INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[1robin]

What makes you think that philosophers and theologians are capable of finding out about a situation about which no-one can obtain any information?

That might be true but it is sure not provable and there exists countless amounts of evidence to suggest what I said has merit. Just concerning the theological side of things. Think of the millions and millions of claims to ESP, the paranormal, miracles, angels, demons, intuition, prophecy, telepathy, revelation etc etc. You are basically deciding that not one of these claims has ever been valid. I am very skeptical (and if you want to see rabid skepticism read the procedure the Catholics use to verify possession or miracles, it is brutal) and would dismiss 99.9% of these claims. I however am not arrogant enough to think that a concept that produced over 2000 prophecies in a single book that are fulfilled in eerie detail is devoid of all validity. I do not have enough faith to dismiss God. As for philosophy it is true that their conclusions might be true or false. However there is no reason, as there is with natural law, to think the principals involved are dependent on nature. They seem to be a part of a law or system that supersedes the material. If you PREFER to believe that cause and effect end with the big bang then have at it. I agree with most philosophers in believing philosophy is independent in many respects from mere materialism. For example the statement that "nothing exists" is true, even if nothing exists.

This "we do not know anything about this, therefore god" nonsense gets tiresome.

Since science practices a science of the gaps quite rabidly you must imagine how I feel. They posit science at points where there is absolutely no scientific evidence what so ever. God has strong evidence yet excluded because it is God and not multiverse fantasy that are being considered. The God of the Bible would produce exactly what we have, the dominance of nature in 99.9% of reality with very rare but unavoidable cases where only God fits. If you find that fact inconvenient then ignore it at your preference, and peril. The universe built from the Bible and the one we KNOW exist are identical, convenient or not.

Saying something is consistent with god tells us nothing about whether there is a god.

That is a very relative and ambiguous statement. If science needs something identical to God to explain the universe and God is the only current candidate that argues very strongly in favor of God. Alone this might be unconvincing but combined with literally millions of other lines of reasoning (some good, some weak) it more than justifies faith. BTW for some reason God demands faith. Faith precludes proof. So strong evidence but no proof is exactly what I would expect. These same methods are used to derive the concept of dark matter (a very ambiguous, undefinable, and undetectable substance with which I agree exists), why are the same methods invalid for positing a God? I already know why, but asked it anyway.

 

[camanintx]

This is an example of what I mean. I really want to know how you can claim that a being who is said to have produced the most cherished and studied book in human history, the most universally recognized example of benevolent behavior in human history (who has more textual attestation than any individual of any kind in ancient history), and a concept that answers millions of questions in science and philosophy. Not to mention there does not even exist an argument even possible, to prove he is not likely to exist, the archeological evidence, historical corroborations, prophecy, or a thousand other things. However all the boundless, fruitless, timeless, whateverless universes are all reasonable options. Even if there was as little evidence for God as these other cosmological faith based guesses why are you not ruling out both or neither? Even if no God has ever existed there are far better and far more arguments for his existence than for cosmological fantasy. Why the double standards? I am bewildered by the mindset.

Your only evidence that mind can exist independent of matter is a 2,000 year old book written about someone who may or may not have existed? No wonder you're bewildered. As for your claims there are no arguments against God's existence and that other cosmological theories are lacking evidence, I suggest you learn how to use Google.

 

[camanintx]

I however am not arrogant enough to think that a concept that produced over 2000 prophecies in a single book that are fulfilled in eerie detail is devoid of all validity.

So you believe Nostradamus was a prophet?

 

[1robin]

Your only evidence that mind can exist independent of matter is a 2,000 year old book written about someone who may or may not have existed? No wonder you're bewildered. As for your claims there are no arguments against God's existence and that other cosmological theories are lacking evidence, I suggest you learn how to use Google.

