INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[no intelectual]

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.

Just knowing about God or studying about God is not the same as having a relationship with the Holy Spirit of God that gives insights and revelations is to know of His existence. "Be still and know" is not to be created intellectually.

 

[1robin]

I guess the evidence I was asked to provide is just going to be ignored.

What evidence did you ask for that was ignored.

Third time’s a charm?

For what? I see no requests for evidence here.

What I gave you were scientific studies where the results indicated that it is possible for the building blocks of life to form from nonliving materials. You brushed these off as failures, for some odd reason even though the results indicate what I said. If they were actually failures, as is your contention, the results should not have indicated that it’s at least possible for living matter to form from non-living matter. But they did, and so your analysis is inaccurate.

What you have given is no different from what I have found and been given before. Someone gets no where what so ever near to producing anything life what ever, yet yell success anyway. Every one of these experiment's and the many additional ones I have read are all exactly the same. They produce the equivalent of sand and some water and then declare that proves that the pentagon self assembled. We have been through this over and over and it has become monotonous. Find me some life that has been created (by the way that would only prove it had been created by intelligence) the you can claim to have the slightest idea it occurred naturally. So far (even when they cheated) every single experiment has failed to produce or even get in the same ballpark as life. When grant money, tenure, peer review, and pressure is on the line even the lack of an inch becomes a mile. I am simply tired of chasing down the false trails.
Since you will of course use this to suggest I was avoiding the convincing evidence you did provide I will comment on a couple.

1. I know very well and have talked about the additional amino acids thought to have been created in Miller-Urey. Let's pretend they know this is true. This is like saying we did not just go to the moon we went several miles beyond it. Therefor we have determined manned space travel to the center of UI Scuti are just around the corner. Amino acids are not life. They are complex molecules approximately around the equilibrium complexity thresh-hold. That is exactly what I science would suggest shaking nature up a bit would produce. Life requires complexity so far beyond equilibrium as to be in a whole different realm.
2. I have given the hyperbolic probabilities generated by secular scientists concerning life and they are far far worse than making a hole in one at Augusta and then extrapolating that that proved John Daly can hit a hole on the moon with a drive.
3. I looked into another link of yours. BTW no one who actually wished to convince by sources gives a torrent of them. It would take days (of wasted time) to review all of them, fortunately they all say the same thing. The scientists in the other link said three things were needed simultaneously for life. DNA, RNA, and some bizarre information containing "container" (I think he meant membrane. He proceeded to assume two of them existed and used that to claim the third could occur naturally. He did that for all three. That is to assume what the actual question is before hand. That is meaningless. He also never explained where his information came from, he just asserted it into existence.

I am so sick of these false trails that I will render them irrelevant before hand. There must occur improbabilities (consecutive improbabilities) on scales incomprehensible to even allow a universe that is theoretically eligible for life to have any chance in. I will only give one of the many that must all occur (all of them must happen) in the only universe we know exists in it's only creation event known (by the way multiverses are no help here either).

If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size. 128
A Brief History of Time - Stephen W. Hawking

It actually gets far worse than that. The chances of getting a dead universe or even one without structure are infinite compared to getting one with life or structure. The same way there are infinite numbers of ways a building can be designed that will not work as a building.

Bonus:
We do not know how DNA molecules first appeared. The chances against a DNA molecule arising by random fluctuations are very small. Some people have therefore suggested that life came to Earth from elsewhere, and that there are seeds of life floating round in the galaxy. However, it seems unlikely that DNA could survive for long in the radiation in space. And even if it could, it would not really help explain the origin of life, because the time available since the formation of carbon is only just over double the age of the Earth.
Life in the Universe - Stephen Hawking


So you must give me a plausible reason why anything exists at all, then a universe that defied every probability in every circumstance to get a life permitting universe, then prove chemical evolution that can produce life occurred when thermodynamics suggests it can't, then get me an experiment that actually produces reliable evidence (not assumptions based on primitive and speculative data) that life could arise on it's own, and then and only then would that be worth discussing.

BTW why is one of the first (and known to be based on false premises and circumstances) experiments still a primary resource if most of the science in that field has been done since then?

 

[1robin]

And what's wrong with the idea of sub-atomic particles and/or the components of sub-atomic particles (possibly "strings") going back into infinity, which is slightly older than I am?

Some are sub0atomic particle intolerant. We do not like them, and will not tolerate them. Actually I have no idea what you meant by "wrong with". Infinity has no known physical example. There are very good reasons to think actual natural infinities can't exist. Until one is actually posted, it is very safe to assume no natural infinities do or can exist. The last chance (space) was destroyed by the BBT. I have a degree in mathematics and infinity normally causes equations to blow up or are used as unreachable boundaries. No good reason exists to suggest natural infinites are possible.

 

[metis]

Some are sub0atomic particle intolerant. We do not like them, and will not tolerate them. Actually I have no idea what you meant by "wrong with". Infinity has no known physical example. There are very good reasons to think actual natural infinities can't exist. Until one is actually posted, it is very safe to assume no natural infinities do or can exist. The last chance (space) was destroyed by the BBT. I have a degree in mathematics and infinity normally causes equations to blow up or are used as unreachable boundaries. No good reason exists to suggest natural infinites are possible.

