INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[Enai de a lukal]

Indeed. Hence the saying "all smoke and no fire".

 

[Ouroboros]

Indeed. Hence the saying "all smoke and no fire".

And over halloween I used a couple of smoke machines. Not true smoke since it's more of a steam-mix whatever, but it's "smoke" comes from small particles just like a regular fire based smoke.

No smoke without a smoke machine.

 

[SkepticThinker]

No, life coming only from life is consistent with every known observation ever performed. Why is what is consistent with every observation question begging but what is inconsistent with every observation perfectly valid and claimed as fact at times. Double standards do not come any more flagrant. Causality is demonstrated in every effect ever observed. God is not dependent on causality. It may be said the perception of him is based on it but not his existence. Nothing caused God. The last piece of "logic" above escapes me.

No it isn't. And you know this.

Oh, and just saying "god is not dependent on causality" doesn't make it so.

 

[1robin]

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No it isn't. And you know this.

What? Please provide a single observation of life arising from non-life. Every observation ever made is consistent with life only coming from life.

Oh, and just saying "god is not dependent on causality" doesn't make it so.

It most certainly does so by every known applicable rule, logical deduction, and law we know of. It is true of he Biblical concept of God even if he did not exist. The God I defend has no cause associated with his existence. If we discuss a God in need of a cause, it is not the Biblical concept of God. It is no even the philosophical concept of God. A God concept that necessitates a cause is not God. God has been known as a non-contingent being for 5000 years.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

We have no observations of the emergence of life whatsoever. Derp.

 

[1robin]

In other words, "supernatural truth" is synonymous with "fiction", "fancy", "fairy-tale", "imaginary", and so on.

What words are you getting this from? Did you ask me something about mind and matter a while back? I now have some very good evidence mind is not dependent on matter, yet matter is dependent on mind. It is from the deep end of quantum physics but very interesting if you are interested.

 

[McBell]

What? Please provide a single observation of life arising from non-life.

please present a single observation of your god going something.
Anything.

 

[1robin]

Vilenkin’s cosmogony argues to a personal God and the site concluded its argument by quoting Craig, but I have not had a proper response to the objections I made concerning this.

Can you indicate where those arguments were?

If I may…
…you cannot infer more qualities or power in a cause than is necessary for the effect. Object A strikes object B and moves it distance G. From that observation just how do you presume to infer in A the potential for H, I, J or Z? We cannot infer from G that the cause A is greater or can exceed B, but only that the power of A was exactly sufficient to move B and achieve G.

I am inferring that what caused the universe is greater than what is in it. I am inferring they necessity for something beyond nature. I am inferring characteristics of the cause that only God is a candidate for. I have nature and the transcendent. Nature is not possible. That leaves only one possibility known.

And you are still, for some reason, and after I don’t know how many posts, repeating that same non-sense about “nature can’t be the cause of itself”. Of course it can’t!

It is not nonsense because you claim so. It is an inescapable logical deduction so profound the argument has existed undefeated for 3000 years. It is absolutely impossible for nature to have created its self. That is a logically absurd position. Your confusing objections to it with reliable arguments that over turn it.

I’m not questioning whether perception can deceive us, as we can all think of numerous examples where it appears to do exactly that; I’m questioning whether “truth” can be known independent of what we experience, such as the dead living again when our every experience is that they do not; and likewise what are these “moral truths” you speak of, and how are they true independent of experience?

It might be impossible to know. It is not impossible there exists enough evidence to justify faith and that is theologies burden, not proof. I'm not sure why your asking about morality apart from experience. We experience or apprehend a moral realm, it is a universally derived concept. I have a very interesting story about moral criteria beyond our selves if you want it.

Carbon objects can be seen, heard, touched, tasted and smelt. Not even theists disbelieve there is carbon matter; but God can only be imagined, and even then the concept must be compunded from experience.