I do not think a single thing I said is equal to anything you claim I did. I did not say there was evidence that a disembodied mind exists. There however is much evidence. IMO every atom in the universe came from what philosophers say had to be either an abstract concept like numbers or a mind. Abstracts do not create and that kind of narrows it down. One thing is certain natural law did not create natural law. That is a fact. As for Google it is quite populated with studies showing that mind is greater than the sum of its material parts. And that is only a human mind. I also got this idea from debates in 2012, the Bible does not really spell this out at all. I said, in fact I will quote me

Not to mention there does not even exist an argument even possible, to prove he is not likely to exist

I said nothing about arguments used or misused as evidence. I meant you can't give me a fact that makes God less likely to exist. The best you can do is "claim" you think something is an argument against a single interpretation of a single Biblical concept. That says nothing about God's existence even if true and most of the time they aren't.

So you did not answer the one question I asked, made 3 inaccurate statements about my claims, and one partially accurate claim if looked at in a certain light, but that has zero effect on whether Gdo exists or not.

 

[godnotgod]

That is pseudo-philosophic nonsense. If I went and broke every straight stick in existence the crooked ones are not going to blink out of existence.

If there is one trait I were asked to identify you with, it would be that you are consistently illogical. Your erroneous conclusions are a result of the erroneously-based assumptions and premises you base your arguments on, which direct and determine them.

First of all, you could not break all straight sticks in the universe because there are none. You have misunderstood entirely what I have said. There is not 'straight' over here, and 'crooked' over there. As I said above:

'These are conceptual dualities that we superimpose over nature. The universe is neither straight nor crooked, and yet both at the same time.'

'Straight' and 'crooked' are both relative and a continuum, but these values exist only in the mind. Nothing in the universe is either straight or crooked. You are confusing reality with the words used to describe it.

A stick or a river can be relatively straight, but both are also relatively crooked at the same time.

This principle is only true if two things are necessary to make a whole.

Two things are ALWAYS necessary to make a whole, but all duality exists only in the mind. That is the nature of the manifested world we see. Reality is always One.

You are confusing epistemology with ontology again. Every stick in the universe could be crooked (in fact in nature this is literally a fact) however to recognize they are crooked it is necessary to compare them with something. It is about how we recognize things not how things come to be what they are.

If you identify 'every stick in the universe as crooked' as a fact, you recognize it as such because you have 'straight' as a reference, and the fact that you need to compare them to determine 'straightness' or 'crookedness' is how we recognize things. So 'crooked' is not a fact, but a concept. The fact is that a stick is what it is. In fact, we cannot even call it a stick!

Quantum Mechanics contradicts you: how we recognize things IS how they come to be what they are!

A little girl once asked someone: 'What color is that tree?', to which they replied: 'It is the color that it is.' When put this way, we see things as they actually are, rather than via the concepts superimposed over them by the thinking mind.

God could mandate that only evil exists and it would be evil. We however could not recognize it unless good existed to compare it with.

Heh...that would then make God evil as well, but since no one would know they are evil because there was no good to compare to, how can you even say it is evil? But for God to make everything evil, he himself would have to have something to compare to, to begin with.

For God to mandate everything as evil, he would have to have a concept of evil, and that concept would necessarily have to come from him, making God evil. But we know God is good, and cannot be evil, don't we?

You cannot have all evil or all good. It is not possible. However, what constitutes what we see as good and evil together is an intrinsic absolute, as symbolized by the Yin/Yang symbol. When understood as a single whole, there is neither all good nor all evil. They are COMPLIMENTARY aspects. You see them in opposition, and that is why I say that the resulting conflict is only in your mind.
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[camanintx]

I do not think a single thing I said is equal to anything you claim I did. I did not say there was evidence that a disembodied mind exists.

I propose a mind that is nonmaterial existed.

I said, in fact I will quote me I said nothing about arguments used or misused as evidence. I meant you can't give me a fact that makes God less likely to exist. The best you can do is "claim" you think something is an argument against a single interpretation of a single Biblical concept. That says nothing about God's existence even if true and most of the time they aren't.

Not to mention there does not even exist an argument even possible, to prove he is not likely to exist, the archeological evidence, historical corroborations, prophecy, or a thousand other things.

Even if no God has ever existed there are far better and far more arguments for his existence than for cosmological fantasy. Why the double standards? I am bewildered by the mindset.