I have posted it before, namely that most cosmologists and most physicists do lean in the direction that sub-atomic particles and/or their possible components (strings maybe?) may go back into infinity, according to the research cosmologist Leonard Susskind and a poll he has in one of his books. Plus I posted a link for you a while back that shows that infinity indeed is used in mathematics, even if you personally don't like it. You might check back to that earlier conversation.

Plus there's simply no reason to suggest infinity is not possible, and it's really your uncaused God that really defies science, math, and even logic, each of which involve using cause-and-effect relationships of one type or another. This is not to say that such a deity is not possible, but simply that it can't in any way be confirmed on the basis of either of those disciplines.

BTW, you keep on insisting that "God" was the cause, but how could you possibly know it wasn't "Gods"? Were you there to tell if there was more than one? So, what you are dealing with is belief and not objectively-derived evidence, and I would suggest that even most theologians would tell you much the same, namely that one's religious beliefs are based on faith-- not science or mathematics.

Anyhow, I know the thing you'll do next is just to repeat much the same and insisting that only your beliefs in this area are the only ones that are valid, but I take the position of "I don't know" in regards to what exactly happened.

 

[1robin]

I have posted it before, namely that most cosmologists and most physicists do lean in the direction that sub-atomic particles and/or their possible components (strings maybe?) may go back into infinity, according to the research cosmologist Leonard Susskind and a poll he has in one of his books. Plus I posted a link for you a while back that shows that infinity indeed is used in mathematics, even if you personally don't like it. You might check back to that earlier conversation.

I am aware of no credible scientists that believes that is true. I am certain that some may allow for that possibility but Vilenkin's claim is pretty much the norm "that all evidence points to a finite" (in the past) universe. Universe meaning every natural thing known. So far the only evidence I am aware of that infinite things exist in nature is your claiming they do.

Plus there's simply no reason to suggest infinity is not possible, and it's really your uncaused God that really defies science, math, and even logic, each of which involve using cause-and-effect relationships of one type or another. This is not to say that such a deity is not possible, but simply that it can't in any way be confirmed on the basis of either of those disciplines.

There are all kinds of reasons.

1. Time. There is no possibility to cross an infinite expanse of time to arrive at this moment.
2. Matter. A known universe of finite size does not have the potential to contain infinite mass.
3. Space. A universe that began to expand a finite time ago may be big but it can't be infinite.

What else you got? Energy, can't be infinite because the universe is not infinitely hot. That about covers the major ones.

The most generous reason can be is to say unbounded finites are possible and infinities are not KNOWN to be impossible, but no reason exists to think they exist.

Supernatural concepts by definition are not nor should they be bound by, described by, or accounted for by natural law. That is an absurd statement. God may or may not exist, but natural law has no role in his existence.

BTW, you keep on insisting that "God" was the cause, but how could you possibly know it wasn't "Gods"? Were you there to tell if there was more than one? So, what you are dealing with is belief and not objectively-derived evidence, and I would suggest that even most theologians would tell you much the same, namely that one's religious beliefs are based on faith-- not science or mathematics.

In that context I am talking about a maximal being. I can argue and have that my God is the best possible fit of all concepts of God in human history as the first cause. That is not exactly what I was actually doing though. If you want I can do so.

Anyhow, I know the thing you'll do next is just to repeat much the same and insisting that only your beliefs in this area are the only ones that are valid, but I take the position of "I don't know" in regards to what exactly happened.

I have the faith position. It comes by definition with the inherent property of not knowing. That has nothing to do with what best explains the evidence. It is your side that insists only what can be known (which is pretty much nothing) is science or evidence, unless you need to step outside that tiny band of data to dismiss God. So far you have not even attempted evidence at an actual infinite, and dismissed unknown future claims. You sure do claim to know much that is impossible for you to know. The history of sub-atomic particles, my motivations, qualifications, and future actions are not accessible to you, yet they are what you talk about as much as anything.

 

[metis]

I am aware of no credible scientists that believes that is true.

That's only because you're really not familiar with what so many of the cosmologists are writing as I have about 10 books written by the actual researchers, plus there's so many articles in Scientific American that totally contradict what you're saying.

There are all kinds of reasons.

1. Time. There is no possibility to cross an infinite expanse of time to arrive at this moment.

To arrive at which moment, and who said anything about crossing an infinite expanse of time? I'm confused by the question.

2. Matter. A known universe of finite size does not have the potential to contain infinite mass.

Who said anything about an "infinite mass", and what does that have to do with what we're talking about?

3. Space. A universe that began to expand a finite time ago may be big but it can't be infinite.

Who said it has to be infinite in size, especially since cosmologists certainly don't assume as such? It's hypothetically possible that we maybe only one universe out of many.

What else you got? Energy, can't be infinite because the universe is not infinitely hot. That about covers the major ones.

Who said energy has to be infinite in reference to size, nor is there the any assumption that energy as we know it goes back into infinity? Google "string theory".

Supernatural concepts by definition are not nor should they be bound by, described by, or accounted for by natural law. That is an absurd statement. God may or may not exist, but natural law has no role in his existence.

It is not I who have jumped to such a conclusion but you certainly have. I have made it clear that I don't know what caused this universe, but you claim you do know. Therefore, the "absurd statement" certainly isn't coming from me. And now you double down by claiming that there are "supernatural concepts" that are not bound by or accounted by natural law, and just what evidence do you have for such a statement?

