INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[Ouroboros]

...and he said that was normal. What?

That's crazy! Bad quality standards sucks. Sorry to hear. Hope you get things fixed.

 

[Gui10]

faith is intellectually valid and has much evidence

Absurd.

What does "intellectually valid" mean?

I reject automatic bias but do concede scholar wars are problematic

Glad we can agree on something.

 

[1robin]

I don't reject a finite universe. And even it was the case, it doesn't mean I have to accept Steady State model or the Multiverse model(s).

The Steady State model has been refuted as early as the mid-60s with the discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR), so I don't know why you even bother bringing up the Steady State theory.

Multiverse theory/theories are nothing more than hypotheses - all of which, are unverified conjectures - hence not really a theory. At best, the Multiverse models fall under the realm of theoretical physics, but at worse, some of these models are nothing more than science fiction. Again, I don't know why you would bring this up.

As to the oscillating universe or cyclic theory, nicknamed as the Big Bounce, is nothing more than theoretical model, also unverified (no evidences).

Although I like to keep an open mind, I'll only accept theory that are supported by evidences, and it is more than theoretical model. (Theoretical physics are fields that largely only based on mathematical models, not on evidences.)

Currently, astronomers & astrophysicists only have the technology to see 13.7 billion light year of the finite universe from now. They can't see beyond that horizon, so astrophysicists can only speculate or formulate hypotheses, but they don't know.

I can agree with pretty much everything here. Those models (have no evidence nor even the potential for any) are what is used to dismiss inconvenient God indicating reality as we know it. I thought that was what you wre doing. If not then just ignore my comments.

 

[1robin]

Absurd.

What does "intellectually valid" mean?

I love a good counter argument and I never balk about a counter position no matter how silly. The one thing I resent is the insinuation that faith is only possible given ignorance. Arrogance is the quality that is the hardest to see in ourselves and the easiest to see in others. I would add that it is also the easiest to see in an atheist’s argumentation. To say faith is an unreasonable conclusion and hint that it is the domain of ignorance is its self-ignorant. For that to be true you would have to say a large portion of history’s greatest intellects and scholars were brilliant in deductive reasoning but idiots when it came to belief in God. A very large proportion of the founders of the actual fields of science were believers. Not just scholars, not just brilliant scholars, but the most brilliant scholars in the history of man in evidence, testimony, history, math, science, philosophy, logic, and archeology have been believers. I will provide a few but the list is endless.

J. N. D. Anderson as "...a scholar of international repute and one eminently qualified to deal with the subject of evidence. He is one of the world's leading authorities on Islamic law...He is dean of the faculty of law in the University of London, chairman of the department of Oriental law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London." This outstanding British scholar who is today influential in the field of international jurisprudence says: "The evidence for the historical basis of the Christian faith, for the essential validity of the New Testament witness to the person and teaching of Christ Himself, for the fact and significance of His atoning death, and for the historicity of the empty tomb and the apostolic testimony to the resurrection, is such as to provide an adequate foundation for the venture of faith."

At random:

Michael Green says that "...two able young men, Gilbert West and Lord Lyttleton, went up to Oxford. They were friends of Dr. Johnson and Alexander Pope, in the swim of society. They were determined to attack the very basis of the Christian faith. So Littleton settled down to prove that Saul of Tarsus was never converted to Christianity, and West to demonstrate that Jesus never rose from the tomb. "Some time later, they met to discuss their findings. Both were a little sheepish. For they had come independently to similar and disturbing conclusions. Littleton found, on examination, that Saul of Tarsus did become a radically new man through his conversion to Christianity; and West found that the evidence pointed unmistakable to the fact that Jesus did rise from the dead. You may still find his book in a large library. It is entitled Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and was published in 1747. On the fly-leaf he has had printed his telling quotation from Ecclesiasticus 11:7, which might be adopted with profit by any modern agnostic: 'Blame not before thou hast examined the truth.' "