Be careful what you say about being misquoted.

There however is much evidence. IMO every atom in the universe came from what philosophers say had to be either an abstract concept like numbers or a mind. Abstracts do not create and that kind of narrows it down. One thing is certain natural law did not create natural law. That is a fact.

Your opinion about where atoms come from would carry more weight if you backed them up with evidence. Quantum physics tells us that matter can be created without abstract concepts or a mind.

It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations - physics-math - 20 November 2008 - New Scientist

As for Google it is quite populated with studies showing that mind is greater than the sum of its material parts. And that is only a human mind. I also got this idea from debates in 2012, the Bible does not really spell this out at all.

While the mind is certainly greater than the sum of it material parts (that's what emergent means), it also cannot exist independently of it either.

So you did not answer the one question I asked, made 3 inaccurate statements about my claims, and one partially accurate claim if looked at in a certain light, but that has zero effect on whether Gdo exists or not.

To answer your irrelevant question, I only rule out theories which are not supported by reality.

 

[1robin]

Be careful what you say about being misquoted.

I do not get what that was all about. I think you were saying this statement:

I propose a mind that is nonmaterial existed.

Makes this next statement false:

I do not think a single thing I said is equal to anything you claim I did. I did not say there was evidence that a disembodied mind exists

It doesn't. You said I claimed evidence exists. It does but that is not what I said as the fact the word evidence does not exist in that first statement proves. I proposed a concept I did not mention evidence.
The other two statements are even more obvious. I have no idea what you were doing.

Your opinion about where atoms come from would carry more weight if you backed them up with evidence. Quantum physics tells us that matter can be created without abstract concepts or a mind.
It's confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations - physics-math - 20 November 2008 - New Scientist

This is completely irrelevant. NOTHING comes from nothing. Nothing, literally NO-THING is causally impotent. I am familiar with this concept so did not look up the link. However notice it is not a fact, it states that if confirmed. However let's say it is true. You notice this is not creation from nothing, this is creation from energy fluctuations. Where did the energy fluctuations come from? When I and cosmologists say nothing existed at T=0, that means nothing. No vacuum, no space, no energy, no matter, NOTHING. Why are you trying so hard and stretching something not even confirmed from a science that is little understood and practically brand new to enable the only eternal hope to be denied? Again I just do not get the motivation and preference.

While the mind is certainly greater than the sum of it material parts (that's what emergent means), it also cannot exist independently of it either.

Unlike others I do not like discussing things in depth that are little known. You said science can't evaluate what lies beyond nature. However you are not a scientist, yet are doing it anyway (I assume your not a scientist, correct?) You stated something true of biological finite beings. The supernatural by definition is not bound by natural precedent. We are both talking about something that can't be quantified. However the way I am looking at it reveals that only two possible candidates exist and one exists necessarily given current science and philosophy. Of course that is not proof but it is reasonable and undeniable deductive logic. You do not like this possibility and so are extrapolating things true about the natural and mandating the supernatural (which science can't access by your own statement) must be consistent with it. There is no logic behind that, that needs to be denied. That makes no sense.

To answer your irrelevant question, I only rule out theories which are not supported by reality.

You mean like multiverses, abiogenesis, and creation out of nothing by nothing.

 

[1robin]

First of all, you could not break all straight sticks in the universe because there are none. You have misunderstood entirely what I have said. There is not 'straight' over here, and 'crooked' over there. As I said above:

So you just proved your own claim wrong. You said crooked sticks do not exist unless there is a straight one. It is an absolute objective fact crooked sticks exist and by your admission there are no straight ones. There for your hypothesis is proven wrong by the one who made it.

'Straight' and 'crooked' are both relative and a continuum, but these values exist only in the mind. Nothing in the universe is either straight or crooked. You are confusing reality with the words used to describe it.

