INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[Enai de a lukal]

What is this? I know you are but what am I? I got out of middle school quite a while back.

Unfortunately for you, it doesn't cut both ways. You clearly have an ideological commitment to a certain view, regardless of what the evidence may say, because you're committed to your religious views. You need the universe to have had a beginning, because otherwise, there's nothing for your God to do, and no basis for your religion's creation myth.

On the other hand, I don't care either way, because in itself, a beginning of the universe entails no theistic commitments. If it turns out there was a beginning of the universe, great- that's pretty interesting. If not, that's cool too. I, unlike you, have no pre-determined conclusion that I need to hold onto, come what may, but can follow the evidence where it may lead. Which is, of course, why all your discussions about cosmology are arbitrary and sort of pointless- there's only one conclusion you're willing or able to accept, regardless of what the evidence may be.

Do more physicists lean towards a model of the universe that includes an absolute beginning? Perhaps. But does that change the fact that, at this point, all of our inferences are speculative and sketchy, because we simply don't know very much that is reliable about the very early universe? Of course not. So being firmly committed either way is simply naive, or dishonest (or both). And portraying viable alternatives as "fantasies", or categorically dismissing the opinions of experts simply because their view doesn't square with our pet religious beliefs, is just laughable.

 

[mystic64]

This cannot be done. They never have, are not currently, nor is there the slightest possibility they will create something from a state of non-being. Post me a link to whatever it is you are talking about here and I will prove they are not doing so. Science can and does change one arrangement or even state of matter into another arrangement or state. They never create anything from nothing and there is no reason to think they ever will, and many reasons to suggest they never can.

Man has never done this.

I guess you are about to be really surprised about what Man can do and is doing . But that is ok Robin, activity is the life of a message board and you are creating activity! All is well . You are loved! john

 

[Thief]

How can the supernatural make something out of nothing?

And the singularity is what.....?

 

[PolyHedral]

And the singularity is what.....?

A something.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

And the singularity is what.....?

Probably a vestige of our (broken) classical physics.

 

[1robin]

I guess you are about to be really surprised about what Man can do and is doing . But that is ok Robin, activity is the life of a message board and you are creating activity! All is well . You are loved! john

I noticed this statement (that is so incoherent I can't understand it) was substituted for the evidence I asked for. Give me the evidence I asked for, not commentary that is an attempt to distract from the fact it does not exist.

 

[1robin]

Krauss recently released a book on the subject, A Universe From Nothing, and here's an article by Filippenko. And applying QM to the early universe is popular thing in cosmology right now, I'd imagine there are plenty others who have released works making similar claims in the last few years.

I will get to the rest at some point but this is what I wished to talk about. I told the Phd I work with and another guy with a masters in pure mathematics and Pyhsics that there some told me that there are actuall people calling themselves scientists who claimed something came from nothing. They said they did not believe me. I even gave them a copy of the post. We talked about it for about 30 minutes and I have never laughed so hard in my life.

I can't read books, or even articles. I am far too busy trying to make application science do anything that it is supposed to.

You claimed they said it. Please post their statements where they did so.

Do you realize what nothing is? Nothing is the absence of being. Nothing is derived from No-thing. It is not a thing. It is not a null set, it is not a set at all. It is not 0, it is not even an abstract concept like numbers. It is non-being. It does not exist. Non-existence can never produce anything. Space is something, time is something, matter is something, energy (even the Quantum) is something. That absence of anything has no possibility of doing anything. Where would it put what came from it? When would it arrive? What energy or matter would it be composed of. They did not exist.

This, however, does not remove the problem for the atheist, because now instead of asking how can something come from nothing, we are forced to ask:

• How can the absence of energy give rise to energy?
• How can the absence of matter give rise to matter?
• How can the absence of space give rise to space?
• How can the absence of time give rise to time?

By replacing the term nothing with a more detailed definition makes the problem even more glaring, because it further highlights the difficulty inherent in the atheist claim.


Read more: Dawkins' Conundrum: How can something come from nothing? | Washington Times Communities

I will tell you what will happen to any claims from scientists who actually said what you said they did by giving the closest statement to it I know of.

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing,"
Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God | Science | The Guardian

This and a thousand other statements as glaringly stupid as this is why I have no confidence in Hawking.

