Evidence

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Because there's a difference between "the beginning" of something as the big bang is referred to and the kind of "beginning" you are referring to.

Not according to the Standard Model, which has the most empirical evidence supporting it.

We currently have no reason to believe that the matter that comprised the big bang did not exist in some form prior to the big bang (if "prior to the big bang" is anything other than a contradiction in terms).

It appears that as usual, I have to repeat the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. Not only am I repeating the same thing, but I am repeating the same thing to the same people.

Find me a single scientific textbook which clearly states - with evidence - that absolutely nothing could have possibly existed before the big bang.

Postulating an eternal realm of natural reality has many logical problems plaguing it.

This is called "defining something into existence". We understand it perfectly, it's just that it's a very poor argument based on supposition rather than evidence. We have no reason to believe a "maximally great being" exists or that such a being is necessary, or even if the "possibility" of it existing means it must exist. This is entirely based on assumptions.

If the proposition is logically consistent then there is no reason to believe that in a possible world, it could not exist. If such a being did exist, then its existences WOULD be necessary and if it is possible that such a being exist, it must exist.

So?

So the brain cannot be used to explain the origins of the mind.

Actually, the earliest gospels are currently estimated to have been written between around 50 AD at the very earliest and 110 AD at the latest (according to an NIV study Bible), and the earliest letter of Paul is estimated to have come from around 52 AD (according to the Anchor Bible series). None of these accounts are direct or contemporary.

The book of Acts is said to have been written around 70 AD, so the Gospel of Luke had to be written before that because Acts is like a “part 2” of Luke. And Luke is said to have borrowered material from Mark, so that mean the book of Mark must predate Luke, and then you can work your way backwards from there. Not to mention the fact that the early Church Fathers attributed the authors of the Gospels to those that bear their names. So the accounts are very direct and very contemporary, because they were written by either disciples or friends of the disciples and they were also written to within 30-40 years after the event.

The earliest Paul letter may have been 52 AD, but the events (1Cor 15:3) can be dated to within 5 years of the crucifixion itself, if not earlier. I don’t know how you can get any more contemporary than that.

Where?

Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Lucian of Samosta, Mara Bar-Serapion. They all testify that Jesus was an actual person in history.

 

[adi2d]

The scenario was if I knew that as long as my neighbor remained alive, he would be responsible for killing 3,000 people by flying planes through buildings. If you don’t see how that that killing would be justified, then nothing I say further will matter.



No, they believed that God approved their actions. Big difference.



Assuming it is a voice. Supposed God appeared to me via burning bush?

The scenario was that you believed you heard God tell you to kill. You can not see into the future so you don't know that 3000 would die (bin laden wasn't on the plane sept 11 so killing him would not stop the towers from falling)

If I heard a burning bush talk I am not arrogant enough to think it was God talking to me.

 

[idav]

Not according to the Standard Model, which has the most empirical evidence supporting it.

What does the standard model have to do with the beginning?

It appears that as usual, I have to repeat the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. Not only am I repeating the same thing, but I am repeating the same thing to the same people.

You repeating the same premise isn't helpful. It's speculation in which we could insert any entity and said they are creator.

Postulating an eternal realm of natural reality has many logical problems plaguing it.

Which is why people have issue with "god did it", "outside of time, eternal".

If the proposition is logically consistent then there is no reason to believe that in a possible world, it could not exist. If such a being did exist, then its existences WOULD be necessary and if it is possible that such a being exist, it must exist.

Logical consistency would be that nothing exists unless we have managed to observe it or test for it's existence.

So the brain cannot be used to explain the origins of the mind.

Evolutionary biology explains it pretty well. Brains aren't the puppets of the mind, it's the other way around.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Historical methods are intended to determine how likely a particular historical account is (be it of a person, a culture, an event, etc.), and in particular to present what the historian thinks is the most likely conclusion for any determination given the evidence.

Ok, and given the facts that are laid out in the argument, it is more likely than not that the account of the Resurrection is true.

Miracles, by definition, are as improbable as you can get.

How do you know the probability of a miracle occurring?

So let's take a conservative scholar's evaluation of the reliability and nature of our sources (e.g., Richard Bauckham's).

Who?

Even a very high evaluation of the quality of our evidence, and even granting that we lack good explanations for why the followers of Jesus claimed he had risen from the dead than we have, we do know one thing: There are no historically possible explanations for what Jesus is said to have done, from turning water into wine to rising from the dead.

But according to the argument, there is evidence that Jesus rose from the dead. According to the argument, this was an event that occurred in history and was attested by believers AND skeptics.

The resurrection of Jesus violates everything we could apply to the evidence because it violates everything we know about how the universe works. Which means that as far as historical analysis is concerned, anything which is possible given the laws of physics is more probable than Jesus' resurrection.

This is because you are using the wrong tool for your inquiry. The hypothesis is not scientific. The hypothesis is that GOD RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD. The hypothesis is not that Jesus rose naturally from the dead. If that was the case, then I would agree with you, it would contradict/violate “everything we know about how the universe works”. According to natural law, dead people don’t rise from the dead, they stay dead. But the hypothesis is not that Jesus rose naturally from the dead, but rather God raised Jesus from the dead (supernaturally). So of course no naturalistic explanation can be given.

When you make arguments about necessity and possible worlds, you are appealing to formal logic and formal definitions with specific rules about validity and entailment. When you don't follow these, and don't understand them, it becomes impossible to explain why you are incorrect.

Well how do you know I am incorrect? If you know I am incorrect it should be fairly easy to explain why? If you know I am incorrect in your mind, then you should be able to explain it to me.

Again with the axioms. This can be done any number of ways. Take, for example, temperature. The kelvin scale was specifically constructed because it is absolute. Temperature relates to the motion of "particles" in e.g., boiling water, and equilibrium (how "heat" moves, say from boiling water to the pot one is using once you remove the heat source). The kelvin scale increases infinitely, but it has an absolute zero. Yet we have been able to create systems which go below that mark, and thereby go beyond the range of temperatures from 0 to infinity, and are hotter than any possible temperature (an infinite range).

That is potential infinity, not actual infinity. Big difference there. Since you know everything, I will assume you know the difference between and actual infinity and potential infinity. The kalam argument argues against an actual infinity while acknowledging potential infinities are possible.

The point of Zeno's paradox is that it should hold true for all motion (that is, it should be impossible for anybody to move). That's why it's a paradox. The way it is solved is by realizing a flaw in the logic: summing an infinite number of increments can result in a finite point.