No, the words are descriptors of objective facts. Things are indeed cold and hot once a reference is selected. Things are high or low once a reference is selected. Things are right or wrong once a reference is selected, based on God. Who alone has the power and the ability to determine the reference point because it is his nature that mandates morality? He is the reference point. We can't. Our doing so is like declaring bends greater than 5 degrees are crooked sticks. Why 5 degrees? Without God is theft and murder wrong or just socially unfashionable? God can set the bar because he is to origination of all truth. We can't or at least can't do so with any assurance we are right.

A stick or a river can be relatively straight, but both are also relatively crooked at the same time.

The metaphor was not 1 to 1 and this is getting silly. God can be perfect and/or he can determine the perfect reference point. I understand what you are saying but it has very little application in a discussion about God and morality.

Two things are ALWAYS necessary to make a whole, but all duality exists only in the mind. That is the nature of the manifested world we see. Reality is always One.

This sounds like something the hippies would invent at a Hendrix concert. Your premise seems to be that nothing exists unless it's opposite does. Light and dark. Up and down. Is existence true? It's opposite would be non-existence. However non existence by definition does not exist and by your premise there for existence can't exist. I do not find this true or meaningful. Alternately you say that things are actually only degrees of one concept. Is right a degree of wrong? Is heading east a degree of going west? Is gravity a degree of levitation? When a reference point is introduced as with God then things are no longer degrees of each other. An action may be a degree of wrong or a degree of right but not right isn't a degree of wrong. That is also why God is necessary for actual morality. Without him there is no objective reference point and actions are degrees of preference or desirability. You system of degrees produces logical chaos and ambivalence, as usual the positing of God clears up the meaninglessness of reality without him.

If you identify 'every stick in the universe as crooked' as a fact, you recognize it as such because you have 'straight' as a reference, and the fact that you need to compare them to determine 'straightness' or 'crookedness' is how we recognize things. So 'crooked' is not a fact, but a concept. The fact is that a stick is what it is. In fact, we cannot even call it a stick!

The statements that "The fact is that a stick is what it is" and "we cannot even call it a stick" are mutually exclusive so by philosophy one must be wrong. This logical incoherence is unavoidable when God is removed from the equation and symptomatic of your entire argument. You rip God from reality leaving gaping holes that must be filled by concocting the strangest theories and reasoning, why not just leave God alone and then no holes must be obscured with bad logic? If only two sticks exist. One straight and one crooked. If I burn the straight one, does the crooked one blink out of existence or become straight? You are actually proving my original point. That to know something is crooked we need something straight. However you are using that incorrectly. A straight one is only necessary for us to comprehend that another is crooked. It is not necessary for a crooked one to exist and be in fact crooked. Again you are confusing epistemology with ontology. Perception with foundation. Murder is objectively wrong given God mandates it. The fact of the universal truth that we should not murder is the straight standard that murder is the crooked exception for. Without a belief in God we lose the straight "should" and murder is no longer PERCIEVD to be wrong even though it is still wrong in fact. Without God, a philosopher said "Humanity is made of crooked timber of which no straight thing has ever been fashioned. Without God there is no reason murder is wrong. Without belief in God there is no "should" to "INDICATE" murder is wrong even though it is. With a belief in a existing God murder is wrong and we can perceive that fact.

Quantum Mechanics contradicts you: how we recognize things IS how they come to be what they are!

I have no idea what that means. We knew what things were long before we knew how they came to be. In fact we still don’t know. Quantum mechanics is new and relatively little understood. Whatever it means is little known at this time. It seemss to be used as some kind of "I do not have an answer but Quantum Mechanics sounds intelligent and is so obscure that no one will know if it does not do what you claim".

A little girl once asked someone: 'What color is that tree?', to which they replied: 'It is the color that it is.' When put this way, we see things as they actually are, rather than via the concepts superimposed over them by the thinking mind.

Again epistemology versus ontology confusion.

Heh...that would then make God evil as well, but since no one would know they are evil because there was no good to compare to, how can you even say it is evil? But for God to make everything evil, he himself would have to have something to compare to, to begin with.
For God to mandate everything as evil, he would have to have a concept of evil, and that concept would necessarily have to come from him, making God evil. But we know God is good, and cannot be evil, don't we?
You cannot have all evil or all good. It is not possible. However, what constitutes what we see as good and evil together is an intrinsic absolute, as symbolized by the Yin/Yang symbol. When understood as a single whole, there is neither all good nor all evil. They are COMPLIMENTARY aspects. You see them in opposition, and that is why I say that the resulting conflict is only in your mind.