Gravity is something not nothing. As the great Oxford math professor (Lennox) pointed out, this makes Hawking's statement: Because something existed then we can get something from nothing. Brilliant.

Nevertheless, it has always been a fundamental first principle of philosophy and science that "from nothing, nothing comes", "being cannot come from non-being". (that is unless God is involved then nothing can do anything) Even the great sceptic David Hume, who argued that we could not prove the causal principle through ordinary means, still believed it to be true and thought a denial of it was absurd, "I never asserted so absurd a proposition that anything might arise without a cause."2
Does God Exist?
Words in parentheses are mine.

Hume's statement is the general consensus among scientists and coming from a materialist all the more potent.

Anyway still looking for those quotes. (I alone have supplied any at all I believe). If not one example of what you claim has ever been observed, verified, or is even inferred by something else that was reliable and observed (like with black holes) then in what way is it science, and not faith anyway? and in what way is it part of the Quantum? Nothing is not a part of anything.

I am still in shock that any credible scientist even among the fantasy crew would claim something so utterly devoid of merit. Where have the Newton's gone? Your background is not physics or mathematics is it?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I will get to the rest at some point but this is what I wished to talk about. I told the Phd I work with and another guy with a masters in pure mathematics and Pyhsics that there some told me that there are actuall people calling themselves scientists who claimed something came from nothing. They said they did not believe me. I even gave them a copy of the post. We talked about it for about 30 minutes and I have never laughed so hard in my life.

Demonstrating that neither you, nor your friends, have anything approaching an elementary grasp on the relevant issues and concepts. And, as it happens, I got a good chuckle out of reading this post. One prolonged argument from incredulity.

In any case, you've immolated yourself in a field of strawmen here; you're critiquing a book you have not read, RE a subject you are wholly ignorant of and are in little or no position to evaluate, simply because it sounds weird to you (and is inconvenient to your religious commitments). Needless to say, that you dismiss the opinions of qualified experts, before even reading those opinions, basically renders your own opinion completely irrelevant. (and are they necessarily right, because they're experts? Of course not. But they can't be dismissed by the mere wave of a hand, i.e. your fallacious appeal to incredulity. I'd say "nice try", but it really wasn't- it was sort of a lazy try...)

 

[Enai de a lukal]

And quoting Hume to try to refute a hypothesis in 21st centruy physics- that's a pretty novel strategy. I'm giving you a frubal for that, because that's pretty darn funny. Well done.

 

[Agnostic75]

Edit: Deletion of duplicate post.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

They say there are 200 to 300 million Gods in India. :yes:

That includes personal gods. There are families with personal gods. There is a god for every river, mountain, stream ect ect ect.

 

[WonderWho]

Whether God is an all-knowing being, or a thoughtless being non-existent anymore, something had to start the first thing, the first science, and science cannot and will not ever explain the start of science, just as something cannot create itself. Before anything, there was nothing. Something transcendent, existent before anything, had to create the first something. That, we call God.

Why does there have to be a 'first'?
Consider this question:
What is the first decimal number after the number one?

Edited to add:This is also an argument against monotheism.

 

[cottage]

I was not speaking directly to your beliefs about cosmology but about the most reliable science we have at this time. Many people believe in multiverses, eternal quantum energy fields, oscillating universes, etc... I can't entertain every fantastic thing a person wishes were true. I was speaking about the most accepted model of the universe we have. It posits a single finite universe. That necessitates a end to the universe and everything natural known. That necessitates a nothing which nothing will come from. Again why am I the only one that is going with the best evidence. If you deny a nothing cosmology suggests strongly existed at some point then you are going in spite of the best evidence and in a direction that has virtually no evidence. Actual infinities are logically absurd. However it does appear you did agree with a nothingness.

‘Reliable science’ and speculative metaphysics are distinct and the God hypothesis misleadingly wants to jump from the one to the other. You are giving me your metaphysical belief as if it were the only possible hypothesis. But it isn’t though, and that is why I gave you mine, although I see you’re still not really getting the essence of my argument. So forgive me but I really must repeat some of what I’ve already said in my previous response, but with additions that will hopefully make it clearer:

Thesis: The universe is finite, it hasn’t always existed and one day it will cease to be; and thus there is no concept of infinity either past or in the future, and since there is no logical necessity in causality we can certainly allow the idea of a prior nothingness, negating an external cause of the world together with the very principle itself. Logically something can come to exist where before there was nothing (which is not saying absurdly that nothing can produce or cause something).But if we reject the idea of a prior nothingness and propose a pre-existing cause of the world then the laws of thought apply to that cause just as they apply to the world, but that leads to an absurdity since not only will that First Cause be dependent upon the world and its contingent features but also upon the logical laws that enable their denial.