I have the faith position. It comes by definition with the inherent property of not knowing. That has nothing to do with what best explains the evidence. It is your side that insists only what can be known (which is pretty much nothing) is science or evidence, unless you need to step outside that tiny band of data to dismiss God. So far you have not even attempted evidence at an actual infinite, and dismissed unknown future claims. You sure do claim to know much that is impossible for you to know. The history of sub-atomic particles, my motivations, qualifications, and future actions are not accessible to you, yet they are what you talk about as much as anything.

The above is so terribly wrong as it is not I who have made statements based on assumptions, and I repeated have stated that I don't know what caused the universe. This is why it's all but impossible to have a discussion with you because you make one false assumption (such as what the scientific hypotheses really are and what they involve) after another (such as I supposedly jumping to assumptions), plus you continue to mischaracterize my position of "I don't know". If I don't know, then I don't know, so how is it that I'm the one who's supposedly jumping to conclusions, whereas you're making one assumption after another, after another, and after another?

 

[Ouroboros]

To arrive at which moment, and who said anything about crossing an infinite expanse of time? I'm confused by the question.

What he's talking about is William Lane Craig's Kalaam argument. WLC argues, using Hilbert's infinite hotel paradox, that time can't be of an infinite past. That traversing the infinite past is impossible. I just wanted to give you the source of this premise many creationists are using today. There are some philosophers who have pointed out flaws in WLC's use of the paradox, but internet memes tend to die hard.

 

[metis]

What he's talking about is William Lane Craig's Kalaam argument. WLC argues, using Hilbert's infinite hotel paradox, that time can't be of an infinite past. That traversing the infinite past is impossible. I just wanted to give you the source of this premise many creationists are using today. There are some philosophers who have pointed out flaws in WLC's use of the paradox, but internet memes tend to die hard.

Thanks for the clarification, and I agree with your premise here. I look at the issue of "infinity" as being more of a question than an answer, much like I look at the issue of "God(s)" in much the same way, namely that at this point in time it's virtually impossible to have enough objective evidence to confirm either. I don't know of any cosmologist that I have read that insists that "infinity" must exist, but most that I have read consider it to at the least be in the running, and some that I have run across tend to lean more in that direction than any other.

 

[1robin]

I’m sorry I have to keep explaining this but I’m slightly puzzled that you cannot see the difference.
All scientific and most metaphysical hypotheses, even some of the more highly speculative ones, concern what is or could be the case in possible experience, that is to say what changes in form and matter can be observed or predicted from existing physical data. And of course cause and effect is absolutely the crucial element in theoretical science. Scientists begin from a notion or idea, based on some already available physics and then pose a hypothesis. Of course it may well be that a theoretician has a pet idea that he would dearly love to see become generally accepted, but there is no official dogma, and even if there were there is nothing to prevent it being overturned or modified by another individual’s more compelling peer reviewed theory. Scientists don’t begin with a piecemeal doctrine, such as the Bible, which doesn’t allow any deviation or anything to count against what is written and held from faith; and since scientists cannot study or form theories from what is not there to be studied they must take existing physical phenomena and relate to it with possible or proven facts or predictions based on those observations.

I do not see anything here that cleared up anything I have been discussing. My point was that while cause and effect are apprehensible through natural events there is no reason to think them naturally bound or dependent. There are a few categories that contain things that have no natural origin. Numbers and other abstract concepts, morality, information, ascetic value, cause and effect, and some mathematical constants. We can perceive them in nature but there is no reason to think they would be untrue if nature did not exist. My point was this, that it is far more reasonable to assume cause and effect applied in the creation of nature than that it did not.

Your point about theology and science is not accurate nor relevant that I can see. Much of science is a reasonable effort to explain evidence. Most of theoretical science is pure speculation even if it contradicts evidence. Those are two ends of the spectrum and Biblical theology would be in between but much closer to the former than the latter. That is why my theology is never chosen over known facts but supersedes theoretical guess work.

Fine Tuning is an argument, not “evidence”! Creationists argue that since matter itself is mindless how is it possible for unintelligent matter to know exactly what it needs to survive? Well, aside from the question-begging form of that argument it can hardly be said that we have ‘exactly what is needed’ when for example only a comparative few life forms survive by what is barely sufficient for their existence, whereas the greater number did not. Many were stillborn, expired due to malformations or disease, or were devoured by predators, but those that survived went on to breed and pass on their genes, good or bad, to the offspring. If the genetic material is healthy then the young will flourish, if not the gene pool will eventually dry up. But the point is that the ones that exist, you, me, and any individuals that happen to read this, are incredibly lucky to be among the almost infinitely tiny number in that succession that survived against all odds. Even those among us that have a disability or a congenital disease have somewhere down the line benefitted from natural selection. Hardly “fine tuning”!

If I have a reality labeled X. It has two potential sources. If one is virtually ruled out then X is evidence for the other unless it also is ruled out. It is no different than reasoning about anything else. I take the evidence and look at the available explanations and pick the best. I think your method would be to discount any theological explanation unless proven for a fact and allow any scientific explanation as long as it is not proven to be impossible. Creationists are a huge a diverse group. They make many different arguments. The one you mention is a reasonable argument but I use a much more specific version. What you responded to was concerned with the creation of the universe not a mind. I can debate that issue but am confused why you brought it up. BTW I sent you a related article on the mind.