Well, if it “should” be but it isn’t, then it isn’t impossible. There are many ways you can show the absurdity of infinity. For example, If a man has been running on an infinitely long road and he has been running for an infinite amount of time……and he suddenly decide to turn around and run the opposite direction he came, and he decide to stop when he reach the exact same distance he reached as he ran forward, at what point would he stop?

Every minute, 60 seconds pass. Every second, a billion nanoseconds pass. We can keep going and going to infinity by infinitely reducing the intervals of time, yet somehow we always get to the next minute.

60 seconds, a billion nanoseconds….now I want you to keep the set going by telling me the next 8 increments of the set, going backwards.

Here's what Plantinga thinks of a better form of what you've shown:
"if it is even possible that God, so conceived, exists, then it is true that he does, and, indeed, necessarily true that he does. As it is stated, however, there is one fairly impressive flaw: even if an essence entailing is maximally great in W is exemplified, it does not so far follow that this essence entails is maximally great in α. For all we have shown so far, this being might be at a maximum in some world W, but be pretty insignificant in α, our world. So the argument does not show that there is a being that enjoys maximal greatness in fact; it shows at most that there is a being that in some world or other has maximal greatness" (from The Nature of Necessity).

Basically, you've convoluted the entire argument.

The first sentence of the quote contradicts the last two sentences of the quote. Misquoting, perhaps?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You haven't. You've presented one part of one version and it is logically flawed because you've conflated different proofs badly described and did not know that even Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity) agrees that this isn't a proof unless you accept the premises (of course, you didn't indicate these and I don't know if you realize what they are).

Once again, the first sentence contradicted the last. He said “if it is even possible that God exists, then it is true that he does necessarily exists”. Then he said “the argument does not show that there is a being that enjoys maximal greatness in fact”. But wait a minute; you just said if it was possible, then it is true. A contradiction if I ever saw one.

: "Hence our verdict on these reformulated versions of St. Anselm's argument must be as follows. They cannot, perhaps, be said to prove or establish their conclusion. But since it is rational to accept their central premiss, they do show that it is rational to accept that conclusion. And perhaps that is all that can be expected of any such argument."

He acknowledges that if you don't agree with the premises he and others have begun with, than the proof fails. But as you've never read Plantiga's books, you wouldn't know.

What???? He said “BUT SINCE IT IS RATIONAL TO ACCEPT THEIR CENTRAL PREMISE, THEY DO SHOW THAT IT IS RATIONAL TO ACCEPT THAT CONCLUSION”. Did I miss something here? I may have not read any of Plantiga’s books, but I read a lot of WLC and guess what?? Dr. Craig uses Plantiga’s version in some of his debates and he is a defender of the argument….and I DO have one of Craig’s book in which the argument is discussed.

"It is true that “if there was no first event, then there must have been an event prior to any given event”, but it is not true that there must have been an event prior to any given time...

There is a prior as long as there is change.

There can be infinite beginningless temporal regresses of sensible-thing efficient causes in history, even if there was a beginning to history in the sense of a time at and before which there were no sensible things and nothing happened.

How can any moment in time come to a past if there are an infinite number of moments that preceded it? I’ve asked the same thing a different way numerous times and no satisfactory answer has been given, if an answer at all.

This makes some trouble for Craig’s basic kalam cosmological argument...A problem for this argument is that ‘the universe of sensible things’ could have begun to exist in the sense that there is time at and before which there were no sensible things and after which there were ‘fast-starting’ beginningless series of sensible-thing causes in which series each sensible thing begins to exist and is caused by a member of the series that began to exist earlier." p. 198 of Sobel's Logic and Theism

I repeat, how can any moment in time come to a past if there are an infinite number of moments that preceded it?

That's one logical objection. And as for the science, I've already quoted cosmologists and physicists who disagree with you, but you don't appear to really care about what the science says.

You call that an objection? So far as I can tell, the problem of infinity is still an issue until I get my question answered. I am presented an absurdity, and if you think it isn’t an absurdity I would like it addressed. This problem applies to ANY cosmologists and physicists who think that an infinite number of regressions has come to past leading up to the present moment.

It's contradicted by empirical observation.

Who observed what?

How do you explain quantum entanglement, actual instantiations of Wheeler's delayed-choice experiment, or any number of ways in which "absurdities" like (A & not A) occur all the time in physics? You don't.

Absurdities cannot “happen”. It is not something that can actually happen. If something can happen, it wasn’t absurd. Nothing can be (A & not A) at the same time. Can a light be both on and not on at the same time? Impossible. So whatever it is you are talking about is not absurd. If it happens, it happens. But it doesn’t happen as an absurdity or contradiction.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

What does the standard model have to do with the beginning?

Because it is the Standard Model that suggests literally nothing existed before the big bang. Nothing. That is why so many cosmologists have tried to introduce these pre-big bang models. So far, there hasn’t been a model as of yet that has negated “finite” universe conclusion.

You repeating the same premise isn't helpful. It's speculation in which we could insert any entity and said they are creator.

I’ve already answered this.

Which is why people have issue with "god did it", "outside of time, eternal".

People that presuppose naturalism.

Logical consistency would be that nothing exists unless we have managed to observe it or test for it's existence.

Can you observe or test whether your last statement’s truth value exist?

Evolutionary biology explains it pretty well. Brains aren't the puppets of the mind, it's the other way around.

If you woke up and found yourself find yourself in your dogs body but you retained your human mind…yet your body remained motionless in the bed..are you the dog, or are you your motionless body?

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

The scenario was that you believed you heard God tell you to kill. You can not see into the future so you don't know that 3000 would die (bin laden wasn't on the plane sept 11 so killing him would not stop the towers from falling)

My point was there are certain instances where killing another human being is necessary.

If I heard a burning bush talk I am not arrogant enough to think it was God talking to me.

I guess Moses was arrogant.

 

[adi2d]

My point was there are certain instances where killing another human being is necessary.



I guess Moses was arrogant.

I asked if God told you to kill,would you? You made up bin laden living next door. It seems like your answer was yes(but you won't admit to it in writing). I agree that some people belong on the 'better dead' list but that is my opinion not because I hear voices telling me

I said nothing about Moses. You said what if YOU heard the burning bush


BTW. Your little story of switching minds with a dog makes no sense but it does remind me of a quote. IF. Your mind can't transfer to a dogs brain so why do you keep using it like it makes sense. It doesnt

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

How do you know the probability of a miracle occurring?