This is exactly what I said. Any claim that God is evil is meaningless. The reference point is God's nature. God's nature determines universal moral truth. His nature produces only moral "right". We may not like it. Some people believe they can even judge him. However that is meaningless given that we have no superior reference point to judge from. There for the argument God is evil is meaningless. Your moral ambivalence and ambiguity produces the moral chaos that results in abortion as a sacred right to kill the innocent for our sins, and the refusal to allow the killing of a convicted murderer. God clears all these things up. His existence defines morality absolutely. His denial uncouples morality from any objective standard and we flounder around in the dark saying things like you have to justify whatever it is we wish to be true.

 

[1robin]

I have a question for any secular or theistic science enthusiast. I believe the big bang is a fact of cosmology; however the very next question in my mind is where did it occur? I would have thought that would be easily determined. It also seems like it would have produced a great void in the universe somewhere as everything there is said to currently be expanding outward at an increasing rate. Where is the point of origin? I have never even heard the question asked nor an answer attempted. Does anyone know?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I does not speak to it at all. That is an argument from science. By all means keep building new fantasies as fast as facts destroy the old ones, heck spend millions investigating them. I not joking I am all for it. I do not fear science. However as of now the evidence for a finite single universe is vastly superior to any other model. Why if and only if evidence suggests God strongly is anything devoid of evidence or with vastly less evidence always adopted instead of the most reliable consluions. Science oriented people lose all objectivity the minute anything leans towards God. I do not mind the argument or theory but the double standards are apparent and a little frustrating. Ignore typeOs I am in a rush. Have a good one.

Okay first of all, even if the universe is finite, the most reliable conclusion isn't "god did it," that's not actually an answer to anything. Now, if you could demonstrate the existence of some sort of entity, you might be off to a decent start. But you're still nowhere near being able to assert that it's your god who did it all. I mean, I could just as well say, "the invisible purple unicorn who lives in my basement created everything we see" and we'd both be in the same boat.

Secondly, the most reliable conclusion should be the one that has the best evidence in its favour. In every case we've found so far, the best evidence is a natural explanation. So far, everything we've discovered about the universe has been explainable by natural descriptions. And if we don't have one, the answer is "I don't know." We don't just insert mysteries (i.e. gods) into it because we can't explain a mystery - you're just compounding the mystery and not actually coming up with any answers. Science-oriented people tend to dismiss your "god did it" answers because some of us don't see it as an actual answer to anything. It's just filling in gaps with mysteries. We don't learn anything that way.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I have a question for any secular or theistic science enthusiast. I believe the big bang is a fact of cosmology; however the very next question in my mind is where did it occur? I would have thought that would be easily determined. It also seems like it would have produced a great void in the universe somewhere as everything there is said to currently be expanding outward at an increasing rate. Where is the point of origin? I have never even heard the question asked nor an answer attempted. Does anyone know?

Your question shows a fundamental lack of understanding of what the big bang is. I'd suggest reading some introductory texts on inflationary cosmology to obtain a basic understanding of the theory.

 

[SkepticThinker]

You are right that science should consider its self, done when it gets to time=0 and let the philosophers and theologians take over. Unfortunately that is not what they do. Since what we have is so consistent with God they must produce anything regardless of evidence or logic to leave a window open for a non-God necessary universe. That is fine; spend billions looking into any fantasy they wish. I do not fear science and if some conclusive scientific reason to believe God nonexistent can be found then I would be a fool to not follow it. However that is not what we have. We have science that indicates God is almost a logical necessity. We find complexity of an unimaginable scale. Information composed of billions of bits in specific order, decoding systems tuned to resolve and apply that information. We have an abundance of life and biological principles that have no exception indicating life only comes from life. All this points to God or something very similar. Philosophy bears this out, theology as well. This is where the double standards come in.