You are misunderstanding the difficulty altogether. You acknowledge that causality is contingent and you are saying, nonsensically, that your personal being used a contingent principle to create contingent existence. So if, according to you, contingency is independent of time then it follows that the universe is independent of time, which we all agree to be impossible.

Something contingent becomes existent if what it produces or what requires it exists. A principle that is necessary to create a universe is not dependent on it's existent. Cause and effect exists independently of the universe, but it would seem non-sensical to suggest that the universe is independent of cause and effect. The former can be true even if the latter false, the latter would not seem to be so. Cause and effect does not go out of existence with nature, in theory (which has been my point).

First of all there is no such thing as a “law in philosophy”, "pretty much" or otherwise, and nor is there any Law of Cause and Effect, the latter being the point I am constantly and respectfully having to make to you. And once again you’ve not addressed the argument I gave you (in italics). The rest of the paragraph is just the Straw Man argument that you repeat time and time again in almost every post, together with no reference at all the hypotheses I expounded.

The definition of a law in academics is a proposition without an exception. If you wish to rely on technicalities to dispense with undesirable evidence there is not much I can do about it. Cause and effect is as reliable a rule of reality as any law could be. I hate sidetracking into semantic technicalities instead of substance. Call it whatever you wish it remains an identical concept. No what I said is not a straw man. It is what is absolutely true of a concept. Whether God exists or not he Christian concept of God is an uncaused first cause (BTW an uncaused first cause is an absolute necessity judging by every piece of evidence available). Once again I am looking at the evidence and comparing explanations. I did not invent the explanations or any aspects of it. I found them pre-existing and it fits by far more evidence than any other explanation including natural ones (which actually do not exist in many cases). There is nothing strawmanish about any of that. Fallacies are the most abused crutches your side of the aisle uses, IMO.

I’ve given you a very simple argument, clearly expressing a logical conundrum. But from your reply it seems you do not understand what is being stated, when as a matter of fact you’ve confirmed the contradiction in your own words not once but three times!

There is a very famous "supposed" paradox by Epimenides called all Cretans are liars. People with many letters before their name have sat around talking about what a meaningful semantic inconsistency. There is no paradox to his statement. Liars are those that have lied. His statement is a very simplistic statement of absolute fact. There is no paradox, nothing remarkable, nothing meaningful. retreating into semantic arguments that have no application to reality are a poor tactic and one that wears me out. I see no actual conflict in what I have said or you have replied with.

1. God can create something without a need to do so.
2. God is not less of a God without a universe, the universe is an expression of what he is, not an element of what he is. An artist does not have to paint to be any more of an artist, a mother can love a child just as much and not buy them X, a thing is no less of a thing regardless of anything else.
3. There is no actual incoherence or contradiction here. Claiming there is (which Craig did not) is a intellectual exercise in futility.



If you take the Bible as your authoritative manual then of course you are following a prescribed doctrine.[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
That has nothing to do with what God is. In no doctrine was ever in existence God would not be any less than he is. I have no idea why you are confusing what something produces with what it is. An engineer is not a car, an artist is not made of canvas, and God is not a doctrine. God is a personal being or God is nothing.

 

[Ouroboros]

Thanks for the clarification,

You're welcome.

and I agree with your premise here. I look at the issue of "infinity" as being more of a question than an answer, much like I look at the issue of "God(s)" in much the same way, namely that at this point in time it's virtually impossible to have enough objective evidence to confirm either. I don't know of any cosmologist that I have read that insists that "infinity" must exist, but most that I have read consider it to at the least be in the running, and some that I have run across tend to lean more in that direction than any other.

Agree. Time is still a mystery for both philosophers and scientists. It's not something we can easily just assume to be this or that and then use it as a premise to prove whatever we want. It's a very deceptive method to use vagueness and incomprehensible terms to lure people into a belief. It's better to just realize the obvious, that we don't know.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Will this never end? How do I turn this thing off? The universe does not have the potential of being infinite nor uncaused.

Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”
Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” | Uncommon Descent

As usual the Christian (of faith position) is consistent with all the evidence and the non-theist is contradicting it. That would be bad enough but that same position insists the opposite is actually the case.

Natural law (no matter how it is subdivided or considered as a whole) contains an explanation for it's self.

Sure it does. Arguments from (a single) authority don't bolster your assertion.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Prove or supply reliable evidence anything you claimed is true.

Why would that even be necessary?

Energy is not infinite, it is not even potentially creative, and certainly not eternal.

Says who?

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is what experts in the far more reliable ends of science claim. Penrose for example said Haking's M-theory is not even a good excuse for not having a theory.

I have more than enough education to know they have no idea what they are talking about. They never have to produce anything that works, and nothing is actually falsifiable so it is not even science. It contradicts evidence, many times is based on nothing what so ever, and posits things that are most likely impossible.

Dawkins central argument has been called by competent philosophers "the worst argument in the history of western thought on the subject of God".

A teen agree should be able to see the claim "because gravity exists we know that nothing can produce everything" is patently absurd. It is not even coherent and certainly is not scientific.

No less that a Oxford pure mathematics professor. Two peer reviewed board members of philosophic institutions, one of probably the top three textual scholars, and a moral philosophy professor tore Hawking's latest book to shreds. It is no that I think hawking's claims are wrong. It is that anyone with a little education and common sense can easily see they can't be true and are not even scientific.