So then, to continue in the most simple terms, we cannot in this the actual world demonstrate that one thing causes another, for it will only be as true as the next experiment. Now given that it is impossible for cause to be both contingent and necessary, and that causality isn’t demonstrably true in this actual world of experience, by what reasoning is it asserted that it must be the case in a world beyond experience (‘God&#8217 as a means to argue for the very existence of such a world? The answer is that we have no such warrant, and on that account, there can be no all-sufficient Supreme Being whose non-existence is impossible, which of course is inconsistent with the concept.

When discussing the nature of the universe our logic only binds the natural. There are no laws nor principles that govern God beyond some principles that are not binding but probably apply. If we had a natural nothing but now have a something which nothing could not produce then we know two things. 1. There was something beyond the nothing or we would still have nothing. 2. That something is non-natural.

I can’t seem to make head or tail of that. Perhaps you could put it in different words for me?

Cause and effect are principles we know apply to the natural and we have no reason whatever to claim they do not apply anywhere else.

And I’m sorry but here we have a completely unqualified assumption that leads us into the realms of the ridiculous. Firstly, you are supposing that there exists a ‘somewhere else’ to which ‘the natural’ will apply, which means you are already finding for a conclusion that you’ve yet to prove (an example of circular reasoning). And secondly, the ‘somewhere else’ (God) that you are alluding to is non-natural by its very definition and yet your argument supposes a non-natural agent that is contingent upon a feature of the natural world, a world that the agent itself caused to exist, which is immediately seen to be absurd.

I never argue God to a certainty, it can't be done. I argue to a high probability. It is highly probable that the universe did not exist at some point, it is almost certain that it can't self create, it is almost a certainty that it had a cause, it is probable that cause is not natural, it is very likely that cause was the Biblical God.

It is possible that the world did not exist at some point.
And self-creation is a nonsensical term and it isn’t almost certain that the world had a cause. But if the world was externally caused it makes sense logically and scientifically for its cause to be natural, since that’s what causality is: a phenomenon that occurs in the natural world with no evidence at all of other, non-natural worlds. But even if the world was caused by an non-natural external agent there is nothing in the bare-bones concept of Supreme Being or a First Cause that necessarily implies a being which (absurdly) seeks a relationship with its creation, or has attributes other than what is required for bringing the world into being and sustaining its existence. The Biblical God is self-contradictory.

If you contend a single step in that claim then you are going against the best evidence not with it. I have an intellectual permissibility burden not a proof burden. Science is supposed to have a evidence burden yet incorporates more faith based on less evidence in the case of multiverses, eternal actualities, and all other areas that are used to contend with God. I met my burden but the scientific argument against God has not met it's burden.

You keep mentioning science when this has little to do with science for it is an attempt to argue outside or beyond possible experience and that is not science but speculative metaphysics, which applies to both the God hypothesis and also the argument that I myself put forward. And we can only judge such hypotheses by whether they are logically possible or self-contradictory, not by any reference to sense data. But we can without contradiction assert what is logically impossible as I’ve shown further up the page.

 

[cottage]

What do you mean these days? He lived in the last 1% of human history. The principles of law have been known for thousands of years and only change to reflect modern aspects that did not exist at the time but are not fundamentally new. He wrote some of the books used for this purpose. He determined what is acceptable or not. Ancient documents with far worse pedigrees have actually been submitted in courts. I disagree with this.
I have here your opinion and his. He is one of the most distinguished legal scholars in human history. I will examine you points but as for opinions why would I go with yours? Expert witnesses are a time honored method of determining facts. I was on a trial where many were brought in and not one came without massive credentials. There is a reason for that. Do you have any?

I will say I have already read your response and it is articulate and scholarly. It is the best I have seen. I think it inaccurate but well written but we will get to that.