By the definition of a miracle. When we talk about historiography, or historical methods, we mean a way of evaluating historical evidence. So, for example, if I look at an account from the 15th century by Hans Fründ on witches, and in particular how the devil teaches them to turn into wolves and devour cattle, or if I look at a contemporary (1428/1429) text of the trial of Agnès Lombarde (and his use of magic/witchcraft to control wolves), I take into account both the documentary evidence and what is known about the period in question and about people in general and finally natural sciences.

Having done so, I would conclude that it is extremely unlikely that Fründ was correct about the ability of certain people to turn into wolves, and would also conclude that whatever Agnès Lombarde was guilty of, it wasn't supernatural familiarity with wolves.

But according to the argument, there is evidence that Jesus rose from the dead.

1st, Craig is pretty much alone even among evangelical scholars here. 2nd, the reason evangelical Christian scholars don't agree is because they acknowledge that Craig's argument is crap. What Craig has done is thrown out the historical method entirely, and then claimed to have made a historical argument.

This is because you are using the wrong tool for your inquiry. The hypothesis is not scientific. The hypothesis is that GOD RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD.

You may recall I mentioned W. L. Craig's debating strategies in the context of one particular debate he had with J. D. Crossan. Craig uses this argument. He lists the same "facts" you've probably come across on his or another website. And he states "In summary, there are good historical grounds for affirming that Jesus rose from the dead in".

The hypothesis Craig puts forth is a historical hypothesis. Historians start from the position that if an historical account contradicts everything we know about the ways in which humans, physics, nature, etc. works, then it cannot be considered an accurate account. They do this because (again) history is about the most likely explanation. If you include miracles (by definition impossible to explain except through supernatural means) then you are saying that the best historical explanation of the evidence is one that is the least likely.

We have massive amounts of legal documents and historical accounts of particular witches in the 15th and 16th centuries. Much more reliable evidence than what we have for Jesus. Yet historians aren't proclaiming that those executed were actually witches. Why? Because people don't turn into wolves (just one of many crimes for which particular witches were executed).

So of course no naturalistic explanation can be given.

That's what historians work with. If they don't have these, then they can determine that Alexander was the son of a god, that witches were performing magical feats for several hundred years in Europe, and that various gods, demi-gods, and magicians were roaming the Near East and Greco-Roman territories for over a 1,000 years.

Well how do you know I am incorrect? If you know I am incorrect it should be fairly easy to explain why?

The above is not valid, because it does not follow that, under the assumption I know you are incorrect, and that you are incorrect, that therefore it should be fairly easy to explain why.

That may sound awkward, but logical arguments must be precise, which is why logicians don't just rely on language but on formal systems where symbolic representations allow the logic behind given assumptions and what is said to follow from them. If you do not understand how to construct a derivation of a tautology in classical logic, then it is not easy to explain why your "proof" is incorrect, because it relies on classical logic in addition to more difficult and nuanced concepts of validity, semantics, soundness, etc. Also, I quoted Plantinga explaining it to you.

That is potential infinity, not actual infinity.

It's not.

"VULETIC: Well, you can think of the temperature as a loop. So if you start at zero degrees, then most atoms are standing still. As we add energy, the energy, the temperature becomes positive and becomes plus infinity, and when we add more energy so that there are more fast atoms than slow atoms, then we start - we come around to negative infinity, and then we approach zero from below." (source)

From the actual study published in Science: "The temperature is discontinuous at maximum entropy, jumping from positive to negative infinity."
Braun, S., Ronzheimer, J. P., Schreiber, M., Hodgman, S. S., Rom, T., Bloch, I., & Schneider, U. (2013). Negative Absolute Temperature for Motional Degrees of Freedom. Science, 339(6115), 52-55

There are many ways you can show the absurdity of infinity.

Infinitely many ways I'm sure. However, every example shows only the "absurdity" of a particular instantiation of infinity. It does not explain how infinite intervals of time and space can and do exist, nor does it explain infinite states of a quantum system or traversing infinite temeratures.

now I want you to keep the set going by telling me the next 8 increments of the set, going backwards.

That was the problem for mathematicians for a long time (and the point of Zeno's paradox). It is clear that one can, like Zeno, describe any traversal over any interval of time or distance by using infinitely many subintervals. However, it could only be described, rather than formulated, which meant that two intuitively obvious but both apparently contradictory ideas were both true or both false. Either one can travel infinitely many intervals of distance, or one cannot travel any distance. THAT is the heart of Zeno's paradox.

It was resolved by the formulations we use in analysis today, where we can employ inductive logic to demonstrate how infinitely many increments can sum to a finite point.

The first sentence of the quote contradicts the last two sentences of the quote. Misquoting, perhaps?

No, you just didn't know what you were talking about, and I showed you. Plantinga spends a very long time going into detail about essence, which is central to his argument. His chapter in which he claims to have a "victorious" argument concerns what is entailed by essence, distinct from properties:
"But for any property P, if P is possibly exemplified, then there is a world W and an essence E such that E is exemplified in W, and E entails has P in W."

This is central to the way in which Plantinga gets from "if it is even possible that God, so conceived, exists, then it is true that he does, and, indeed, necessarily true that he does", which only proves that God exists in some possible world (not ours), to God existing in all possible worlds.

However, as you don't understand the arguments you parrot, you accused me of misquoting because you don't know enough about possible world semantics to realize saying "if it is even possible that God exists...then it is...necessarily true that he does" doesn't entail God exists in our world, only (at best) that God necessarily exists in some possible world.

So maybe you should spend less time dogmatically repeating arguments you clearly don't understand, and more time studying the frameworks in which these arguments are made. (see next post for the rest of my responses)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

continued

Once again, the first sentence contradicted the last. He said “if it is even possible that God exists, then it is true that he does necessarily exists”. Then he said “the argument does not show that there is a being that enjoys maximal greatness in fact”. But wait a minute; you just said if it was possible, then it is true. A contradiction if I ever saw one.

Thank you for proving my point (again). Possible world semantics, as I said, involve technical, formal definitions and work by extending established formal logical systems. You don't know these. So you don't realize that in the first sentence, God necessarily exists only in some possible world, but this means nothing unless he exists in ours.

What???? He said “BUT SINCE IT IS RATIONAL TO ACCEPT THEIR CENTRAL PREMISE, THEY DO SHOW THAT IT IS RATIONAL TO ACCEPT THAT CONCLUSION”. Did I miss something here?

Yes, you missed something: having a basic understanding of the concepts you are dealing with, the logical systems you rely on, and the arguments themselves.