"The evidence points unmistakably to the fact that on the third day Jesus rose. This was the conclusion to which a former Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, came. At a private dinner party the talk turned to the truth of Christianity, and particularly to a certain book dealing with the resurrection. Placing his fingertips together, assuming a judicial attitude, and speaking with a quiet emphasis that was extraordinarily impressive, he said, 'We, say Christians, are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the teachings, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all on trust, I, for one, should be skeptical. The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or was not, what He proclaimed Himself to be, just surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favor as living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.' "

Add in the greatest experts on testimony and evidence in human history (Simon Green Leaf, and Lord Lyndhurst) plus:
Leonardo da Vinci
Nicholas Copernicus
Sir Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
Rene Descartes
Blaise Pascal
Robert Boyle
Sir Isaac Newton
Gottfried Leibniz
Adam Smith
Antoine Lavoisier
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Michael Faraday
Sir George Stokes
Gregor Mendel
Louis Pasteur
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin
Thomas Edison
Alexander Graham Bell
Nicola Tesla
Max Planck
Wright Brothers
Guglielmo Marconi
Niels Bohr
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Michael Polanyi
C.S. Lewis
Johannes Gutenberg
Enrico Fermi
Allan Sandage
The 50 Most Influential Christians of All Time
Even from this very incomplete list it can easily be seen that faith is intellectually justified and claims that it is not are themselves not justified.

 

[McBell]

I love a good counter argument and I never balk about a counter position no matter how silly. The one thing I resent is the insinuation that faith is only possible given ignorance. Arrogance is the quality that is the hardest to see in ourselves and the easiest to see in others. I would add that it is also the easiest to see in an atheist’s argumentation. To say faith is an unreasonable conclusion and hint that it is the domain of ignorance is its self-ignorant. For that to be true you would have to say a large portion of history’s greatest intellects and scholars were brilliant in deductive reasoning but idiots when it came to belief in God. A very large proportion of the founders of the actual fields of science were believers. Not just scholars, not just brilliant scholars, but the most brilliant scholars in the history of man in evidence, testimony, history, math, science, philosophy, logic, and archeology have been believers. I will provide a few but the list is endless.

J. N. D. Anderson as "...a scholar of international repute and one eminently qualified to deal with the subject of evidence. He is one of the world's leading authorities on Islamic law...He is dean of the faculty of law in the University of London, chairman of the department of Oriental law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London." This outstanding British scholar who is today influential in the field of international jurisprudence says: "The evidence for the historical basis of the Christian faith, for the essential validity of the New Testament witness to the person and teaching of Christ Himself, for the fact and significance of His atoning death, and for the historicity of the empty tomb and the apostolic testimony to the resurrection, is such as to provide an adequate foundation for the venture of faith."

At random:

Michael Green says that "...two able young men, Gilbert West and Lord Lyttleton, went up to Oxford. They were friends of Dr. Johnson and Alexander Pope, in the swim of society. They were determined to attack the very basis of the Christian faith. So Littleton settled down to prove that Saul of Tarsus was never converted to Christianity, and West to demonstrate that Jesus never rose from the tomb. "Some time later, they met to discuss their findings. Both were a little sheepish. For they had come independently to similar and disturbing conclusions. Littleton found, on examination, that Saul of Tarsus did become a radically new man through his conversion to Christianity; and West found that the evidence pointed unmistakable to the fact that Jesus did rise from the dead. You may still find his book in a large library. It is entitled Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and was published in 1747. On the fly-leaf he has had printed his telling quotation from Ecclesiasticus 11:7, which might be adopted with profit by any modern agnostic: 'Blame not before thou hast examined the truth.' "

"The evidence points unmistakably to the fact that on the third day Jesus rose. This was the conclusion to which a former Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, came. At a private dinner party the talk turned to the truth of Christianity, and particularly to a certain book dealing with the resurrection. Placing his fingertips together, assuming a judicial attitude, and speaking with a quiet emphasis that was extraordinarily impressive, he said, 'We, say Christians, are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the teachings, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all on trust, I, for one, should be skeptical. The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or was not, what He proclaimed Himself to be, just surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favor as living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.' "