I reject the idea that only what is certain justifies belief. We all believe mountains of things we do know know are true. You seem to be assigning a burden of proof to faith again. Every legal verdict was rendered without absolute certainty.

What do you mean by “any other type of reality?” By the very definition of the term there is only reality, the one and only reality that we all share.

That is why I said a type of reality. The supernatural exists as a type of reality not regulated by natural law.

And please provide examples of a “supernatural truth”?

Morality, miracles, and creation.

If it is improbable in experience that no natural means could change water into wine, which we all agree that it is, then that same improbability applies to the same event reported to be experienced. Probability in the sense we’re discussing here* concerns what is more likely than not in possible experience or as A J Ayer writes in Language, Truth and Logic: “An observation increases our confidence in the proposition, as measured by our willingness to rely on it in practice as a forecast of our sensations, and to retain it in preference to other hypotheses in the face of an unfavorable experience.”

That is not accurate. A suspension of natural law has no theoretical probability. It either occurred or did not. There are millions of claims to personally experiencing it, I claim several myself. On what basis would that not justify faith? A cause independent of nature is not bound by probabilities associated with the natural. If I claimed to be looking at an angel right now, how in the world can you assign a probability to my claim. If you can then please post the criteria used. I of course do not see an angel and never have but have past supernatural claims to experience.

*Ayer adds a footnote to say: “This definition does not, of course apply to the mathematical usage of the term ‘probability’.[

I have been distracted lately and cannot recall the context of this quote. Sorry.

I recently discovered some very interesting information from heavy hitting quantum theorists that demonstrate mind is independent of matter in a sense if you would like it.

 

[cottage]

Vilenkin does not argue to a theistic conclusion.

Yes, but you are, and so is the person who posted the article (Vjtorley).

He argues to a natural finite without natural cause or explanation. He additionally argues for the impossibility of the major infinite universe and multiverse concepts. I do not think he is a theist and as a cosmologist does not speculate on God. Now the site may have done so, and Craig is often used because he is brilliant and a theist. That site also contained posts by the hundreds that hashed out all aspects of the article. I apologize that I just can't get to and respond to all your claims. I am one of the few orthodox Christians on the site and so am the target for most of the atheists and hard agnostics. I just can't get to everything. Can you give me your post # or research that sites posts for the response. [/font][/color][

Remember you have been arguing to an intelligent, personal being that created the universe, a theistic concept that is nowhere mentioned in Vilenkin’s explanation. He argues only to a universe that began, and with not the least mention of a deity or a supernatural creator. The world may well be finite, or not, but in any case your argument, and Craig’s, goes well beyond Vilenkin’s scientific conclusion and therefore my objections to Craig stand unanswered and deserve a response. Please will you read again the link you gave me and then look at my post 2656.

You can for faith claims but I am not really doing so directly. What we know of think we know is that the cause of the universe must be more powerful that all the combined energy in it which is unimaginably powerful (even the singularity is given as almost infinite in power by secular scientists),

It must be unimaginably intelligent, it must be non-material, it must be outside of time and space. Now that resembles the God of the Bible far more than any natural entity, especially since the cause created nature and was not natural. There might be a semantic technicality in there somewhere but nothing I said is unreasonable. I am not making proof claim, only best fit claims.

You said: “A cause must always be greater than the effect. Sufficient causation requires that cause to have certain aspects. The creator of time cannot be in time, the creator of matter can be composed of matter, etc...”
The emboldened sentence is utterly false. The second sentence cannot imply “certain aspects” beyond what is sufficient or equal to the task. And the third sentence is a perfect example of question begging, where you presume to begin with the answer held in advance. For you are supposing a deity and then misusing the principle to fit with what you prefer to believe! But it remains the case that you cannot infer more power or quality in cause A than is sufficient for its effect B.

No God can be experienced in the exact same way as love, pleasure, beauty, etc.... Why is only God eliminated from the extremely long list of non-empirical experiences?