I may have not read any of Plantiga’s books

Yet you like "his version".

Dr. Craig uses Plantiga’s version

Plantinga's "version" required hundreds of pages, it requires multiple proofs, and in his books these often have upwards of 30 lines in addition to the other supporting proofs.

and I DO have one of Craig’s book in which the argument is discussed.

How many contained pages like the following, from Craig's Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom:

Craig may be a misleading, manipulative individual who preys on non-specialists, but he isn't an idiot, and what he presents in technical literature (journals and academic books) is not what you see in most of his books. That's because most of his books are published for people who don't know the works of authors Craig mentions in the scanned page above, Tarski, Haack, and Łukasiewicz, any more than they do about formal derivations (part of one is included in the scan). When he's writing to people who are as well-informed (or much more so) than he, then he does not rely on the same arguments but vastly more technical and complex versions with little resemblance to the ones intended for the general reader.

There is a prior as long as there is change.

Perhaps some context would help. From the same source (italics and emphasis in original):
Aquinas gives a bad argument against the possibility of infinite regresses of all kinds of efficient causes and, at times, inconsistently with that bad argument, says that infinite regresses of generating efficient causes are not impossible. “But what if the world of sensible things began a finite time ago in a Big Bang? Could there then be infinite temporal regresses of sensible-thing efficient causes for today’s sensible things?” It is likely that Aquinas would say, “No, for then there would not have been enough time.” I say, “Yes,” though given the constraint that such causes could not recede to or beyond that Big Bang time after which ‘all hell broke loose,’ infinite regresses of such causes, considered in reverse temporal order, would at some time be from then back temporally squeezed more or more closely. One manner of regular squeezing would be, for every time t subsequent to the time of the Big Bang, to have the immediate sensible-thing cause of a sensible thing’s coming to be at t, come to be itself at t/2. An infinite regress of the first-appearance-times of a sensible thing’s more and more remote sensible-thing causes could be: t, t/2, (t/2)/2 = t/4, [(t/2)/2]/2 = t/8, and so on ad infinitum. It is true that “if there was no first event, then there must have been an event prior to any given event” but it is not true that there must have been an event prior to any given time."
There can be infinite beginningless temporal regresses of sensible-thing efficient causes in history, even if there was a beginning to history in the sense of a time at and before which there were no sensible things and nothing happened. This makes some trouble for Craig’s basic kalam cosmological argument...A problem for this argument is that ‘the universe of sensible things’ could have begun to exist in the sense that there is time at and before which there were no sensible things and after which there were ‘fast-starting’ beginningless series of sensible-thing causes in which series each sensible thing begins to exist and is caused by a member of the series that began to exist earlier. In this scenario, though “the universe began to exist” in a sense, nothing happened when it did; nothing came into existence then, and in particular The Universe did not come into existence then. In this story it was only later that things came into existence, and they all had causes in the universe of sensible things that themselves came into existence at earlier times, but of course at times subsequent to the ‘beginning of history’. Relating this possibility to Craig’s argument, it is ‘philosophically plausible’ that everything that begins to exist, in the sense that there is an earliest time when it exists, has a cause of its existence. But it is ‘philosophically contentious’ that everything that begins to exist, either in that sense or in the sense described in which ‘the universe of sensible things’ could have come into existence, has a cause of its existence.

I repeat

You've misconstrued the argument. I've supplied more context for you.

You (via Craig) argue that there must be a first cause. You argue that there was a point at which causes and events began, which you call the "big bang". The problem is that the description of causation in a reality without time allows for a point "after which there were ‘fast-starting’ beginningless series of sensible-thing causes"

It is not necessary to call the origin of time (and in your cosmology the universe) the "first cause", because it (the causation of the universe), never happened. Rather, causation itself began with a "beginningless series of sensible-thing causes", not the universe.

When you play with the manner in which causation works without time, you cannot apply causal models which require time.

I am presented an absurdity

You are presented with something you don't understand.

Open any textbook on cosmology and you will find it.

"In the most commonly used models, those of Robertson–Walker class, the Big Bang is a single event in the spacetime. The process of expansion away from the Big Bang is the time-reverse of the collapse to a singularity, i.e. it is precisely what a white hole should do...the R–W models are exceptional in almost every possible respect....the Big Bang is not a single event, but a process extended in time."
p. 201 (emphases added)
Plebanski, J., & Krasinski, A. (2006). An introduction to general relativity and cosmology. Cambridge University Press.
Even in the most common model, the big bang is in spacetime, and NOT the origin of spacetime. How many other cosmology textbooks would you like me to open and quote from? And what textbook can you quote from?

Who observed what?

Lots of people observed a lot, but I'll give you one example because it's accessible for free and contains a pretty clear statement of "absurdity" empirically observed:

"In as far as the term designates the quantum superposition of two macroscopically distinct states of a highly complex object, the molecules in our new experimental series are among the fattest Schrödinger cats realized to date. Schrödinger reasoned whether it is possible to bring a cat into a superposition state of being 'dead' and 'alive'. In our experiment, the superposition consists of having all 430 atoms simultaneously 'in the left arm' and 'in the right arm' of our interferometer, that is, two possibilities that are macroscopically distinct." (source)

That bolded part means that they measured the same 430 atoms as being in two places at the same time. Such "absurdities" abound and indeed are characteristic of quantum physics.

Absurdities cannot “happen”.

The great thing about that definition is that it says nothing at all.

Can a light be both on and not on at the same time?

A single photon can be in more than one place at the same time.

 

[cottage]

So, let me ask you this; Since you claim there is ‘no logical requirement for necessary truths’, is the fact that there isn’t a logical requirement for necessary truths a necessary truth? Is the truth value of your assertion necessarily true? Your answer can either be yes or no, but either way it is self refuting.

What you’re asking me is this: Is it true that it isn’t true that truths are true? And: Is the truth about a truth true? Oh come on!

Necessary truths are simply what they are: propositions that define a thing or repeat the premises, in other words they are self-evidently true and don’t require further qualification.

We are talking about God’s existence, or lack thereof. Necessary truths are true in all POSSIBLE WORLDS. If it is possible for God’s existence to be NECESSARY, then it is possibly necessary in all POSSIBLE WORLDS. Since all possible necessary truths must in fact be necessarily true, then it follows that all possible necessary truths are true in ALL POSSIBLE WORDS. What this means is God exist in all possible worlds, because his existence is possibly necessarily true. If something is possibly necessarily true then it follows that based on that possibility it must be necessarily true, because if it was found that this possibility was false, then it was never necessarily true in the first place, because necessarily truths cannot be falsified.

