INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[1robin]

For 1, How do you go from "If the universe has a cause of its existence" to "then that cause is non-material or abstract." to "therefore God exists" ???

For 2, Why not therefore invisible pink unicorns exist? It makes just as much sense to substitute any invisible entity that one cares to. What makes your invisible entity the correct invisible entity? Because you say so?

and for 3, Everything we know of has a cause and effect and they all apply to the material or known fields that effect the material, so non material cause and effects are not something we have knowledge of so cause does not apply here. You just can't start explaining about things you or anyone else has no knowledge of, it just makes you a pretender.

First let me say I appreciate your patience and the fact that you have answered in short simple sentences as that is the only way I will be able to respond to every one on the opposite side.

You first counterpoint concerns the one that I have already indicated is not an obvious deduction. What the argument says is that the universe has a cause and the cause can't be natural because nature did not exist. That only leaves two categories that can exist without the natural world. 1. An abstract concept like numbers and they are causally impotent and 2. A disembodied mind. The number 3 never created anything so abstracts are out and the fact something chose to act in the creation suggests a mind is the only possibility. This mind must be from our perspective more powerful and intelligent than the sums of each in the entire universe. It had to have access to all places and be outside of time because time did not exist either. That is where that argument ends. We take it a step further. It is not an illogical step, in fact it is the only step that can be taken at this time. Those descriptions are identical to the Biblical God recorded a long time before they knew what to fake if they were lying. In fact the creation story in Genesis 1:1 is the only creation story in any religion I am familiar with that accurately describes what we know to be true. All others have a God who creates something different out of something that exists all ready, or at least I don't know any exceptions. I will defend the previous steps as logical deductions and the last as very likely as it is the only candidate, at this time. A third option would be an unknown concept and that would be permissible but to rule out a perfectly adequate candidate in favor of the unknown is not science it is preference. By the way strings, multiverses, and abiogenesis are substantial scientific claims and they have no evidence what so ever and not even any potential for any.

Contention 2: There is no reason to think Pink unicorns exist. This is a common and shameful tactic. To compare something you do not like with something absurd in order to make the first appear to be absurd as well. 1. Even if unicorns existed the descriptions we have (made up) of them disqualifies them as a first cause. I can't believe I have to type this garbage. 2. No unicorn has written a 750,00 thousand page book that is the most studied and treasured book in human history. Unicorns did not predict thousands of things that were perfectly fulfilled. A perfect unicorn did not appear 2000years ago to hundreds and thousands and die on a cross while forgiving the men who wrongly nailed him there. I will no longer entertain claims this ridiculous in this discussion.

Contention 3. This is the only point you made that has any impact at all. You are basically saying that everything began to exist but came from nothing. A brilliant humanist and probably one of your heroes said something similar at one time. Back when "Scientists" mistakenly thought the universe eternal. He thought it was just there and that was all (hardly science). However when it was later fairly certain later that the universe did in fact begin to exist he was asked again. ""I have never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without cause"
http://www.everystudent.com/wires/universe.html
There are dozens and dozens of statements like this from your side indicating the insanity in the idea that nothing has any causal potential. Not to mention there is no known example of that very thing taking place, ever, not even in the quantum. It is pretty safe ground to make the "philosophical claim that all things that begin to exist must have a cause".

So we had two no shows and one that only served to obscure a very simple and clear principle that has no known exception.

 

[ArcNinja]

I apologize but am still busy today. I said I would start an in-depth discussion about the cosmological argument and proceed through it in detail. I only have time to present what it is about it that I claim.​

The Cosmological Argument
(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
(2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.
Therefore:
(3) The universe has a cause of its existence.
(4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is non-material or abstract.

Therefore:

(5) God exists.

The first four are simple deductions that I can't imagine any one unburdened by presuppositions could possibly deny. The last is a possible conclusion but for this debate I will claim the conclusion to only be a entity with properties very similar to the God described by the Bible. Please list very shortly and simply which steps you disagree with (if any) and at first at least give a simple explanation of why. There were about 5 people who dismissed the argument and this is an attempt to deal with their objections in a practical manner. Thank you.


AGNOSTIC75 As I have said I will no longer respond to posts about homosexuality in this "evidence for God" thread.

Most people know by now that the Cosmological argument is a joke.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

It's actually quite amazing how many different ways one can express the same logical fallacies and inconsistencies.

 

[PolyHedral]

That only leaves two categories that can exist without the natural world. 1. An abstract concept like numbers and they are causally impotent and 2. A disembodied mind.

Minds don't do anything without bodies. Why is a disembodied mind abstract?

 

[1robin]

This is nonsensical if time doesn't already exist, which is the opposite of what you are proposing.