Because they are empirical! They occur in experience! All the emotions mentioned apply to physical objects (including humans); we can all describe them and relate to them, whether theist or atheist. And none of those emotions are exclusive to dogmatic beliefs that hold to the truth of a particular doctrine explained in terms of the supernatural.

The cause of nature. Morality, Being born again. Miracles.

I said: "And please provide examples of a “supernatural truth”? "

So please explain for us how morality, being born again, and miracles are "truths"?

It is not improbable in experience. It is less frequent. Quantum physics had no known examples a hundred years or so ago. Yet it is as real as Newtonian physics. The frequency of perception is not

a limitation. You are also talking about frequency of natural occurrences. Miracles are not natural occurrences. Confidence is subjective and not exactly a science. Their have been an inexhaustible list of betrayals of confidence. This event is decided by strength of testimony alone. It is strong in the opinions of those most capable of judging as we have been debating. Confidence is not directly relatable to frequency in many cases and not related to truth in many cases. Confidence many times is based on more preference than anything else. Cognitive dissonance is one powerful force. I have read studies that indicated that a person who is actually wrong is less willing to admit it based on the amount of evidence supplied. That is a minority of cases but so frequent as to be indicative.

Special pleading! I’m seeing quite a lot of confusion in that, especially in the way you muddle together possibility and psychology and treat it as probability. The perfect example, and specific to your faith, is the statement that it is more probable that he dead will remain dead than they will return to life after four days. For it is not more probable that a deceased person will live again after four days notwithstanding an ancient document that makes assertions to the contrary. It is very arguable whether it is even possible! What are the odds of such an event occurring, 0% to 100%, to use the classic definition?

 

[cottage]

Cottage: "And you are still, for some reason, and after I don’t know how many posts, repeating that same non-sense about “nature can’t be the cause of itself”. Of course it can’t! "

I will stop repeating it when it is granted in responses. If you agree with the above the only other issue is whether nature is finite or infinite. All evidence suggests it is finite. Given those two I am so near a proof for a God that I could rest my case. However I can never get those two things conceded at the same time. So I must relentlessly state them over and over.

Then that can only be because you do not understand the argument that is being made. Please explain why you are repeating it to me when I have never, ever made such a preposterous and logically absurd assertion? To say the world is its own explanation is not to say it is its own cause.

David Hume had this to say on the matter:

“…to say anything is produced or comes into existence without a cause is not to affirm that ‘tis itself it’s own cause; but on the contrary in excluding all external causes, excludes a fortiori the thing itself which is created. “An object that exists absolutely without a cause, certainly is not it’s own cause; and when you assert, that the one follows from the other, you suppose the very point in question, and take it for granted, that ‘tis utterly impossible any thing can begin to exist without a cause, but that upon the exclusion of one productive principal we must still have recourse to another.”

And Hume also addresses the question of nothing as a cause:

“’Tis sufficient only to observe that when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence; and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that conclusion.”

The same answer applies to the more specific question ‘So what caused the series of causes and their effects that we observe everyday.’ To expand somewhat on Hume’s comments, if there was once nothing at all then there would have been no contingent laws such as causation, and no logically necessary truths or mind dependent principles of thought. And thus with no demonstrable law of causation no argument can be made to the notion of a thing being the cause of itself (which in any case is absurd) since the very concept of causation is rejected; and the objection that a thing cannot come from nothing is also made irrelevant as the entire causal principle is without meaning in prior nothingness. And if we reject the idea of a prior nothingness and propose a pre-existing cause for the world then the Aristotelian rules of thought apply to that cause just as they apply to the world; and that, too, leads to an absurdity since not only will the First Cause will be contingent upon a features of the world, such as causation, but also logical laws (such as non-contradiction) that enable their denial.