Sorry but that isn’t the point I’m making. The essence of the controversy is Greenleaf’s claim that the Bible is true (and hence God exists), founded on the principle of Municipal Law and the rules of evidence. The Christian religion no longer has the unquestioning authority and a grip on society that it once did and no jury in the Western World today would, or could, reach a verdict that found for a the supposed truth of a religious doctrine and the existence of a supernatural being on the basis of ancient testimony alone (not that it did in Greenleaf’s era, either).

This is an easy one. The things necessary to reliably know what originals said is early copying, prolific copying, and independent copying. The Bible exceeds every other text of any kind in all categories from ancient history. Casers Gallic wars has less than ten copies that are 900 years plus after the events. The Bible has thousands within a few hundred and fragments that go way back including a few that many believe were within just a few years of the crucifixion. If you deny reliability of the copies of the NT then you would have to far more deny the accuracy of every document before about 1000 AD. Since that is not what is done in every college on Earth it can't be done to the Bible for almost infinitely less reasons. It is the overabundance of copies that allow the Bible to not every error and have (even according to Ehrman and his ilk) less than 5% scribal error and those are known. Even he admits that no core doctrine has any error. There just does not exist any chance the Bible is significantly corrupted as the dead sea scrolls and others have demonstrated in every case.

I’m quite relaxed about this aspect the Testimony as it is the least crucial part of my critique (Part 1), although there is simply is no way of establishing beyond doubt that the lost copies were faithfully produced in every respect, as even Greenleaf himself concedes the possibility for error. And, again, as Richard Packham points out in his own critique, “All authorities on the rules of evidence emphasize that authenticating a document does not guarantee the truthfulness or accuracy of its contents. “Authentication merely shows where the document came from and when it was created.” Authenticity should not be taken to mean faithful and accurate reproduction, and the Bible cannot be taken as evidence for the Bible. This is ideology as much as history, with all those involved singing from the same song sheet as a matter of faith. A case in point is the art of exegesis where scholars study arcane texts to interpret meaning to fit with how they want it to be understood. And yet even if we allow that the copies were faithfully and accurately reproduced, and I’m quite happy to do that for the sake of argument, it still doesn’t address my main point of contention, which is that dead bodies coming to life must be proved scientifically and not by reference to aged testimony alone. But this fact seems to be completely lost on Greenleaf even as he quotes a legal precedent that he believes underlines his case:

“…in the House of Lords, precisely such a document, being an old manuscript copy, purported to have been extracted from ancient journals of the House, which were lost, and to have been made by an officer whose duty it was to prepare lists of the Peers, was held admissible in a claim of peerage.”

Greenleaf doesn’t see, or refuses to see, that there is a crucial distinction to be drawn between events admissible in possible experience, such as his quoted example, and allusions to other worlds. If such a controversial matter as the dead living again is to be settled by a question of fact then there can be no greater proof of fact than for such an event to be scientifically verified. Are we to believe that corrupt flesh resumes its former integrity with or without our observing the process, or that no such putrefaction or the least degradation occurs? Such occurrences are entirely at odds with probability and matters of fact, the foundation upon which Greenleaf has built the entire edifice of his case?

I agree the sincerity in prosecuting war is not evidence of accuracy of belief. I will add however that no group in human history has a fraction of the example of willingly laying down lives passively for a belief. Risking death to kill others is a very common occurrence in history but the Jews and Christians have unrivaled records of choosing certain death without struggle. This argues very strongly that they had an external source of power no other culture has demonstrated, that allowed them to do this. Pilot's successor wrote to Rome and suggested that if the death penalty for denying that Caesar was God was not redacted that there would be no Jews left alive to govern.

All you’re doing here is collecting a number of people under the single banner of the Judeo-Christian faith to the exclusion of all the others, which is a partiality beyond any proof. I’m not sure how you propose to stack the numbers up against all the others throughout history that died for the sake of their loved ones, for their freedom, for justice, for living gods, for political or nationalistic allegiances, for lifestyle beliefs, or any other ideologies or faith systems, and that is not to mention all the other religions including those that recognize no deity. Christians can also be cowards and unprincipled the same as those from other belief systems. And in any case people dying or killing themselves for their beliefs isn’t evidence that their beliefs are true; it only demonstrates a commitment to the belief. The argument from martyrdom is Greenleaf’s least compelling thesis.