This is so nonsensical it has no known exception and is taught as true in every school with a philosophy dept. Of all the counter arguments to this issue this is the very last one I would ever have used. If you disagree then fine show why your claim is valid. To declare it is nonsense is to tell Plato, Aquinas, Parmenides', Avicenna, Philiponnus, Kalam, Leibniz, Eddington, Newton, Sandage ....etc..adinfinitum they are all full of nonsense. That is a check I doubt arrogance alone will cash.

Time in a near-singularity is highly non-linear. It might have had a beginning at all; or may have multiple beginnings because time got split into multiple fragments for whatever reason.

This is the kind of stuff Penrose said was an excuse for not having a good theory when discussing Hawking's M-theory. If matter exists and is continuous then time is linear and only its rate may vary. Why is it you think claims like this about what happened 14.9 billion years ago, billions of light years away, and dealing with forces we can't comprehend let alone understand is more reliable than anything a pure guess. Scientists can't cure cancer, they build bridges that ripple like accordions, dams that fail, space shuttles that blow up, and can't predict the weather over 48 hours in advance accurately yet they know exactly what happened 10^-43 seconds after the big bang. My claims are very simple and easily can be seen to apply to everything and have no known exceptions. They are not complex sounding guesses wrapped up in a scientific terminology wrapper and declared to be a theory. The same can be said about string theory, multiverses and oscillating verses. It is white noise used to drown out an inconvenient likely hood, has no evidence beyond wishful thinking, and not even a potentiality for any. Speculation is good I suppose but when absolute shot in the dark guess are used to combat simple truths like cause and effect they cease to serve any useful function. Where did you get this gem anyway? It does not appear on any list of counter claims to the cosmological argument I have ever seen. This was not a logical counter argument, it was a hyperbolic hail Mary guess of unknown applicability even if true.

I do not want to appear to everly critical of science. My entire family are engineers, (one for the Apollo program, and two DOD) and I love science but almost resent fantasy dressed in scientific garb. Unlike the theoretical, grant hungry, camera hog guesticians, my family has to produce things that work and the tremendous fallability of science is obvious in those cases, unlike the theoguessical community.

 

[1robin]

Why must there be a first cause? The universe could simply always be & always have been.

After all, if you can posit this for a supreme being, it can be done for the universe.
But if there must be a first cause for the universe, why needn't there be a cause for a supreme being?

That does not make any sense. Instead of saying why this is impossible I will simply say that the modern cosmological consensus is that the universe is finite. The latest cosmology bears that out and the steady state or eternal model is fast falling out of fashion. One of the most reliable and comprehensive study to show this is the: Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin’s Past-Finite Universe. It was designed to be simple and leave out loop holes and has gone a long way to settle the issue for good.
There is nothing that can be equated between God and the universe. The universe is what is called a contingent reality and God is referred to as a necessary (non contingent) being (look up modes of being for in depth explanations). Just one example of the difference is that the universe is subject to thermodynamics which means it would have dispersed all of its matter and energy evenly an infinite time ago if eternal. Every indication I know of suggest the Universe is infinitely younger than eternal. Even most secular scientists have granted this. The only escape from this God necessitating universe is to invent multiverses for which no evidence exists or even can and even that would only kick the can down the road a bit.

There are many premises to choose from, but we can't know if anyone is true.

I agree, I can't say I know that the Judeo Christian God is the uncaused first cause. However it is almost a fact that an uncaused first cause that has almost identical properties as the God described by men thousands of years before they would have known what needed to be faked does in fact exist. I am in the process of putting together lists of hundreds of world class scientists on both sides that say the same things I have but I have had limited time lately.

 

[1robin]

We all decided to leave it up to Oprah.

She could probably have bout the universe but creating it is even beyond all mighty Oprah me-thinks.

 

[1robin]

I skipped the other 34 pages, but I agree with this post.

I expect this thread I skipped has amply shown why the first cause argument is a) very disputable, b) highly irrational and c) not a proof.

This post is diametrically opposed to most modern cosmology. Please see my response to the post you mentioned. Again let me restate the argument all but proves that a being that has Biblical God like qualities is a necessary source for what we see in reality however saying it is therefore the Judeao Christian God is not an absolute, only a logical conclusion.

 

[1robin]

Most people know by now that the Cosmological argument is a joke.

Only if you first rule out modern cosmology, and then actually present an argument that is even theoretically possible for why things with no know exceptions after all do have them. Then eliminate reason, common sense, and the logical deductions of the most brilliant men of history from the Greeks to M.I.T. Was that supposed to be an argument? This was the equivalent of the 12 year old "Oh yea well you’re a stupid head (Plato, Kalam, Sandage etc...)" Unless you can pick up the argumentation about a thousand fold I can't justify spending valuable time on this garbage.