This is nothing more than an argument from incredulity. What you're essentially saying is, "Everything I see is so complex, I can't imagine how it could have all come about naturally, so it must have been created/caused by the god I believe in." (And I might add what I said earlier, where this god would have to be even more complex than this complex world it supposedly created, but you apparently just ignore that problem.) And then you turn around and claim scientists are working with fantasies. I mean, talk about double standards.

You rightly claim that science is almost impotent "before" t=0 yet then posit some scientific alternative any way that has no evidence and is IMO an incoherent concept but let's say it is logical. What I object to is the allowance for this unbounded, unfunded, fairyland, ambiguous universe, yet your total allowance for God. God is a much more reliable and evidenced hypothesis. Why is it that primarily only in the areas where science really opens the door to God are scientists so resistant to God but so open to things that have no evidence whatever? Things invented by speculation, even things that as far as we know can't be true. It seems anything is preferable to even allowing God to be considered. This is strange or would be if God did not exists and predict this exact blindness in humanity. Is it because they resent God, or accountability, do they only consider scientific type data valid, is it coincidence. Why are they only interested is obscuring the obvious if it is consistent with God? Whatever the reason it is logically invalid and reveals much. We should (as they insist unless inconvenient) we should go with what we know. What we know is perfectly consistent with God. BY all means speculate and investigate but be consistent in conclusions.

No, it's because "god did it" doesn't answer anything and it's not demonstrable. We wouldn't know anything about anything if we did that every time we found something we couldn't immediately explain.

Let's just get right down to it then. Please demonstrate the "much more reliable and evidenced hypothesis" of god you keep asserting. (And please don't repeat that logical argument you tried to use before where your premises contain your conclusions.)

Not necessarily. I propose a mind that is nonmaterial existed. I do not have the education to explain how complex that concept would be. The ones who do say it is very simple. It can do complex things (the same way a shovel can) but it is complex. If you disagree there is no way to settle the issue.
I do not know if simplicity is more probable than complexity in a world view that allows for God. I do however not think disorder capable of producing significant complexity. That is fundamental.

And again, you propose something for which there is no evidence (and in fact, the evidence we do have shows that minds are products of brains). What were you saying about scientists again?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I have a question for any secular or theistic science enthusiast. I believe the big bang is a fact of cosmology; however the very next question in my mind is where did it occur? I would have thought that would be easily determined. It also seems like it would have produced a great void in the universe somewhere as everything there is said to currently be expanding outward at an increasing rate. Where is the point of origin? I have never even heard the question asked nor an answer attempted. Does anyone know?

This question is kind of nonsensical, since the big bang didn't happen inside the Universe - the big bang was the Universe. Imagine that you're inside a bag, and the bag is extremely compacted, and then filled with air. There is no specific point inside the bag where the expansion occurred out from - it was the inside of the bag itself that was expanding.

That's my understanding of it, anyway.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Hey I T. You are giving correct current scientific evidence, the universe is spreading out at an increasing rate. The logical result of this is not good for us or a logical God and if you’re saying your theology is consistent with this then you may want to rethink it. If natural law is allowed to continue in its present direction then not too long from now everything will be almost infinitely separated. Every atom will exist as far from any other as possible. I would have to question any deity that would have planned and allowed that to occur. What is the point? This God would be capricious, inept, and insane from our perspective. Why build a universe that fails to be a purposefull universe?

The Bible says that God will abolish the current state of nature and reinstitute the perfect state it was intended to have. A universe that is an infinite expanse of dust is not in a Biblical future. The Bible does not get into as much detail about this as I would like but it is clear than everything is remade, "behold I make all things new". The Earth is burned to a crisp and then remade, perfectly. That is where heaven’s "headquarters’ will be. Since this does not allow for you always expanding universe I can just imagine the redaction that has taken place with revelations.

For the rest you are assuming that if God sat around and only made the universe a few billions years ago that is a problem. Philosophers have demonstrated that this is simply not true.