Oh yes, and while I’m at it I must address that little ploy that apologists so often use, thinking to employ Hume’s argument against him, and it is where he said this: “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause”. Well of course not! Hume was an empiricist so by ‘absurd’ he means in that sense congruous or ridiculous, for cause and effect is the very cornerstone for our understanding the material world and matters of fact, and without it life on earth could not continue; and we should bear in mind that Hume had already demonstrated that there was no logical absurdity in the denial of any necessity in cause (chapter III, Treatise of Human Nature).


Thesis 3: The world has not always existed; there was nothing before the world and one day it will cease to be. It is finite, and uncaused since there is no contradiction in denying any necessity in cause and effect, which being a contingent principle belongs to the world; and nor is there any necessity or empirical evidence for acts of creation, no evidence whatsoever, it being nothing more than an arbitrary act of the mind. The world neither created itself nor did it come from nothing since causation began and will end with the world.

Thesis 4: The world is self-existent, i.e. contingent matter sustained by an eternal, immutable quality. There is neither causal regression nor any infinitely forward progression since being immaterial it is not within the constraints of time. And note that this is to apply exactly the same premise of an unknown entity that the God hypothesis seeks to employ, but with the clear advantage that the world, having actual existence, has more objective reality than what is merely believed to exist as a matter of religious faith cluttered with contradictions and confused precepts.


We are all agreed that we do not know the nature of the world, and what is being referred to as “all the available evidence” is just a trite expression that moves us not a jot nearer to such a discovery. All we can do is to speculate. And I have now given four possibilities, a further two with this post, but none are certain nor even probable, for what is “probability” but the anticipation that a past causal experience will be repeated, but cause and effect is demonstrably a contingent principle and it is not explicable in terms other than that of the contingent world. By all means borrow the principle from the world and award it to a transcendent concept, but then it is still without necessity, and hence any supposed transcendent concept will have the same stricture and all the limitations of contingency. And that is simply undeniable.

 

[cottage]

I am inferring that what caused the universe is greater than what is in it. I am inferring they necessity for something beyond nature. I am inferring characteristics of the cause that only God is a candidate for. I have nature and the transcendent. Nature is not possible. That leaves only one possibility known.

Then that is speculation and the finding for an argument given in advance. You cannot infer more in the cause than is observed in the effect. Let me put it to you again: Object A strikes object B and moves it distance G. From that observation just how do you presume to infer in A the potential for H, I, J or Z?
We cannot infer from G that the cause A is greater or can exceed B, but only that the power of A was exactly sufficient to move B and achieve G. I’m sure you must be aware of that?

It is not nonsense because you claim so. It is an inescapable logical deduction so profound the argument has existed undefeated for 3000 years. It is absolutely impossible for nature to have created its self. That is a logically absurd position. Your confusing objections to it with reliable arguments that over turn it.

With respect the confusion is all yours! Do you not read my posts properly? This it what I said to you, and please pay special attention to those last four words, emboldened and underlined:

“And you are still, for some reason, and after I don’t know how many posts, repeating that same non-sense about “nature can’t be the cause of itself”. Of course it can’t!”

Here is another paragraph from one of my replies to you:

“This is still the same colourful fish as above, and it is clear that you are confusing two things. Nothing cannot produce or cause something, but something can appear or exist where before there was nothing. The former is self-evidently absurd, but the latter simply rejects cause as a necessary principle, which is to say it is logically possible for something to exist uncaused.”

It might be impossible to know. It is not impossible there exists enough evidence to justify faith and that is theologies burden, not proof. I'm not sure why your asking about morality apart from experience. We experience or apprehend a moral realm, it is a universally derived concept. I have a very interesting story about moral criteria beyond our selves if you want it.

You are not answering the question! I’m asking you again, very simply, to explain how “truth” can be known independent of experience? The two examples were morality, if there be such a thing, and the dead living again.

I reject the idea that only what is certain justifies belief. We all believe mountains of things we do know know are true. You seem to be assigning a burden of proof to faith again. Every legal verdict was rendered without absolute certainty.