Add in the greatest experts on testimony and evidence in human history (Simon Green Leaf, and Lord Lyndhurst) plus:
Leonardo da Vinci
Nicholas Copernicus
Sir Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
Rene Descartes
Blaise Pascal
Robert Boyle
Sir Isaac Newton
Gottfried Leibniz
Adam Smith
Antoine Lavoisier
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Michael Faraday
Sir George Stokes
Gregor Mendel
Louis Pasteur
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin
Thomas Edison
Alexander Graham Bell
Nicola Tesla
Max Planck
Wright Brothers
Guglielmo Marconi
Niels Bohr
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Michael Polanyi
C.S. Lewis
Johannes Gutenberg
Enrico Fermi
Allan Sandage
The 50 Most Influential Christians of All Time
Even from this very incomplete list it can easily be seen that faith is intellectually justified and claims that it is not are themselves not justified.

the problem here is your whole arguments is nothing more than an appeal to authority...

 

[Kilgore Trout]

the problem here is your whole arguments is nothing more than an appeal to authority...

No, the problem is that he doesn't understand what that means, or why it's a problem.

 

[McBell]

No, the problem is that he doesn't understand what that means, or why it's a problem.

And it technically isn't 100% true, but we gotta start with baby steps right?

to be more accurate the argument is an appeal to numbers of the appeal to authority.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

And it technically isn't 100% true, but we gotta start with baby steps right?

to be more accurate the argument is an appeal to numbers of the appeal to authority.

Yeah, I suppose it's unproductive to castigate someone for failing their calculus test when they haven't yet learned basic arithmetic.

 

[1robin]

the problem here is your whole arguments is nothing more than an appeal to authority...

You are both wrong in a big way and are as usual not adding anything to the debate worthy enough to justify the effort. I did not say that because smart men believed, that proved God exists. That would be a fallacy. I said the venture of faith has sufficient evidence to make the adoption of it intellectually reasonable which is no fallacy and numbers had nothing to do with it. I think I am beginning to understand why the twin hooded folks who never put more than a few meaningless sentences together at one time only make sarcastic commentary. Philosophical law, logic, history, theology, and science sure are not your forte. Pointless commentary is all you got.

 

[1robin]

Yeah, I suppose it's unproductive to castigate someone for failing their calculus test when they haven't yet learned basic arithmetic.

Wrong again. You must be doing it on purpose to have become this skilled at it. I have a Math degree and over 190 sem hours in it, science, and history.

 

[McBell]

You are both wrong in a big way and are as usual not adding anything to the debate worthy enough to justify the effort. I did not say that because smart men believed, that proved God exists. That would be a fallacy. I said the venture of faith has sufficient evidence to make the adoption of it intellectually reasonable which is no fallacy and numbers had nothing to do with it. I think I am beginning to understand why the twin hooded folks who never put more than a few meaningless sentences together at one time only make sarcastic commentary. Philosophical law, logic, history, theology, and science sure are not your forte. Pointless commentary is all you got.

Your argument can be summed up as "this long list of famous theists believe in god, there for belief in god is "intellectually valid"...

You take really simple concepts, butter them up with a ton of puffery, then try to pass it all off as some higher intellectual discussion point.

My most sincere apologies for not helping you masturbate your ego.

 

[McBell]

Wrong again. You must be doing it on purpose to have become this skilled at it. I have a Math degree and over 190 sem hours in it, science, and history.

Is this an admittance of dishonesty on your part?

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

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.

Wow! That's about as lazy and thoughtless a line of evidence as I can concieve.

"I have no idea how the universe started! It must have started by some cause. I can't explain it with science, and it's impossible that someone will ever explain it with science. So I'll call it God. Therefore God exists???"

I know there are other names for this line of reasoning. But I like to call it the argument from one's own sense of insurmountable ignorance. "Not only am I ignorant today, but all humanity shall forever so remain. Yet while humanity is incapable of ever explaining, there must be some explanation. Whatever that unexplainable explanation is, I'll call it god. Therefore god must exist"

My refutation; I have no idea how the universe started. It must have started by some cause. I’ll never be able to explain it. I don’t know if anyone will ever be able to explain it. But there must be some explanation. Whatever that unexplainable explanation is, I’ll call it the unknown. Therefore there exist things and phenomena that I simply do not understand, and perhaps no one ever will.

