming he exists independent of all these constraints. Ok fine, all the random chance, matter, energy and whatever is nessasary for the formation of our universe exists outside 'real time' and any other constraints within our universe. And it is unconscience.
There. Now, how is that any different from your arguements that this conscience, personal entity exists and is outside the natural?

No matter the eloquently spoken sensical philosophical arguments made you still cannot physically demonstrate the existance of such. The existance of the supernatural cannot be shown conclusively to exist much yet a personal creator supernatural God.

(Much more to say, yet my apologies, my time is up. It's very hard to get all the thoughts in my head down, plus answer emails, do my online banking yadda yadda all within the few minutes allotted each user here on the post. There is talk of wiring, setting up satalite (<-sp?) services in the individual living quarters here, but I doubt this will be anytime soon.)
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 Certainty of death, small chance of success? What are we waiting for?! --Gimli the Dwarf

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Where did God come from?
« Reply #54 on: December 06, 2004, 12:33:38 AM »

The forum mod has acted.

Lord, just in time.
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Where did God come from?
« Reply #55 on: December 06, 2004, 02:18:48 PM »

That'll do to.
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matt

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« Reply #56 on: December 07, 2004, 09:37:01 AM »

What happened to this topic, and why is it being acted on by a moderator?
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- Dawkins God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life
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1 Peter 3:15-16

"And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it. But you must do this in a gentle and respectful way. Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ."

" I think, therefore I am." - DesCartes

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« Reply #57 on: December 07, 2004, 01:41:37 PM »

No idea, but I should PM sntjohnny about it.
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Elisha

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« Reply #58 on: December 07, 2004, 04:29:24 PM »

Heretic,

Concerning matter and the such existing in a timeless state prior to the Big Bang, Matt's quote has already dealt with that:

"In fact, I think that it can be plausibly argued that the cause of the universe must be a personal Creator. For how else could a temporal effect arise from an eternal cause? If the cause were simply a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions existing from eternity, then why would not the effect also exist from eternity? For example, if the cause of water's being frozen is the temperature's being below zero degrees, then if the temperature were below zero degrees from eternity, then any water present would be frozen from eternity. The only way to have an eternal cause but a temporal effect would seem to be if the cause is a personal agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time. For example, a man sitting from eternity may will to stand up; hence, a temporal effect may arise from an eternally existing agent. Indeed, the agent may will from eternity to create a temporal effect, so that no change in the agent need be conceived. Thus, we are brought not merely to the first cause of the universe, but to its personal Creator."

Quote
No matter the eloquently spoken sensical philosophical arguments made you still cannot physically demonstrate the existance of such. The existance of the supernatural cannot be shown conclusively to exist much yet a personal creator supernatural God.


Epistemelogically speaking, God can be shown to exist.  I've given several arguments at the atheist section which went un-replied to.  

I've typed repeatedly and repeatedly that even if no arguments/evidences existed in favor of a personal God, it would still be possible for such a God to exist.  To claim otherwise is to commit a logical fallacy.  Even serious atheist philosopher recognizes this.  You should too.
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« Reply #59 on: December 07, 2004, 05:11:01 PM »

Are you saying that we each have our own creator? That is what you mean by personal creator, right
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