 

[cottage]

The Gospels are record of oral testimony in the exact same way depositions are. Legally the probability of reliability of testimony is the issue never it's certainty. The Gospels pass all tests for reliability but none exist for certainty in any court room or history book. I have covered the copies reliability so will not revisit that issue.

But they do not prove the existence of supernatural beings or supernatural events. I’m sure that even today there are untold numbers of believers who would swear upon oath that they had seen/spoken to God. If these persons came to court and made their submissions in person do you really and honestly think any Western court would find in their favour and announce to the world ‘Halleluiah, a supernatural being exists!’? And Greenleaf is inconsistent on the question of certainty for he makes this absolute assertion, quoting Paley:

“the death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection are true and incapable of refutation”. But then much of his piece alludes to possibility, not probability, such as when he indulges in speculative metaphysics, which is to disregard his own rules of evidence.

On a point of law Greenleaf informs us:

“A proposition is proved when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence”

And in the next paragraph he says this: “Now as the facts, stated in Scripture history [not being demonstrable] may be proved [by sense experience] when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence….would in the affairs of human life, satisfy the mind and conscience of the common man.”

In that case, Doctor Greenleaf, do the affairs of human life correspond with dead men leaving their graves and thus satisfy a common man’s mind and conscience in that respect? No, Sir, they do not!

 

[cottage]

The Gospels are record of oral testimony in the exact same way depositions are. Legally the probability of reliability of testimony is the issue never it's certainty. The Gospels pass all tests for reliability but none exist for certainty in any court room or history book. I have covered the copies reliability so will not revisit that issue.

But they do not prove the existence of supernatural beings or supernatural events. I’m sure that even today there are untold numbers of believers who would swear upon oath that they had seen/spoken to God. If these persons came to court and made their submissions in person do you really and honestly think any Western court would find in their favour and announce to the world ‘Halleluiah, a supernatural being exists!’? And Greenleaf is inconsistent on the question of certainty for he makes this absolute assertion, quoting Paley: “the death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection are true and incapable of refutation”. But then much of his piece alludes to possibility, not probability, such as when he indulges in speculative metaphysics, which is to disregard his own rules of evidence.

On a point of law Greenleaf informs us:

“A proposition is proved when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence”

And in the next paragraph he says this: “Now as the facts, stated in Scripture history [not being demonstrable] may be proved [by sense experience] when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence….would in the affairs of human life, satisfy the mind and conscience of the common man.”

In that case, Doctor Greenleaf, do the affairs of human life correspond with dead men leaving their graves and thus satisfy a common man’s mind and conscience in that respect? No, Sir, they do not!

 

[cottage]

I have covered textual accuracy previously and will await a response before adding to it. Unnatural occurrences can have natural verification. You have said you do not disagree that they sincerely record what they believed as fact. I have stated why what we have is an accurate account of what was recorded. If The apostles saw Christ die, saw him sealed in a tomb, and later walked and talked with him in what way is the unnatural source of these events involved in determining if they occurred? What probability and standard do you assign things that have no natural explanation? They had perfect access to these facts, you admit they were sincere, I showed we know what they recorded. On what basis is it denied. There are many claims that had no natural proof available to the authors but even if you removed it all (plus what might have had natural explanations) there is still far more than enough to justify faith in Christianity's core claims. If you admit they were honest you are on the hook for many things they claimed. If we are not conversant with them in a reliable way you still have not demonstrated why?

I said that that they incorporated what they believed to be the truth, against Greenleaf’s Strawman ploy of batting away their being complicit in deceit. You ask ‘In what way is the unnatural source of these events involved in determining if they occurred?’ Well, that’s a question I’ve already answered in my critique applying Greenleaf’s own words: “by satisfactory evidence, is meant that amount of proof, which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind, beyond any reasonable doubt” And it is not satisfactory evidence, beyond all reasonable doubt, which ordinarily satisfies an “unprejudiced mind” that all men must suffer death and that flesh is irreversibly destroyed? If Greenleaf is asking us to consider his argument on the balance of probabilities, as he insists, then he must accept that the weight of evidence against him in this matter is overwhelming and incontrovertible. But if he doesn’t accept that evidence then he is simply making a special plea from his belief as faith.
To which Greenleaf complains thus:

“But the Christian writer seems, by the usual course of the argument, to have been deprived of the common presumption of charity in his favor; and reversing the ordinary rule of administering justice in human tribunals, his testimony is unjustly presumed to be false, until it is proved to be true.”