It is possible that there are no worlds other than this, the actual world, but there is no necessary truth that demonstrates the existence of any worlds

Science doesn’t give us anything when it comes to the question of origins. Science gives us information about what happened “after the fact”. Metaphysics gives us information for what happened “before the fact”.

But it doesn’t! Metaphysical pronouncements are just speculative hypotheses that cannot be falsified and they are not subject to experimental reasoning. And even some scientific hypothesese wander into the realm of metaphysics and they too are unfalsifiable and so neither true nor false.

If the universe began to exist there is no experiment that can be done to explain why. Science can only tell us what happened after it came in to existence. If you are asking the deeper question of what caused it to begin, then you are leaving science and stepping in to the portal of metaphysics.”

Exactly, you’ve left science behind and stepped into a world of sophistry and invention.

I agree, but I say it is possible that there are no other “natural worlds”. I believe in God so I believe in a supernatural realm (world). I cannot believe in God an also believe that there is no realm or “world” that he exist in. ”

Yes, and I can understand that. The possible world notion is the subject of disagreement and has many variations, from being limited to sentences to being literally real (Lewis, 1973). I prefer to use the other world concept, but not in the sense of yet to be discovered planets, or something in which objects reside, but anything supposedly external to the actual world including God. No doubt it is important for you to believe in a realm of existence as it applies to God, since that is consistent with the doctrine of your belief, but I see no logical reason to make the distinction.

So do you. We both believe that something has existed for eternity. I believe that God has existed for eternity (timeless before creation, temporal after). You believe that all natural reality has existed for eternity. The only problem is, once again; the argument from contingency and the infinity arguments.

No I do not believe the world existed from eternity, though it might have, or it might be self-existent (which doesn’t mean it was the cause of itself). But both hypotheses amount to nothing more than dabbling in spclative metaphysics.
What we do know, however, is that the world exists and it is contingent, which does not mean that it must answer to some other thing but only that it need not exist. Leibniz’ argument from contingency has a number of points that I take serious issue with, especially the argument from sufficient reason, which can be turned around on him, and it should be noted that that we cannot speak about the existence of any supposed necessary being or deity without reference to the world, and in that sense God is contingent upon the world.

Your view and my view; the answer is either one or the other, but it can’t be both and it can’t be neither. Theism and naturalism are the only two games in town and I happen to believe that your view is most certainly absurd J

I think you mean deism and naturalism? The concept of Supreme Being isn’t owned by religion or a particular deity.

 

[cottage]

To judge God’s act of discipline by calling his acts right or wrong, you are judging based on your own presupposed morals and standards standards.

This doesn’t have anything at all to do with me making a judgement or trying to impose a moral priniple. If you read what I’ve written elsewhere you will see I have already stated that there is no logical reason for God to be benevolent, but if he is benevolent then all the bloodletting is a direct contradiction.

Again, in order to even begin to question God’s moral state, you have to presuppose your own standard and compare your standard against his. How is your standard right and his wrong? That is begging the question. Second, God has a right to discipline his creation when they do wrong. You are making it seem as if God was just going around and killing people for absolutely no reason at all. What you (and others) always fail to mention is what the people did that required such action. Those people were EVIL people. They were committing all type of abominations…homosexuality…human sacrifices…idolatry…etc. Third, once again, you people always mention God when he is judging and disciplining the wicked. You never mention the parts of the Old Testament that talks about his love and his blessings. You people only use the bible to pick and choose the scriptures that will justify your own non-belief.

I repeat I am not imposing any moral imperative here. I am showing you the contradiction. You are admitting that God is sometimes loving, sometimes not. He is not, therefore all loving.

God is either all benevolent, or he is not (law of ex-middle).

Evil exists in God’s world

1) God and evil
2) God and no evil.
Since #1 is true (assume God exists), #2 must be false.

Evil is only the absence of goodness. Just like darkness is the absence of light. In order for you to claim that things are evil, you have to have to define what is good, and you can’t do this without giving your own and personal definition of goodness. How is your definition of what is good better than anyone else’s? Without an objective standard for what is considered “good”, then there can only be a subjective standard for what is considered “evil” (and also good). Without God, there IS no objective standard for good or evil. Everything becomes subjective; depending on ones own moral standards. Heck, without God, there isn’t even free will. There is no morality when it comes to evolution. Hell, if everything was based on survival then why don’t everyone just start killing each other and may the best man/woman win.

Evil isn’t the absence of ‘good’! ‘Goodness’ isn’t a proper state or condition but is entirely dependent upon evil in order to have any meaning whatsoever.Conceive of a possible world where there is only evil, eg pain and suffering; in fact we will consider ourselves the creator of this possible world. We have created this evil world at the flick of switch (although the term 'evil' would of course have no meaning to its inhabitants). But now, at another flick of the switch, we could put a stop to the evil. Those who did the killing would stop killing; those who did the robbing would stop robbing; and the volcanoes would stop pouring molten larva over the inhabitants. We've simply stopped the evil and suffering; we haven't introduced something called 'good'. The inhabitants didn't suddenly become 'good' to one another but simply ceased doing what they were doing previously. And the mountain didn't become 'good' but simply stopped spewing forth the deadly larva. Here’s another example: murder is evil, while not murder is simply the former not enacted. To say not murder is 'good' is to make a special plea for a state of 'goodness' when its very existence as not murder is conditional upon 'murder'. Evil is a condition in its own right, whereas what we call 'good' is can only exist due to its dependency upon evil. A world without evil is just what it is. Without evil, 'good' is not intelligible. You can't be generous where there is no selfishness, and you can't heal when there is nothing to be healed. And you can't overcome adversity when there is no adversity to be overcome.

 

[cottage]

So what? We know that 2+2 is equal to 4. But we don’t know whether or not God exists. That isn’t a problem. For the theist, all we need is the mere possibility that God (as defined is the argument) exists. As long as that is possible, it follows that God exists based on what it means to be necessary.

But can’t you see that it is the problem? Exactly as you say, we know 2+2 must always be the equal of 4 but we don’t know whether God exists. But if all necessary truths are certain, which they are, and 2+2 is a necessary truth, which it is, then ‘God exists’ must be a necessary and certain, which it isn’t - by your own admission!

This is self refuting. There is no demonstrable existence of the FSM, but does that mean that there is a possible world at which FSM doesn’t exist?

It means there are no demonstrably existent worlds

This has to be the first time in history that a theist used the FSM concept to his advantage.