We’re not talking about certainty here (although by definition if God existed he could be nothing other than certain and indubitable). We’re talking abut things that are universally known and repeated in experience, things that all people can see, touch, taste, smell and hear in the present or in the past. And legal verdicts do not pronounce on the supernatural.

That is why I said a type of reality. The supernatural exists as a type of reality not regulated by natural law.

No it doesn’t! (No contradiction) There is only reality, not modes of reality.

Morality, miracles, and creation.

Again, show that those things are “truths”, and other than are mere beliefs!

That is not accurate. A suspension of natural law has no theoretical probability. It either occurred or did not. There are millions of claims to personally experiencing it, I claim several myself. On what basis would that not justify faith? A cause independent of nature is not bound by probabilities associated with the natural. If I claimed to be looking at an angel right now, how in the world can you assign a probability to my claim. If you can then please post the criteria used. I of course do not see an angel and never have but have past supernatural claims to experience.

So, then, by your own argument probability is not a criterion that can be used to establish supernatural occurrences as facts, which is what I’ve been saying to you all along!

 

[SkepticThinker]

What? Please provide a single observation of life arising from non-life. Every observation ever made is consistent with life only coming from life. [/b]

I have provided you with evidence demonstrating that it's possible that life could arise from non-life more times than I can count. There’s no way you can’t remember the run around we had in that discussion. Sorry, but I'm not doing it again only to have you brush it off and make this same claim yet again.

You are wrong on this claim.

It most certainly does so by every known applicable rule, logical deduction, and law we know of. It is true of he Biblical concept of God even if he did not exist. The God I defend has no cause associated with his existence. If we discuss a God in need of a cause, it is not the Biblical concept of God. It is no even the philosophical concept of God. A God concept that necessitates a cause is not God. God has been known as a non-contingent being for 5000 years.

Nope. You’re employing the special pleading fallacy wherein you say everything has to have a cause except this one special thing you want to prove magically doesn’t need a cause. There’s nothing logical about that.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

"non-empirical experiences"? LOL!

 

[1robin]

We have no observations of the emergence of life whatsoever. Derp.

That is not what I said. I am not discussing the very first life form to arise in nature. I am talking about every new life that has been created by other life. Every life ever observed came from other life. From those billions and billions of observations without exception and a biological claim it can't happen it can easily be derived that it never did happen. Even falling short of proof my claim is consistent with every known observation, the opposite contradicts them all. Why is it always the non-theists who insist the Christian should go with science but in almost every discussion it is the Christian who is, and the non-theist that can't be forced to go with the weight of data and science by any means and usually contradicts it? There is a huge flaw in the slaw.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

That is not what I said. I am not discussing the very first life form to arise in nature. I am talking about every new life that has been created by other life. Every life ever observed came from other life. From those billions and billions of observations without exception and a biological claim it can't happen it can easily be derived that it never did happen.

Given that even you have recognized the fact that what we have observations of (reproduction) is a different sort of phenomena than what is in question (abiogenesis), it most certainly can not.

 

[1robin]

Yes, but you are, and so is the person who posted the article (Vjtorley).

For some reason I must explain the same thing to every new poster and repeat in constantly. I did not argue for God directly from cosmology. If you imagine 5 steps in my argument I use Vilenkin for steps 1, 2, and 3 because they deal with cosmology and philosophy and theology for steps 4 and 5 because they are not about natural law.

Remember you have been arguing to an intelligent, personal being that created the universe, a theistic concept that is nowhere mentioned in Vilenkin’s explanation. He argues only to a universe that began, and with not the least mention of a deity or a supernatural creator. The world may well be finite, or not, but in any case your argument, and Craig’s, goes well beyond Vilenkin’s scientific conclusion and therefore my objections to Craig stand unanswered and deserve a response. Please will you read again the link you gave me and then look at my post 2656.

See the above please.