Yes indeed, and that’s because it is an extraordinary claim, “extraordinary” being an understatement in this particular case. Municipal Law deals with matters of fact; that so-and-so said such-and-such are the facts to be considered in what Greenleaf himself describes as ‘human tribunals’, but it remains the case that Municipal Law cannot prove what Greenleaf is asking us to accept, which is that Christ rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. He can only insist that we accept that the Evangelists believed what they say they saw or heard.

Greenleaf makes comments in three contexts. Strictly legal, as statements about what part of the premise is not strictly legal and covered by other sources (an exhaustive discussion of everything that pertains to the reliability is not the scope of his paper but mentioned for context and reference),and as a sort of side note that his faith makes impossible to not include. I think you are judging comments made in one context by the standards required by another. Not every sentence is a legal dissertation but many times an adjunct commentary.

Greenleaf has presented an academic paper and everything he’s written is part of that work. You cannot expect to isolate particular passages because they’re found contradictory or inconvenient to the defence. And even if we were to allow such a biased adjunct commentary by what right does he so loftily pronounce on matters as if they were settled while refusing to countenance any discussion or objections? If Greenleaf introduces an argument then he must be prepared to defend it. So I’m sorry but that is a very poor excuse indeed.

And there is this: ‘The importance of the facts testified, and their relations to the affairs of the soul, and the life to come, can make no difference in the principles or the mode of weighing the evidence‘

So why mention them, Dr Greenleaf? And notice how he speaks of ‘the life to come’ as if it were a fact. It seems he cannot confine himself to examining the evidence without veering off to promote elements of the Christian doctrine that have no direct bearing on the matters at hand.

As I have stated if the Bible is stripped of everything that is not a matter of it's authors competent experience there is still more than enough left for complete reliability of core claims. Christ's trial and execution is an experiential claim not a doctrine. Same with his appearances, miracles of most types, his parables, his teachings. I will not that as I said in another posts you are requiring that the Bible abide by the most exacting standards you can possibly posit yet when it came to science any thing would do, even things that defy every known occurrences ever observed. These inconsistent standards always baffle me.

There is no ‘complete reliability in the case of miracles and the Resurrection is nothing if not a core claim in Christianity. And the ‘exacting standards’ that life imposes upon us is that all men must die and do not return from the grave. Dead bodies coming to life again has never been observed. The dead remain dead with no known exceptions to the contrary.
Btw, scientific truths can never be more than highly probable and may be amended or overturned and are always open to being challenged. We should compare that with the doctrinal beliefs of religious faith that allow nothing to count against them!

That is a side note about what is not part of his intentions or purpose. How can anything excluded from something be wrong or relevant even if wrong. He said I am not discussing X on the basis of Y. You say he can't assume X because of Y.

If I said I am not discussing Bigfoot on the basis of testimony, why are you saying claims about the testimony concerning Bigfoot are invalid?

But he is claiming a miracle! That is precisely what resurrection entails, and it is the fundamental premise of his argument and defence thereof. Once again he makes a bold assertion airily dismissing any objections before they can be made.

It is fallacious to consider as reliable that if source X exists then it may very well be capable of things we do not yet know of, especially if X is a potentially OMNI-being. Science does this every single day and even assume X's can do Y's without the slightest evidence X's exist or Y's are even possible.

The conditional if- then premise you allude to is really saying nothing at all other than ‘If there is a God, then he exists’! But may I remind you again that the assumptions and hypotheses formed in science concern the empirical world and are subject to being proved true or false, and even if proved true may still be proved false or erroneous in the future.

However his claims are reliable extrapolations from experience. The same is done in every field there is (including law) every day

Continued:

False comparison! Those everyday extrapolated claims from facts ‘in every field (including law)’ lead to other facts that occur in possible experience. They do not pronounce on the supernatural or a transcendent reality as with beliefs from faith or speculative metaphysics.

 

[cottage]

We can say every know effect has a cause without any known exceptions and there exists no better foundation for extrapolating that that. He says we can't make extrapolations separated from experience. He did not and it is not logical to claim we can't make extrapolations beyond experienced based on experience. I have never been hit by a car but extrapolating from experience I do not want to be. Nuclear war has never killed all of the life on Earth but extrapolation from experience It is almost certain it could and might. Why deny that which is perfectly appropriate but then extrapolate life came from non-life, multiverses exist, and cause and effect do not exist, and nothing has creative potential, which defies every experience ever known? Inconsistency on steroids. God is not dependent on any feature of any world. Why did you claim that?