If that’s to your advantage then we are both of us happy men.

It is necessary that the cause of time exist as a atemporal being. But it isn’t necessary that the cause of time REMAINED an atemporal being.

And In that case out of your own mouth you are saying God is not simple and immutable!

It is necessary that whatever exists or is said exists either exists necessarily or contingently. Once again, those are the only two games in town. It can be either or, but it can’t be neither.

There are three elements involved in the controversy. Necessity stands in relation to contingency.The world exists and is contingent, and God, if he exists, is necessary. But ‘necessity’ does not entail necessary existence.
TheArgument from Contingency attempts to provide the link from necessity to necessary existence, but unlike the ontological argument, which is non-inferential, the Argument from Contingency is a version of the Cosmological Argument and the weakness in its logical structure is that it makes inferences from facts, which is inductive and not deductive.

Ummm Cot. The premise is it is possible for God (as defined in the argument) to necessarily exist. The ONLY way to refute the argument is to show a logical incoherency based on the concept of God (as is defined in the argument). Proponents of the argument maintain that there is no contradiction based on the attributes that we use to define God in the argument. So if it is possible for such a being to exist, then this being must actually exist. Based on the nature of necessity, ALL POSSIBLE NECESSARY TRUTHS MUST EXIST IN REALITY as an absolute truth.

Necessary truths are not existents; they are concepts not ontological entities. And objects don’t have their existence because of tautologies or definitions.

And the argument is refuted, as I’ve already shown several times. As you are aware there are the three Aristotelian laws of thought, which are intuitive and demonstrable, and which in simple terms means that we cannot think what cannot be thought. Consider the principle of identity, A=A is analytic: (‘a thing is the same as itself’). Notice it isn’t possibly necessary but immediately, intuitively, and necessarily certain. If Almighty God, the creator of all things is a necessarily existent being it would be as absurd to deny that truth as it would be say A=A is false - and with equal veracity. If a thing is necessary and an absolute truth then it cannot be thought as false, which is why I also gave the 2 + 2 = 4 example. Similarly a thing that is all red cannot at the same time be conceived of as being all blue; it’s an impossible conception, as would be an object that is not the same as itself. And yet, regardless of any definition, concept, or proposition we can conceive of there being no God, which would be impossible if God’s existence is a necessary, certain and true.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Not according to the Standard Model, which has the most empirical evidence supporting it.

Source?

It appears that as usual, I have to repeat the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. Not only am I repeating the same thing, but I am repeating the same thing to the same people.

Because nobody ever has had to repeat anything to you in spite of the fact that you still refuse to understand it, right?

Postulating an eternal realm of natural reality has many logical problems plaguing it.

I asked you to provide an example of a scientific textbook that claims that absolutely nothing could have existed before the big bang. You made a claim that that's what they said, so support it. Where is your evidence?

If the proposition is logically consistent then there is no reason to believe that in a possible world, it could not exist. If such a being did exist, then its existences WOULD be necessary and if it is possible that such a being exist, it must exist.

Baseless assumptions.

So the brain cannot be used to explain the origins of the mind.

What? Who said that?

The book of Acts is said to have been written around 70 AD, so the Gospel of Luke had to be written before that because Acts is like a “part 2” of Luke. And Luke is said to have borrowered material from Mark, so that mean the book of Mark must predate Luke, and then you can work your way backwards from there. Not to mention the fact that the early Church Fathers attributed the authors of the Gospels to those that bear their names. So the accounts are very direct and very contemporary, because they were written by either disciples or friends of the disciples and they were also written to within 30-40 years after the event.

Evidence of all of these claims, please. What you are saying here is not consistent with what the majority of Biblical scholars say.

The earliest Paul letter may have been 52 AD, but the events (1Cor 15:3) can be dated to within 5 years of the crucifixion itself, if not earlier. I don’t know how you can get any more contemporary than that.

Well, you could start by having first-hand accounts of people writing at the time - not over ten years later, based on hearsay.

Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, [/FONT][/COLOR]Lucian of Samosta, Mara Bar-Serapion. They all testify that Jesus was an actual person in history.

Jospehus was born in 37 AD, after Jesus' death. It is not a first-hand account. He also does not observe any of the miracles attributed to Jesus.

Tacitus was born in 56 AD, and is therefore also not a source of first-hand accounts.

Pliny the Younger was born in 61 AD, so the same problem occurs.

Lucian of Samosta was born in 125 AD.

Mara Bar-Serapion's only reference to Jesus is in a letter written around 70 AD.

But all of this is beside the point. I'm not contesting the notion that Jesus actually existed historically. You're clearly trying to widen the goalposts. I'm contesting that the miracles and, in particular, the resurrection have any basis in historical fact. So far, all you've done is present a lot of people who lived after Jesus died making reference to him and things he supposedly did. Not a single reliable basis for any of them.

 

[Sculelos]

All this talk about Jesus is irrelevant to these facts.

1. Design and Evolution are incompatible.

2. Adam and Eve where the real first humans 5,801 years ago or the Bible is a load of B.S.

3. God is the Electron (Ion), Jesus is the Neutron. They form all building blocks of matter or else they don't exist and the Bible is totally fraudulent.

4. Both the big-bang and creation are logical paradoxical axioms. Either you believe in one or you believe the other, but you cannot believe both without believing in lies.

5. Evolution doesn't take billions of years or even millions of years. The Bible clearly has stated that the Angels came down possed physical bodies of animals turning them into humanoids and then mated with the daughters of Adam and Eve. Creating races of animalistic humaniods and giants. These of course were destroyed by dragons however as judgement was passed on them the first time.

6. The size of our universe geometrically is 630 Million miles thick on both in the East to West directions and 315 Million North and South direction.

7. We are in one infinite loop if you get to the end of the universe in the N to S directions you loop back and go to Earth again. If you get to the end in the E to W directions you eventually get crash into a Ice Dome. It takes about 211 light day's to get there since light energy slows down much when it's crossing low density space.

8. Biblically the World is the Earth and the Heavens and they are connected together. The World was created empty and void and then life was put into the waters of life. Which is to say, the neutron by the electron. Which the electron created by forming a negative energy field surrounding the World first and then creating stuff inside of it.

That about sums up the basics of Biblical teaching which I do have a perfectly working model in real life and I can explain any and all physics within it's boundaries. I only need 1 model. And that model is the infinitely looped, finite space, electro-magnetic universe model where Earth is geo-static and the Heavens are compressed into 7 different layers (with 10 heads or planetary luminaries), which is to say a far out reflection of that of the different layers on earth.