You said: “A cause must always be greater than the effect. Sufficient causation requires that cause to have certain aspects. The creator of time cannot be in time, the creator of matter can be composed of matter, etc...”
The emboldened sentence is utterly false. The second sentence cannot imply “certain aspects” beyond what is sufficient or equal to the task. And the third sentence is a perfect example of question begging, where you presume to begin with the answer held in advance. For you are supposing a deity and then misusing the principle to fit with what you prefer to believe! But it remains the case that you cannot infer more power or quality in cause A than is sufficient for its effect B.

No what I said is perfectly true of cause and effect philosophy. A flame at 300 degrees can't heat anything up to 300 degrees. A cause must be greater than it's effects. The universe requires a cause greater than everything in it. I am not jumping straight from more energy in the cause than in the universe straight to God. The intermediate step is the acknowledgment that no other candidate exist. I also am not arguing that with a burden of proof, only the burden of intellectual permeability. That is faiths burden, not certainty.

Because they are empirical! They occur in experience! All the emotions mentioned apply to physical objects (including humans); we can all describe them and relate to them, whether theist or atheist. And none of those emotions are exclusive to dogmatic beliefs that hold to the truth of a particular doctrine explained in terms of the supernatural.

I made no claim of what is available to who. I can but didn't. The point I made was that religious experience is apprehended in exactly the same way as Love and the moral realm. You must deny all of them or accept all of them to be consistent.

I said: "And please provide examples of a “supernatural truth”? "

So please explain for us how morality, being born again, and miracles are "truths"?

I have provided examples of supernatural truth if I am not mistaken. They are truths in the exact same way love is.

Special pleading! I’m seeing quite a lot of confusion in that, especially in the way you muddle together possibility and psychology and treat it as probability. The perfect example, and specific to your faith, is the statement that it is more probable that he dead will remain dead than they will return to life after four days. For it is not more probable that a deceased person will live again after four days notwithstanding an ancient document that makes assertions to the contrary. It is very arguable whether it is even possible! What are the odds of such an event occurring, 0% to 100%, to use the classic definition?

Supernatural claims are by definition not subject to what governs the natural. No matter how many times you observe X doing Y the probability of X being forced to do Z by God is unaffected. Why in the world are you employing the frequency with which a natural action takes place, to indicate the probability for a supernatural act. Miracles are by definition a suspension of the natural and everything that governs them. They are by definition the rare exception but that rareness has nothing to do with the probability they have occurred. There are not many dead people rising from the grave in the Bible anyway.

 

[1robin]

Cottage: "And you are still, for some reason, and after I don’t know how many posts, repeating that same non-sense about “nature can’t be the cause of itself”. Of course it can’t! "



Then that can only be because you do not understand the argument that is being made. Please explain why you are repeating it to me when I have never, ever made such a preposterous and logically absurd assertion? To say the world is its own explanation is not to say it is its own cause.

David Hume had this to say on the matter:

“…to say anything is produced or comes into existence without a cause is not to affirm that ‘tis itself it’s own cause; but on the contrary in excluding all external causes, excludes a fortiori the thing itself which is created. “An object that exists absolutely without a cause, certainly is not it’s own cause; and when you assert, that the one follows from the other, you suppose the very point in question, and take it for granted, that ‘tis utterly impossible any thing can begin to exist without a cause, but that upon the exclusion of one productive principal we must still have recourse to another.”

And Hume also addresses the question of nothing as a cause:

“’Tis sufficient only to observe that when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence; and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that conclusion.”

The same answer applies to the more specific question ‘So what caused the series of causes and their effects that we observe everyday.’ To expand somewhat on Hume’s comments, if there was once nothing at all then there would have been no contingent laws such as causation, and no logically necessary truths or mind dependent principles of thought. And thus with no demonstrable law of causation no argument can be made to the notion of a thing being the cause of itself (which in any case is absurd) since the very concept of causation is rejected; and the objection that a thing cannot come from nothing is also made irrelevant as the entire causal principle is without meaning in prior nothingness. And if we reject the idea of a prior nothingness and propose a pre-existing cause for the world then the Aristotelian rules of thought apply to that cause just as they apply to the world; and that, too, leads to an absurdity since not only will the First Cause will be contingent upon a features of the world, such as causation, but also logical laws (such as non-contradiction) that enable their denial.