That is not even the central point. The point is there is no way to know that even some of the details they posit are true. Their ideas do not have to work, they do not have to be verified, apparently they do not have to be consistent with anything. They are white noise dressed in scientific terminology. All of the more reliable science is consistent with the Bible.

If you want to demonstrate I am wrong instead of simply asserting what level of education I have is (and you have no way to possibly know that). Then prove Multiverses, oscillating universes, eternal universes, crack eggs theories, M-theory, Nietzsche's cyclical models, or objective morality are true or exist.

Your assertions based on what you can't possibly know are the worst defense of their assertions based on what they can't possibly know, possible.

Wow, so you're a physicist too??

 

[SkepticThinker]

What evidence did you ask for that was ignored.
For what? I see no requests for evidence here.

You can’t be serious.

You asked for evidence for my claim that we know it’s possible that life could come from non-life.

What you have given is no different from what I have found and been given before. Someone gets no where what so ever near to producing anything life what ever, yet yell success anyway. Every one of these experiment's and the many additional ones I have read are all exactly the same. They produce the equivalent of sand and some water and then declare that proves that the pentagon self assembled. We have been through this over and over and it has become monotonous. Find me some life that has been created (by the way that would only prove it had been created by intelligence) the you can claim to have the slightest idea it occurred naturally. So far (even when they cheated) every single experiment has failed to produce or even get in the same ballpark as life. When grant money, tenure, peer review, and pressure is on the line even the lack of an inch becomes a mile. I am simply tired of chasing down the false trails.

At this point, I’m going to have to just call this for what it is: dishonesty. You can’t possibly read through all that scientific material and disagree with what I’ve said.

Every little bit of information gleaned from those studies gets us closer to understanding how our world operates, which is how we usually learn things, by incremental steps. If you are assuming that Miller and Urey expected life to just spring out of inorganic matter (or that that should have happened) then you’d be wrong. The Miller-Urey experiments showed us that show that common organic molecules can be synthesized from common inorganic materials, which is HUGE! And yet you brush it off like it was a waste of time or something. Not to mention the fact that the experiment was recently revisited and the results turned out to be even more promising than in the original experiment. The evidence that’s been gathered to date hasn’t contradicted their findings either, it’s only bolstered them. So excuse me I wonder what you’re talking about.

And no, such studies would not prove that life has to be created by intelligence because the scientists are recreating natural environments that could have been present early in the earth’s history, so you can throw that old apologetics line out the window already.

Since you will of course use this to suggest I was avoiding the convincing evidence you did provide I will comment on a couple.


1.I know very well and have talked about the additional amino acids thought to have been created in Miller-Urey. Let's pretend they know this is true. This is like saying we did not just go to the moon we went several miles beyond it. Therefor we have determined manned space travel to the center of UI Scuti are just around the corner. Amino acids are not life. They are complex molecules approximately around the equilibrium complexity thresh-hold. That is exactly what I science would suggest shaking nature up a bit would produce. Life requires complexity so far beyond equilibrium as to be in a whole different realm.

What are we pretending they know is true??

Amino acids (the building blocks of life) are organic molecules. They were produced from inorganic compounds. Hello?!

Change your analogy to: We didn’t just go to the moon, we went several miles beyond it. Therefore we can’t rule out the prospect that manned space travel is an actual possibility now. Now it’s more accurate. You want us to just assume that life occurring naturally is impossible; well it certainly isn’t now that a great deal of evidence exists that counters that assumption.

And since we’re pretending things, are we also pretending you can back up your last sentence?

2.I have given the hyperbolic probabilities generated by secular scientists concerning life and they are far far worse than making a hole in one at Augusta and then extrapolating that that proved John Daly can hit a hole on the moon with a drive.

And they’ve been rejected by numerous people with numerous valid reasons.

Let’s stick to the evidence that you requested, that I’ve provided for.

3. I looked into another link of yours. BTW no one who actually wished to convince by sources gives a torrent of them. It would take days (of wasted time) to review all of them, fortunately they all say the same thing.

You didn’t actually say that with a straight face, did you? Are you forgetting your multiple posts with multiple swaths of sources cut and paste from websites? (Most of them didn’t even work!)

I actually did some real research, verified and read the sources I provided and then cited them in a way that you could actually look at them, and you’re going to say this to me? Please.

The scientists in the other link said three things were needed simultaneously for life. DNA, RNA, and some bizarre information containing "container" (I think he meant membrane. He proceeded to assume two of them existed and used that to claim the third could occur naturally. He did that for all three. That is to assume what the actual question is before hand. That is meaningless. He also never explained where his information came from, he just asserted it into existence.

Which link?

I am so sick of these false trails that I will render them irrelevant before hand. There must occur improbabilities (consecutive improbabilities) on scales incomprehensible to even allow a universe that is theoretically eligible for life to have any chance in. I will only give one of the many that must all occur (all of them must happen) in the only universe we know exists in it's only creation event known (by the way multiverses are no help here either).

And I’m sick of dishonesty and obfuscation. You’re going to render them irrelevant beforehand? Okay, then you’re claiming willful ignorance and our conversation is over, because I’m not interested in talking with someone who has purposely put blinders on.

If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size. 128
A Brief History of Time - Stephen W. Hawking
It actually gets far worse than that. The chances of getting a dead universe or even one without structure are infinite compared to getting one with life or structure. The same way there are infinite numbers of ways a building can be designed that will not work as a building.

So what?