 

[adi2d]

Nice wall of text
Any evidence for all that cra pola? EVIDENCE. You know that is the topic of this thread

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

It is possible that there are no worlds other than this, the actual world, but there is no necessary truth that demonstrates the existence of any worlds

It's important for a number of reasons to point out what "possible worlds" means here. This isn't actually like multiverse theories or many-worlds theories or some other physical world.

I'm not sure if you know this, but I am pretty sure that this is not common knowledge and that the potential for those following this thread to misunderstand "possible worlds" is high, and so I wonder how you understand the following:

The possible world notion is the subject of disagreement and has many variations, from being limited to sentences to being literally real (Lewis, 1973).

Assuming that you mean Lewis' Counterfactuals (1973), some clarification is called for. I apologize for not skipping right to the conclusion, but it is important to understand why one can get the impression that by "literally real" Lewis believes something that he does not.
He states: "I therefore believe in the existence of entities that might be called 'ways things could have been'. I prefer to call them possible worlds". p. 84

He also says "I emphatically do not identify possible worlds in any way with respectable linguistic entities...When I profess realism about possible worlds, I mean things to be taken literally". p. 85

The first quote seems rather straight forward. The second quote is not so straightforward, as when we say "if I hadn't looked at the moon when I did, it would have been there", we do not mean that there is some physical world out there in which some person did not look at the moon and it wasn't there. That seems to be what Lewis is saying. It isn't (exactly). We have one more step:

"Possible worlds are what they are, and not some other thing. If asked what sort of things they are, I cannot give the kind of reply my questioner probably expects: that is, a proposal to reduce possible worlds to something else."

Even worse. From straightforward into clear but clearly odd and now just vague. However, there is a light at the end of this tunnel (be it of an oncoming train or no):

"It is said that realism about possible worlds is false because only our own world, and its contents, actually exist. But of course unactualized possible worlds and their unactualized inhabitants do not actually exist. To actually exist is to exist and to be located here at our actual world- at this world we inhabit." p. 86

By "literally real" Lewis is not saying that possible worlds are literal worlds, but literal possibilities. That is, it is meaningful to speak of what is possible, in the sense of the way things could have been other than they are, and that these possible worlds are "real" in that things really could have been that way, but they are not real, physical worlds.

They are real only in the sense that they represent possibilities that could have been, but are necessarily not "literally real" in the sense that that a possible world refers to some literal (actual, physical, literally existing) world where some literal events occur. By definition, it cannot be this. To see why, take an actual counterfactual:

"If I had not looked at the moon, it would still have been there".

That is a statement I can make in this world, so let's say I have just stated this. Now, if there were a world somewhere in which another person did not look at the moon and it wasn't there, then this world isn't a possible world. It actually exists and the event in question (looking and not seeing moon) actually took place. If I say "I went to the store", either I did go or I did not, but whatever the truth there is no possibility. It is necessarily true that I either did go or did not go, while it is necessarily false that it is possible I did go (or not), as this is the past, I cannot change what I did. However, in some possible world, I can consider the real possibility that I did not go.

As soon as something actually happens, such as my going to the store, it is no longer a possibility but an actuality. For Lewis, possible worlds are "real" unactualized states of affairs, and they cannot exist the way we normally think (i.e., the way we exist in this world), for if they actually existed they would not be possibilities.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Source?

Wikipedia:

“The Big Bang is a well-tested scientific theory and is widely accepted within the scientific community. It offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background, large scale structure, and the Hubble diagram for Type Ia supernovae.[12]”

Because nobody ever has had to repeat anything to you in spite of the fact that you still refuse to understand it, right?

Understanding is one thing, acceptance is another.

I asked you to provide an example of a scientific textbook that claims that absolutely nothing could have existed before the big bang. You made a claim that that's what they said, so support it. Where is your evidence?

And I said according to the Standard model. Physicists Frank Tipler and John Barrow: “At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) (Frank Tipler, John Barrow, “The Anthropic Cosmological Principal Oxford: Clarendon, 1986, 442.)

I could give you quotes from others as well. Not to mention the BGV theorem which proves that even if you postulate a pre-big bang model, that universe would also had to have a beginning, and this theorem applies to string theories and multi-verse scenarios. So, the proof is in place. It is the acceptance part that is hard.

Baseless assumptions.

Baseless? So you tell me; what is the incoherency based on the concept of God as defined in the argument?

What? Who said that?

If you found yourself in your dog’s body but retained your human thoughts and you see your body lying motionless in the bed….are you the dog, or are you the human?

Evidence of all of these claims, please. What you are saying here is not consistent with what the majority of Biblical scholars say.

Everyone knows that Luke wrote the book of Acts and all you have to do is actually read Acts 1:1-2 and see that it is obviously a continuation of the Gospel of Luke. For you to say that the early Church Fathers didn’t attribute Mark, Matthew, and John to the disciples that bears their name is just flat out incorrect. Look it up.

Well, you could start by having first-hand accounts of people writing at the time - not over ten years later, based on hearsay.

As I stated; the events in 1Corin 15:3 can be dated to within 5 years of the crucifixion which is well under the 10 years you desire. You say “first-hand accounts”…they are first hand accounts. Two disciples and two friends of the disciples, all within the lifetime of those involved. How much more “first-hand” can you get than that?

Jospehus was born in 37 AD, after Jesus' death. It is not a first-hand account. He also does not observe any of the miracles attributed to Jesus.

LMAO this is funny. So if I said “Dr. Martin Luther King was a civil rights leader who led the black community during their march for civil liberties. Dr. King was assassinated at the hands of James Earl Ray in 1968”. So based on your logic if I tell someone that information about MLK it isn’t valid because it isn’t a “first-hand account” lol.

Not only that, but guess what. Jospehus was a HISTORIAN. So my history teachers shouldn’t have been teaching the class about historical figures, famous battles, etc, because they are not first-hand accounts. So you just pretty much kicked all historians in the behind lol.

Tacitus was born in 56 AD, and is therefore also not a source of first-hand accounts.

I was born in 1985, and I can tell someone about John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Pliny the Younger was born in 61 AD, so the same problem occurs.

I was born in 1985, and I can tell someone about John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Lucian of Samosta was born in 125 AD.

I was born in 1985, and I can tell someone about John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Mara Bar-Serapion's only reference to Jesus is in a letter written around 70 AD.