We can certainly speculate about what might lie beyond experience, indeed I have done so myself, but in doing so where do we arrive courtesy those extrapolations? The answer is that we remain most assuredly where we began, still in the experiential world. Whatever we imagine to exist as a transcendent reality, God for example, is simply taken from the sum of our experiences and then augmented without limit.
To pose the objection ‘life coming from ‘non-life’ is merely an exercise in question-begging, and multiverses are in the same arena as speculative metaphysics - as far as I’m concerned. And nobody has said cause and effect does not exist!
Causality cannot be demonstrated logically, that is to say necessarily, and one doesn’t need to be a logician to understand that cause cannot be both contingent and necessary; and, as a putative Creator, God is dependent upon the principle of causality, where an effect is answerable to its cause and thus he is dependent upon a feature of the contingent world. It is logically possible for every speck of matter and every so-called law to disappear tomorrow and God would not be in the least affected – with the sole exception of causality - which would result his non-being, and thus render ‘God’ an impossible concept.

I think that is what I said above. Those who posit things that defy all experience should not object when we infer from experience.

Nobody is ‘defying all experience’, not Hume, not me. The empiricist’s position is that there is only experience from which we can learn and form our judgements. But Greenleaf wants to infer the existence of other worlds, supposing from experience that what is the case in this, the actual world, is true of other worlds as in the principle of causality. And given the essence of his assertions in this particular it is not difficult to see why his argument is impoverished and empty. For while we can all speculate about other worlds and the supernatural there is no ‘knowledge’, as Greenleaf claims, that can be derived from speculative reasoning. And if you think otherwise then kindly answer me this: what truths and knowledge of the world are derived from, or given by, God and what knowledge can we have of God over and above that which is already available to us in the basic concept? But other questions also need to be asked: Why is Greenleaf making so much of a metaphysical argument if it is only what you’ve described as a ‘side issue’? And in what way do the rules of evidence incorporate or permit speculation on the ‘rational existence and character of God’ as he says towards the end of his submission?

If the Apostles witnessed Christ die, then alive again, they recorded it accurately, we have reliable copies, and I read them. In what way is my faith that the dead may live again a claim beyond experience? I'm what way is a denial of cause and effect consistent with experience? Who's claim is made by a mind more free of presumptions? I think you confused comments made in one context with his legal reasons in another. However good job and I hope we can resolve some of these points in detail. When this much volume is involved it is hard for me to provide the quality I wish.

There is no evidence whatsoever that bodies dead for several days return to life. That is a fact with no known exceptions.

I am not denying the principle of cause and effect; that I think is simply your misunderstanding of what I’ve been saying. Causation belongs to this the actual world and there is not a shred of evidence to suggest the existence of a supernatural world, never mind one with the attributes of Supreme Being that absurdly depends upon our-worldly features.

And actually I have not confused Greenleaf’s comments. It is clear to anyone who reads him that he was simply unable to keep his private beliefs distinct from his professional life, and in this his lack of care has been detrimental to the argument. The unfortunate result was that points of law and the overall argument were seriously undermined by his faith, which is very ironic given the object of the paper.

 

[metis]

These are pretty reliable determinations. You ask a question about a concept which has no application to that concept possible. You probably do not understand the concept. I say you do not understand the concept and you make it a point to claim that no one should ever say you do not know anything. If a person appears offended by something as inoffensive and universally true as saying they do not know everything, then they are probably insecure. Pretty straightforward and reasonable.

Somehow you've got this attitude that insulting and demeaning others seemingly reflects your faith, but I have to wonder what kind of faith that really is?

Micah 6[8]: He has showed you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

 

[Thief]

Probably a vestige of our (broken) classical physics.

Last I heard....the starting 'point' of all things.

If you can believe that all of the universe (the one word) can have a singular starting 'point'....
Then all that is left is to decide of that 'point' was made of substance...
or Spirit.

If you say substance...than all that we are is a complex accident.
And there can be no resolve for the presence of Man....at all.

If you say Spirit.....then maybe we can 'Continue'.