Bonus:
We do not know how DNA molecules first appeared. The chances against a DNA molecule arising by random fluctuations are very small. Some people have therefore suggested that life came to Earth from elsewhere, and that there are seeds of life floating round in the galaxy. However, it seems unlikely that DNA could survive for long in the radiation in space. And even if it could, it would not really help explain the origin of life, because the time available since the formation of carbon is only just over double the age of the Earth.
Life in the Universe - Stephen Hawking


So you must give me a plausible reason why anything exists at all, then a universe that defied every probability in every circumstance to get a life permitting universe, then prove chemical evolution that can produce life occurred when thermodynamics suggests it can't, then get me an experiment that actually produces reliable evidence (not assumptions based on primitive and speculative data) that life could arise on it's own, and then and only then would that be worth discussing.

Why must I do that? What does it have to do with my claim?

The rest of this is just more dishonesty.

BTW why is one of the first (and known to be based on false premises and circumstances) experiments still a primary resource if most of the science in that field has been done since then?

Not the primary resource (also it’s been confirmed, replicated and improved upon), but see above.

The only way you can really say such a thing with any honesty is to completely ignore the links I provided.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is not I who have jumped to such a conclusion but you certainly have. I have made it clear that I don't know what caused this universe, but you claim you do know. Therefore, the "absurd statement" certainly isn't coming from me. And now you double down by claiming that there are "supernatural concepts" that are not bound by or accounted by natural law, and just what evidence do you have for such a statement?

Once you go there, you can pretty much make up whatever you feel like.

 

[1robin]

Well if Vilenkin and you are saying the world will never end then you are both wrong (in the case of Thesis 1) to make such an absolute assertion, since matter is contingent in whatever form and has no necessary existence. In the case of Thesis 2 a continued and sustained existence is possible, but again not logically necessary. And I don’t remember in Vilenkin’s exposition seeing any mention that “God will alter natural processes like he occasionally does and once again supervise nature constantly and it will be what it was intended to be”!

The end has nothing to do with what I or Vilenkin has said, nor what we have discussed. Both I and I believe Vilenkin has a past finite universe with nothing certain about it's future known. I have no idea what you mean by end anyway. Both the bible and I believe the world (as we know it) will end, that is what the Bible is most known for. I do not know why this came up, why it was assigned to him or me, or why it is relevant. I am at a loss. Let me illustrate some of what I think is inaccurate about what you stated above.

1. There is no actual theoretical end to the natural universe. It will and currently is in the process of changing states, but no end whatever that means) is scientifically possible for the universe (world). It will always or should always exist but I have no idea why that was brought up.
2. You apparently claim to know what will happen in the future (and once again it defies every piece of evidence we have) even though you have no access to it, however you deny that I can extrapolate about the beginning which is consistent with everything known. Why are there always two standards?
3. I have never used Vilenkin for a theological conclusion except as an expert on the cosmological component of a multiple part argument. I have never understood this claim. Theological claims or explanations have many parts. I use historians for the historical parts, scientists for scientific parts, cosmologists for cosmology, theologians for theological parts, philosophers for philosophical parts yet it never fails that it will be claimed that the scientists did not resolve a theological point or a philosopher did not confirm a cosmological part, etc... Why do you say that? I am using experts in the field they are experts in. The Bible posits a finite universe, cosmologists posit a finite universe. That is exactly how these claims are supposed to be and are resolved. There is no flaw here.

First point: The universe having a cause is not consistent with “everything we know” if there was nothing before the Big Bang; and the beginning was certainly not observed. Your argument is that if the universe had a beginning there must be a cause of this beginning and you assume this on the basis of cause and effect observed in the universe. But there is no observation of anything beginning to exist in the universe, for cause and effect is simply movement and mutation and not the creation of things from nothing, and therefore the inference is misleading, plain wrong actually!

Oh come on. Every single thing we know of has a cause. Nothing known is devoid of a cause. There can't possibly be a claim more in line with more evidence. I am simply doing what every single scientists that has ever lived has done (and many have done it on orders of magnitude far less information). I am inferring what I can't see using what can be seen in a far more reliable methodology than theoretical scientists do. Why the double standards? You asked me to point them out, this is at least the 4th time I have.


BTW I have sent you proof of things coming into existence. In the Quantum particles actually appear. What they do not do is appear from nothing or without a cause. They are created by shifting energy densities in already existing fields.

Second point: And “philosophy”, by which you mean the cosmological argument(s), are purely inferential, taking as their premise aspects of this world and applying them to some other world, which leads to contradiction when this other world is proposed as the necessary being outside time and space but with the same contingent property.

This world (universe is not proposed as a necessary being outside of anything). This world is used to show a cause and effect relationship that has no exceptions and is not dependent on it. Any standard that would not allow cause and effect to be extrapolated outside the natural or as applying to the creation of the natural would instantly eliminate al of theoretical science and much of observational science. I really don't not care what standard you use, just use it consistently. extrapolating from what can be seen to what can't is constantly used in science, I will use it as well.

Inferential arguments from the physical world, which in any case you’ve merely alluded to, are not “evidence” for supernatural beings.

A universe that has no explanation of its self within it's self is about the best evidence for something beyond the known natural world there can be. It certainly is better evidence than what exists for a non-caused universe, multi-verses, abiogenesis, cracked egg cosmology, actual eternals, or a thousand other things claimed to have evidence to support them. The cosmological argument is a tiny fraction of at best 1% of the total evidence for God. I am not sure what your point is.