I was born in 1985, and I can tell someone about John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

But all of this is beside the point. I'm not contesting the notion that Jesus actually existed historically. You're clearly trying to widen the goalposts. I'm contesting that the miracles and, in particular, the resurrection have any basis in historical fact. So far, all you've done is present a lot of people who lived after Jesus died making reference to him and things he supposedly did. Not a single reliable basis for any of them.

The argument is based on the historicity of Jesus and the events that are said to have occurred. It is worth mentioning that from a historical perspective contemporary accounts are not required. Despite this un-requirement, we DO actually have contemporary accounts for the Resurrection of Jesus.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

This doesn’t have anything at all to do with me making a judgement or trying to impose a moral priniple. If you read what I’ve written elsewhere you will see I have already stated that there is no logical reason for God to be benevolent, but if he is benevolent then all the bloodletting is a direct contradiction.

To be morally perfect is to judge and discipline sin, would you not agree? All of this “bloodletting” you are talking about came as a result of God disciplining bad people.

I repeat I am not imposing any moral imperative here. I am showing you the contradiction. You are admitting that God is sometimes loving, sometimes not. He is not, therefore all loving.

You do not discipline someone because you don’t love them. You discipline them because you DO love them. The bible say in the infamous John 3:16 “For God so loved the WORLD”. The world includes everyone that lives in it.

God is either all benevolent, or he is not (law of ex-middle).

And?

Evil exists in God’s world

1) God and evil
2) God and no evil.
Since #1 is true (assume God exists), #2 must be false.

Doesn’t appear to make any sense.

Evil isn’t the absence of ‘good’! ‘Goodness’ isn’t a proper state or condition but is entirely dependent upon evil in order to have any meaning whatsoever.

Those who did the killing would stop killing; those who did the robbing would stop robbing; and the volcanoes would stop pouring molten larva over the inhabitants. We've simply stopped the evil and suffering; we haven't introduced something called 'good'. The inhabitants didn't suddenly become 'good' to one another but simply ceased doing what they were doing previously. And the mountain didn't become 'good' but simply stopped spewing forth the deadly larva. Here’s another example: murder is evil, while not murder is simply the former not enacted. To say not murder is 'good' is to make a special plea for a state of 'goodness' when its very existence as not murder is conditional upon 'murder'. Evil is a condition in its own right, whereas what we call 'good' is can only exist due to its dependency upon evil. A world without evil is just what it is. Without evil, 'good' is not intelligible. You can't be generous where there is no selfishness, and you can't heal when there is nothing to be healed. And you can't overcome adversity when there is no adversity to be overcome.

So is a murder a good thing, or a bad thing?

But can’t you see that it is the problem? Exactly as you say, we know 2+2 must always be the equal of 4 but we don’t know whether God exists. But if all necessary truths are certain, which they are, and 2+2 is a necessary truth, which it is, then ‘God exists’ must be a necessary and certain, which it isn’t - by your own admission!

I read that three times, and I failed to make sense of it. I guess I am "slow". Please break this one down for me.

It means there are no demonstrably existent worlds

That you know of. Are you omniscient?

And In that case out of your own mouth you are saying God is not simple and immutable!

How does that follow?

There are three elements involved in the controversy. Necessity stands in relation to contingency.The world exists and is contingent, and God, if he exists, is necessary. But ‘necessity’ does not entail necessary existence.

In this case, it does. Not only that, but the necessity of God only supplements the Kalam argument against infinity. The Kalam argument makes a case for finite time, meaning that an eternal past is absurd. The Ontological argument makes a case that there had to be at least one necessary being…one uncaused cause….one cause whose existence is self sustained. Two completely independent arguments that reaches the same conclusion.

But to get back to your point, in this case it necessity does entail necessary existence, because what are we talking about? EXISTENCE. And things exist either necessarily or contingently.

TheArgument from Contingency attempts to provide the link from necessity to necessary existence, but unlike the ontological argument, which is non-inferential, the Argument from Contingency is a version of the Cosmological Argument and the weakness in its logical structure is that it makes inferences from facts, which is inductive and not deductive.

However you want to put it lol. No material thing in this universe is necessary…therefore no material thing in this universe can be used to explain the origin of its own domain. Everything that we see gets its existence from an external cause. The universe itself is contingent, and these cause and effect relations cannot extend in to eternity past.

Necessary truths are not existents; they are concepts not ontological entities. And objects don’t have their existence because of tautologies or definitions.

Fine. And the concept is a maximally great being that owes his existence to no one outside himself. Such a being either exists, or doesn’t exist. If such a being exists, he exists necessarily. Plain and simple.

And the argument is refuted, as I’ve already shown several times.

I am still at a lost for how you think you’ve successfully refuted the argument. The only way to do so is to demonstrate how such a being is logically incoherent, which you haven’t done yet at all.

If Almighty God, the creator of all things is a necessarily existent being it would be as absurd to deny that truth as it would be say A=A is false - and with equal veracity. If a thing is necessary and an absolute truth then it cannot be thought as false, which is why I also gave the 2 + 2 = 4 example. Similarly a thing that is all red cannot at the same time be conceived of as being all blue; it’s an impossible conception, as would be an object that is not the same as itself. And yet, regardless of any definition, concept, or proposition we can conceive of there being no God, which would be impossible if God’s existence is a necessary, certain and true.

Personally, It is hard for me to conceive of a universe at which intelligent beings begin to exist without an Intelligent Mind behind it. Once God is taken out of consideration, the only hypothesis available is that the mind came from the mindless, consciousness came from unconsciousness, sight came from the blind, and life ultimately came from non-life. I just can’t force myself to believe that stuff. I just can’t. So based on the way things are, Intelligent Design is necessary in my opinion, but not just my opinion, I think the OA is a sound and valid argument.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

What does the standard model have to do with the beginning?

Because it is the Standard Model that suggests literally nothing existed before the big bang. Nothing. That is why so many cosmologists have tried to introduce these pre-big bang models. So far, there hasn’t been a model as of yet that has negated “finite” universe conclusion.

You repeating the same premise isn't helpful. It's speculation in which we could insert any entity and said they are creator.

I’ve already answered this.

Which is why people have issue with "god did it", "outside of time, eternal".

People that presuppose naturalism.

Logical consistency would be that nothing exists unless we have managed to observe it or test for it's existence.

Can you observe or test whether your last statement’s truth value exist?

Evolutionary biology explains it pretty well. Brains aren't the puppets of the mind, it's the other way around.

If you woke up and found yourself find yourself in your dogs body but you retained your human mind…yet your body remained motionless in the bed..are you the dog, or are you your motionless body?