Putting a name or label on a mystery does not impart wisdom, evidently.

I don't think you have any idea what the word irrefutable means!

 

[1robin]

Is this an admittance of dishonesty on your part?

That does not even make any sense. Nor does my expecting it to.

 

[Ouroboros]

Your argument can be summed up as "this long list of famous theists believe in god, there for belief in god is "intellectually valid"...

Also, everyone has intellectual blindspots. Just because someone is extremely smart and talented in calculus doesn't mean he/she has the skills to deduce the logical reasoning behind faith, etc. Just like Dawkins is accused of being a smart biologist but stupid theologian, we can't trust any other smart source for being the final arbiter of truth regarding faith, or even cooking, or gardening, or pencil drawing, or ... It's easy for some people to think like this: "Einstein was very intelligent, so therefore what he says about playing clarinet must be true!"

 

[1robin]

Your argument can be summed up as "this long list of famous theists believe in god, there for belief in god is "intellectually valid"...

Intellectually reasonable and logically permitted is more accurate and is a very common concept in theological, philosophical, and historical study. I would say science but science will not even adhere to the scientific method so there is little hope.

You take really simple concepts, butter them up with a ton of puffery, then try to pass it all off as some higher intellectual discussion point.

I wish that your input would even rise to the level of this false assertion.

My most sincere apologies for not helping you masturbate your ego.

What the heck was this? I have criticized your habit of barely managing to form a single sentence in most posts but if this is the alternative I think I prefer the former. This is going from sarcasm to insanity at a rate that will merit being ignored on my part soon unless you can pick up the level of your argumentation, as usual

 

[McBell]

That does not even make any sense. Nor does my expecting it to.

Like I said before, you make it easy.

in fact, it is getting to the point of you being a fish in a barrel, no challenge at all.

 

[1robin]

Also, everyone has intellectual blindspots. Just because someone is extremely smart and talented in calculus doesn't mean he/she has the skills to deduce the logical reasoning behind faith, etc. Just like Dawkins is accused of being a smart biologist but stupid theologian, we can't trust any other smart source for being the final arbiter of truth regarding faith, or even cooking, or gardening, or pencil drawing, or ... It's easy for some people to think like this: "Einstein was very intelligent, so therefore what he says about playing clarinet must be true!"

This is true but the numbers in this case rule out an individual blind spot for a few normally deductive people. These are history's most rigorus and brilliant deductivists and there are thousands of them in many fields. BTW I did not claim it true because of them, simply a reasonable belief and no the numbers above are not a fallacy in this case. You did not make a fallacy claim but they are the most abused concept in these dicussions and little understood apparently.

 

[FunctionalAtheist]

Yes but the first thing was caused by something. Whatever that thing is, it transcends (not in religious context) the natural laws of the universe. That thing is called God. It could be a random event, and the cause of that random event is God. Not saying God is anything more than the cause of the first thing. I'm completely fine with people believing anything they want, and i believe in science but science will never be able to prove that the universe was created through science because the first thing created will never have a creator that obeys the laws of the universe and science. (btw by science I mean the laws of the universe etc.)

You do not understand the words "natural laws." These are not like social and cultural laws that DICTATE behavior. Natural laws DESCRIBE behavior. They don't tell the universe how to act, they tell us how the universe acts. Laws of nature are nothing more than our collective and concesus understanding of fundamentals of physics.

According to you, we should call black holes GOD? Hint: Black holes do not behave according to the so called laws of nature. In words you chose, they transcend the natural laws, therefore we call them god.

The physical interactions at the qunatum level transcended the laws of nature, until we understood them, and changed the 'inviolate laws of nature.' Notice, the laws of nature change when our understanding changes. HINT: the laws of nature weren't being broken by quantum interactions. We didn't have the understanding to properly and accuratly DESCRIBE the behavior at the quantum level.

 

[McBell]

I wish that your input would even rise to the level of this false assertion.

More pigeon chess?
You have mastered the game well, grasshopper.