Oh yes, and while I’m at it I must address that little ploy that apologists so often use, thinking to employ Hume’s argument against him, and it is where he said this: “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause”. Well of course not! Hume was an empiricist so by ‘absurd’ he means in that sense congruous or ridiculous, for cause and effect is the very cornerstone for our understanding the material world and matters of fact, and without it life on earth could not continue; and we should bear in mind that Hume had already demonstrated that there was no logical absurdity in the denial of any necessity in cause (chapter III, Treatise of Human Nature).


Thesis 3: The world has not always existed; there was nothing before the world and one day it will cease to be. It is finite, and uncaused since there is no contradiction in denying any necessity in cause and effect, which being a contingent principle belongs to the world; and nor is there any necessity or empirical evidence for acts of creation, no evidence whatsoever, it being nothing more than an arbitrary act of the mind. The world neither created itself nor did it come from nothing since causation began and will end with the world.

Thesis 4: The world is self-existent, i.e. contingent matter sustained by an eternal, immutable quality. There is neither causal regression nor any infinitely forward progression since being immaterial it is not within the constraints of time. And note that this is to apply exactly the same premise of an unknown entity that the God hypothesis seeks to employ, but with the clear advantage that the world, having actual existence, has more objective reality than what is merely believed to exist as a matter of religious faith cluttered with contradictions and confused precepts.


We are all agreed that we do not know the nature of the world, and what is being referred to as “all the available evidence” is just a trite expression that moves us not a jot nearer to such a discovery. All we can do is to speculate. And I have now given four possibilities, a further two with this post, but none are certain nor even probable, for what is “probability” but the anticipation that a past causal experience will be repeated, but cause and effect is demonstrably a contingent principle and it is not explicable in terms other than that of the contingent world. By all means borrow the principle from the world and award it to a transcendent concept, but then it is still without necessity, and hence any supposed transcendent concept will have the same stricture and all the limitations of contingency. And that is simply undeniable.

Hume is wrong. There exists no reason whatever to suppose many categories of things in the natural cease to operate without the natural. I agree we can't know but many constants in nature, abstract truths like numbers, morality, and much of philosophy have no dependence on the natural. Nothing in the natural universe can make Murder wrong. Natural law is also only descriptive and not prescriptive. Nature did mandate 2 + 2 = 4 it only described it. It's source must be beyond nature. There are literally and inexhaustible number of these concepts of which I gave just a couple. There was once nothing, then there was everything. Since nothing will never produce anything, something else did. Non being contains no potential for anything.

 

[1robin]

Then that is speculation and the finding for an argument given in advance. You cannot infer more in the cause than is observed in the effect. Let me put it to you again: Object A strikes object B and moves it distance G. From that observation just how do you presume to infer in A the potential for H, I, J or Z?
We cannot infer from G that the cause A is greater or can exceed B, but only that the power of A was exactly sufficient to move B and achieve G. I’m sure you must be aware of that?

I hope I explained that in the previous post. It is not baseless speculation like the multi verse is, it is a logical deduction.

With respect the confusion is all yours! Do you not read my posts properly? This it what I said to you, and please pay special attention to those last four words, emboldened and underlined:

“And you are still, for some reason, and after I don’t know how many posts, repeating that same non-sense about “nature can’t be the cause of itself”. Of course it can’t!”

Cause and effect is consistent with every observation ever made.
Arbitrarily suspending cause without even a theoretically possible justification is ridiculous.
If that was not enough you claim nothing can be replaced by something without the slightest evidence it did or even the slightest reason to think it ever could have.