Your prime directive seems to be.

1. God requires absolute proof or it is a meaningless contention.
2. Science requires absolutely nothing beyond speculation. You can know that everything will end (despite everything known to the contrary), but I can't know anything about the beginning (despite everything being consistent). On what basis is there a discussion that can take place with these ambiguous standards?
3. Inferential arguments are valid in every single subject ever discussed by man unless it is an aspect of those subjects that makes God more likely.

I have so many problems in my lab at the moment I can't get anywhere in this post. I will try and get to the rest soon.

 

[cottage]

2. You apparently claim to know what will happen in the future (and once again it defies every piece of evidence we have) even though you have no access to it, however you deny that I can extrapolate about the beginning which is consistent with everything known. Why are there always two standards?

This is what you said: “He and I say the universe began to exist and one of two things will occur in the future. It will never end in either of them.” And I replied: “Well if Vilenkin and you are saying the world will never end then you are both wrong to make such an absolute assertion, since matter is contingent in whatever form and has no necessary existence.” And on the basis of that it is absurd of you to say quite falsely that I “apparently claim to know what will happen in the future”.

3. I have never used Vilenkin for a theological conclusion except as an expert on the cosmological component of a multiple part argument. I have never understood this claim. Theological claims or explanations have many parts. I use historians for the historical parts, scientists for scientific parts, cosmologists for cosmology, theologians for theological parts, philosophers for philosophical parts yet it never fails that it will be claimed that the scientists did not resolve a theological point or a philosopher did not confirm a cosmological part, etc... Why do you say that? I am using experts in the field they are experts in. The Bible posits a finite universe, cosmologists posit a finite universe. That is exactly how these claims are supposed to be and are resolved. There is no flaw here.

Read your own words. Vilenkin (and you) say two things will happen, one of which God will control! My parentheses.

“He and I say the universe began to exist and one of two things will occur in the future. It will never end in either of them. [1] It will become an evenly dispersed energy and matter space, boring but existent. Or [2] God will alter natural processes like he occasionally does and once again supervise nature constantly and it will be what it was intended to be.”

Oh come on. Every single thing we know of has a cause. Nothing known is devoid of a cause. There can't possibly be a claim more in line with more evidence. I am simply doing what every single scientists that has ever lived has done (and many have done it on orders of magnitude far less information). I am inferring what I can't see using what can be seen in a far more reliable methodology than theoretical scientists do. Why the double standards? You asked me to point them out, this is at least the 4th time I have.

But now I’ll show why your inference to God is false. Consider the following statement: Everything in nature is subject to cause and effect. That is an inferential argument that nobody can deny. But now consider this: Everything beyond nature is subject to cause and effect. In the former case denial involves a contradiction in experience; we simply have to accept that everything involves mutation, movement and change, and that is how cause and effect is explicable. In the case of the latter we first have to assume there is something that can be meaningfully called “beyond nature”, and that is something we can deny in general experience, and secondly if everything beyond nature is subject to cause and effect then God is subject to mutation, movement and change. The only way out of that impasse is to make a special plea and say it doesn’t apply to God. But in that case “Everything beyond nature is subject to cause and effect” is a false premise!


Now a word about these so-called double standards that you constantly refer to: Anything is logically possible including “God” as a supernatural cause of the world, providing there are no contradictions. And it isn’t a matter of “double standards” where a logically sound argument, that is to say without contradiction, can demonstrate an alternative to what is asserted, whether physics based, metaphysical or even a competing supernatural hypothesis. We don’t know the nature of the world or how or why it came about; so in order for one hypothesis to be convincing to the point where rejection is impossible then there must be no other logically possible hypothesis that presents an opposing view. And since we cannot explain the world directly from experience it all comes down to what is theoretically or logically possible. In other words the sceptic meets the theist on his or her own terms – and I do so myself (See my metaphysical argument in the thread “Why does God have to be perfect&#8221. But if the opposing hypothesis is non-contradictory, while the God hypothesis is (and it is on several counts) then it fails as an explanation for the world. And the conclusion must follow just as it would on the contrary, if it were the other way about.

This world (universe is not proposed as a necessary being outside of anything). This world is used to show a cause and effect relationship that has no exceptions and is not dependent on it. Any standard that would not allow cause and effect to be extrapolated outside the natural or as applying to the creation of the natural would instantly eliminate al of theoretical science and much of observational science. I really don't not care what standard you use, just use it consistently. extrapolating from what can be seen to what can't is constantly used in science, I will use it as well.

The emboldened sentence is self-contradictory. (!)
And we are not talking about theoretical science at ground we are talking about a supernatural being that supposedly that seeks a relationship with its creation. That is the point in dispute.

Your prime directive seems to be.

1. God requires absolute proof or it is a meaningless contention.

Yes, that’s quite true in the sense that Almighty God is the All-sufficient Supreme Being, the creator and sustainer of all things and the ens realissimum - and yet bizarrely there can be no absolute proof! But non-believers see no reason to think there is any such being and so we settle for a much lower standard, which is that the claim must be factually true in general experience and not logically contradictory. But even that standard isn’t met!

2. Science requires absolutely nothing beyond speculation. You can know that everything will end (despite everything known to the contrary), but I can't know anything about the beginning (despite everything being consistent). On what basis is there a discussion that can take place with these ambiguous standards?