 

[Revoltingest]

Because it's a supreme being. Everything needs a cause except for what set the first domino in motion.

I could just as easily say the universe needs no cause "because it's a universe".
How would anyone prove which of us has the correct premise?

There must be one exception. If there wasn't an exception, then there would be an endless line of dominos because you'll always need one to knock down the next.

Why can't there be a universe without beginning or end?
Why do you reserve this property solely for a supreme being?

 

[Revoltingest]

This post is diametrically opposed to most modern cosmology.

Cosmology cannot speak to the nature of the universe before the big bang, nor to anything else that lies outside our observations.
The "universe" could (& likely does) have much more to it than a mere singularity expanding into what we observe at the moment.

 

[1robin]

Minds don't do anything without bodies. Why is a disembodied mind abstract?

Finally an actual logical claim. I will not counter you in depth here because this is a subject that I am not sufficiently educated with. I do know there is a lot of testing and evidence that suggests the mind is not solely the brain. There are thousands of after death experiences that argue the point as well. I dismiss over 90% of them but there are a few that I can't find a flaw in. One was a woman who not only was put into a brain dead condition of purpose but has all the blood drained from it for a significant time. She could describe things that happened in the room and other places with perfect accuracy. It is a well-documented case. There are a few dozen others that I find compelling but I can't record the history of each and why I find them reliable in a post but they can be found in countless places on the net. I remember one where a kid described his grandfather as a child even though he died before the kid was born and there were no pictures anywhere of the grandfather at any age. I am sure a philosopher would be better able to explain the mind brain relationship and I will look into it if I have time. This was certainly a much better counter argument than your acrobatic gyrating time one.

 

[Revoltingest]

I have an idea!
Let's define the "supreme universe":
- It always was.
- It is.
- It always will be.
- It's the biggest biggie possible among universes, ie, nothing is greater.

This means that no "supreme being" could exist because it would be greater than the "supreme universe", which is impossible.

My illogic is irrefutable!

 

[1robin]

Cosmology cannot speak to the nature of the universe before the big bang, nor to anything else that lies outside our observations.
The "universe" could (& likely does) have much more to it than a mere singularity expanding into what we observe at the moment.

Well I disagree to some extant with that, but the only thing I am relying on cosmology for is to establish the universe is finite. Philosophy and reality is what illuminates the rest. The big contention within this argument has been the steady state or Eternal universe versus the finite universe because everybody knows things that begin to exist have a cause. Finally the issue is getting close to being conclusively established as a finite nature to the universe. The rest is simple deduction except for the final step and it is perfectly reasonable itself.

 

[1robin]

Robert Jastrow(b. 1925) PhD Theoretical Physics recipient of NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement Amazon LoC GP

At present, science has no satisfactory answer to the question of the origin of life on the earth. Perhaps the appearance of life on the earth is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that view, but their choices are limited; either life was created on the earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific understanding, or it evolved on our planet spontaneously, through chemical reactions occurring in nonliving matter lying on the surface of the planet. The first theory places the question of the origin of life beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. It is a statement of faith in the power of a Supreme Being not subject to the laws of science. The second theory is also an act of faith. The act of faith consists in assuming that the scientific view of the origin of life is correct, without having concrete evidence to support that belief. Until the Sun Dies (1977) pp. 62-63

The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy ... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. God and the Astronomers (1992) pp.106-107

 

[1robin]

I have an idea!
Let's define the "supreme universe":
- It always was.
- It is.
- It always will be.
- It's the biggest biggie possible among universes, ie, nothing is greater.

This means that no "supreme being" could exist because it would be greater than the "supreme universe", which is impossible.

My illogic is irrefutable!

And meaningless.

 

[Revoltingest]

And meaningless.

Exactly my point!

 

[McBell]

And meaningless.

Sad that you fail to see how it equally applies to your argument...

 

[McBell]

Exactly my point!

But HIS presentation isn't meaningless simply because he used the "G" word...

 

[McBell]

Robert Jastrow(b. 1925) PhD Theoretical Physics recipient of NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement Amazon LoC GP

At present, science has no satisfactory answer to the question of the origin of life on the earth. Perhaps the appearance of life on the earth is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that view, but their choices are limited; either life was created on the earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific understanding, or it evolved on our planet spontaneously, through chemical reactions occurring in nonliving matter lying on the surface of the planet. The first theory places the question of the origin of life beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. It is a statement of faith in the power of a Supreme Being not subject to the laws of science. The second theory is also an act of faith. The act of faith consists in assuming that the scientific view of the origin of life is correct, without having concrete evidence to support that belief. Until the Sun Dies (1977) pp. 62-63

The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy ... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. God and the Astronomers (1992) pp.106-107

Ah yes, the ever popular "science cannot explain it, therefore God exists"...