My argument is not a certainty but it it is much much closer to the certainty end of the scale than yours. Yours are pure speculation.

Here is another paragraph from one of my replies to you:

“This is still the same colourful fish as above, and it is clear that you are confusing two things. Nothing cannot produce or cause something, but something can appear or exist where before there was nothing. The former is self-evidently absurd, but the latter simply rejects cause as a necessary principle, which is to say it is logically possible for something to exist uncaused.”

It is very easy to understand why I had no idea what your position was. I would never have thought any rational person would chunk what is consistent with all observations and adopt what is inconsistent with them all. Your operating on infinitely more faith given less evidence that I am.

You are not answering the question! I’m asking you again, very simply, to explain how “truth” can be known independent of experience? The two examples were morality, if there be such a thing, and the dead living again.

The exact same way we believe Caesar existed. Evidence. Unless you are asking how we would know the truth to an absolute certainty I can't make my response any simpler. The same way you believe your family cares about you, I believe God cares about me.

We’re not talking about certainty here (although by definition if God existed he could be nothing other than certain and indubitable). We’re talking abut things that are universally known and repeated in experience, things that all people can see, touch, taste, smell and hear in the present or in the past. And legal verdicts do not pronounce on the supernatural.

You really misunderstood my statement.

I did not say legal decisions prove the supernatural. I said they prove we make decisions all the time without certain knowledge we are right.

The point is this. Most of our decisions are made with an amount of evidence that does not allow for certainty. If we do this all the time for every type of claim under the sun why are you denying the validity of doing so concerning God.

No it doesn’t! (No contradiction) There is only reality, not modes of reality.

Use type instead if you wish. Use what ever word you wish to indicate that there is potentially a natural realm and one beyond it and independent from it.

Again, show that those things are “truths”, and other than are mere beliefs!

This is setting standards where ever needed to make sure an unwanted reality will die the death of a thousand qualifications.

1. I have no burden to prove a thing is true. I have the faith position.
2. If your criteria was carried to it's conclusion it would rule out claiming anything is true beyond the fact we think.
3. I supplied types of possible truth but your asking about the perception of it.
4. The thing I will claim is true is my personal experience with God. I know it is true the same way I know love exists. By experience.

So, then, by your own argument probability is not a criterion that can be used to establish supernatural occurrences as facts, which is what I’ve been saying to you all along!

[/QUOTE] That is not exactly true.

1. You and I cannot predict the probability of a supernatural event occurring by looking at the frequency that natural law produces a certain non miraculous event.
2. We can however produce a generalized probability that a supernatural event occurred by evaluating the evidence it did.

If my Dad (who is as honest and non-sensational as anyone I know) told me that he saw Jesus levitate Westminster Abby for ten minutes at 100 feet in the air even if no one else was there to see it, then using my knowledge of him, God, and gravity then it probably was the result of forces beyond nature. What I could not do is use how long it had not levitated to rule out my fathers claims. I would not be certain but I can assign it a high probability.

 

[1robin]

Given that even you have recognized the fact that what we have observations of (reproduction) is a different sort of phenomena than what is in question (abiogenesis), it most certainly can not.

It is an identical type of observation or concept. No one has ever found life coming from non life. They could not force it in a lab where intelligence was known to be trying its best to do so. They even cheated and still got only a few of the countless steps necessary to produce life. They took one step and proclaimed that it proved they could walk to the moon.

They are both the emergence of a life form. It has occurred billions of times the way I said it has. It has never been observed or forced to happen in the way your defending. However lets pretend they are two types of events. There is still no evidence what so ever it ever has occurred on its own and there are many reasons to think it is impossible.

Again, all the data is consistent with the Bible but not with the non-theist.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

It is an identical type of observation or concept.

Ah, so normal reproduction and the emergence of biological life are identical (and so observations of the two are interchangeable)? No wonder you're so confused.