You are misrepresenting what I said. In no argument or statement of mine has it ever been stated that the world must end.

3. Inferential arguments are valid in every single subject ever discussed by man unless it is an aspect of those subjects that makes God more likely.

[/quote]


An inferential argument may be valid but that is not to say it is sound. I gave an example further up the page.

 

[Yadon]

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.

Quantum fluctuations are God?

 

[1robin]

That's only because you're really not familiar with what so many of the cosmologists are writing as I have about 10 books written by the actual researchers, plus there's so many articles in Scientific American that totally contradict what you're saying.

You are making a career out of claiming what you can't possibly know. You have no idea what level of education I have in any field. I have read far more than ten books on theoretical science. I have been to far more than ten academic discussion given by actual Phd's given at my and other universities. I have read transcripts of professional debates on the best theoretical science that exists. So much for my lack of knowledge.

To arrive at which moment, and who said anything about crossing an infinite expanse of time? I'm confused by the question.

This moment. How was that not obvious? A past infinite number of seconds can't be traversed to arrive at this current second. Infinite past time is logically incoherent.

Who said anything about an "infinite mass", and what does that have to do with what we're talking about?

You said natural infinites are possible. I gave representative examples of why some of the most common possible infinites are not possible. Time is not infinite and mass is not infinite, what exactly do you think is infinite and more importantly why?

Who said it has to be infinite in size, especially since cosmologists certainly don't assume as such? It's hypothetically possible that we maybe only one universe out of many.

If you employ multiple universes then you have first supposed things that have no evidence and worse can't possibly ever have any available to us. What makes it even more absurd is the positing of more universes makes God more likely. BTW the latest cosmology points to a finite time for any and all universes. Scientists who are theologically opposed to a finite universe have crammed al their hopes into that initial microsecond of time that cosmology has left ambiguous. The Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin’s Past-Finite Universe is independent of both that first microsecond and multiverse fantasies. If you propose multiple universes based on preference then you must posit an infinite number of them. That means all non-impossible realities will exist. God is not impossible. God must exist in at least one. If God exists in one then he must exist in all. Multiverses make God an absolute. There is no hope of escaping God or the finite in these tiny slivers of ambiguity left to the theologically motivated science enthusiast.

Who said energy has to be infinite in reference to size, nor is there the any assumption that energy as we know it goes back into infinity? Google "string theory".

So far you have denied energy, time, and mass are infinite. What in the world are you suggesting is infinite and why?

It is not I who have jumped to such a conclusion but you certainly have. I have made it clear that I don't know what caused this universe, but you claim you do know. Therefore, the "absurd statement" certainly isn't coming from me. And now you double down by claiming that there are "supernatural concepts" that are not bound by or accounted by natural law, and just what evidence do you have for such a statement?

I have never claimed I know that. You constantly claim to know what you can't. I said God is the logical conclusion to a logical deduction based on what is known. The cause of the universe must necessarily be non-material, independent of time, un imaginably powerful, unimaginably intelligent, Omni-present, and personal, etc... by philosophic deduction consistent will all known causal relationships. God is the best candidate (in fact the only) candidate known that meets all requirements that physics, cosmology, mathematics, and philosophy suggest. I however do not know for a certainty he is the answer. He is merely the best (by far) answer available.

There are quite a few concepts that have no dependence on the natural. Constants like gravitational, expansion, entropy and others have no natural dependence. Ascetic value, objective morality, in fact nothing in nature has an ultimate explanation for it's self within nature. A realm beyond the natural is a virtual certainty. Whether the Bible describes that world accurately is less certain but very likely.

The above is so terribly wrong as it is not I who have made statements based on assumptions, and I repeated have stated that I don't know what caused the universe. This is why it's all but impossible to have a discussion with you because you make one false assumption (such as what the scientific hypotheses really are and what they involve) after another (such as I supposedly jumping to assumptions), plus you continue to mischaracterize my position of "I don't know". If I don't know, then I don't know, so how is it that I'm the one who's supposedly jumping to conclusions, whereas you're making one assumption after another, after another, and after another?

I know you do not know. Things you have claimed can't be known even if true. Most do not even have good reasons to think possible. My response concerned your claims that I claimed to know. I do not, never have, nor ever thought I know for a certainty anything under discussion. My conclusions have been best fit, largest scope, most explanatory, and most consistent and have never been claims to certain fact. I am not going to debate your complaints that have no basis in fact. If you get around to actually posting evidence for multiverses, actual infinites, or anything else relevant I will discuss them.

 

[1robin]

What he's talking about is William Lane Craig's Kalaam argument. WLC argues, using Hilbert's infinite hotel paradox, that time can't be of an infinite past. That traversing the infinite past is impossible. I just wanted to give you the source of this premise many creationists are using today. There are some philosophers who have pointed out flaws in WLC's use of the paradox, but internet memes tend to die hard.

Craig is not he source. That argument goes back to Socrates at least. It has been tweaked along the way but adopted by many of histories greatest thinkers. It is still a valid concept among cosmologists and philosophers today. No one has ever done the slightest thing to dent it's logical coherence. It may not ultimately be true but it has no flaw in it's reasoning. BTW discrediting a source and therefor an argument is a genetic fallacy, especially when your source is incorrect. I also never use the hotel paradox in any argument. I have never liked it nor thought it productive.