1. God exists independent of time. It has little or no effect or relevance on him. That is why the thousand years are a day and vice versa.
2. There was no time "before" the big bang that anyone had to wait out. Cosmology and Biblical cosmology both claim that God created time, matter, and space at the big bang. Time did not exist "before then".
3. It is also a logical IMPOSSABILITY that time is infinite. That is naturally incoherent self-refuting concept unless you appeal to fantasy and science fiction.
4. Even if time existed for eternity, and if God sat around for eternity and then decided to make everything, that is still not a problem. That would only mean something for a being with either limited time or ability. You can say you would not have done so yourself, but to say God should not have, is a meaningless statement.

So in summary the Bible's "In the beginning (time), God created the heavens (space), and the Earth (matter) is an accurate description of the best current cosmology and is consistent with an almost intuitive cosmological instinct in humans. If your theology suggests infinite time or an infinite universe then it might be right, or might be wrong but is certainly against known natural law and the most reliable current cosmology.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you asserting that Genesis is an accurate account of our current understanding of cosmology? Really?

 

[1robin]

This question is kind of nonsensical, since the big bang didn't happen inside the Universe - the big bang was the Universe. Imagine that you're inside a bag, and the bag is extremely compacted, and then filled with air. There is no specific point inside the bag where the expansion occurred out from - it was the inside of the bag itself that was expanding.

That's my understanding of it, anyway.

Well that was very unsatisfying. I want coordinates. I have always heard that it started as a singularity. I would think singularities exist at some place. As for balloons, air must enter the balloon from somewhere but even if not, the center of the balloon can be calculated. If everything is flying apart from the singularity then why can't we just plot a reverse trajectory? It may have to do with horizons. I don't know.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That might be true but it is sure not provable and there exists countless amounts of evidence to suggest what I said has merit. Just concerning the theological side of things. Think of the millions and millions of claims to ESP, the paranormal, miracles, angels, demons, intuition, prophecy, telepathy, revelation etc etc. You are basically deciding that not one of these claims has ever been valid. I am very skeptical (and if you want to see rabid skepticism read the procedure the Catholics use to verify possession or miracles, it is brutal) and would dismiss 99.9% of these claims. I however am not arrogant enough to think that a concept that produced over 2000 prophecies in a single book that are fulfilled in eerie detail is devoid of all validity.

What does one (ESP, NDE's, telepathy) have to do with the other (the validity of the Bible)?

(And yes, I think people are quite capable of making things up and/or convincing themselves into thinking they saw something they didn't. It happens all the time. How about all the people who claim to have been abducted by aliens?)

Over 2000 prophecies that are fulfilled in eerie detail? Now you're just making stuff up.

Since science practices a science of the gaps quite rabidly you must imagine how I feel. They posit science at points where there is absolutely no scientific evidence what so ever. God has strong evidence yet excluded because it is God and not multiverse fantasy that are being considered. The God of the Bible would produce exactly what we have, the dominance of nature in 99.9% of reality with very rare but unavoidable cases where only God fits. If you find that fact inconvenient then ignore it at your preference, and peril. The universe built from the Bible and the one we KNOW exist are identical, convenient or not.

Again you seem to be making the claim that Genesis matches our current cosmological understanding of the universe, when it actually doesn't.

Where are you getting this from? I guess if you attempt to interpret it in that light, and shoehorn it into our current understanding, you could make anything fit. But that still doesn't make Genesis an accurate scientific account of anything.

 

[1robin]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you asserting that Genesis is an accurate account of our current understanding of cosmology? Really?

I think it is consistent with a common sense interpretation of Genesis but that has NOTHING to do with my claims you are responding to. In my whole post I only mentioned one verse from Genesis and yes that verse is perfectly accurate. If you will address the points I made we can afterward discuss Genesis and cosmology. I imagine whatever you think is inconsistent with Genesis and cosmology is only concerning one very hyper literal interpretation (among many) not Genesis its self, but we can discuss that when you respond to my post. Christian cosmologists have said if they would have guessed what the universe would have been like using only the Pentateuch it would have been identical to the one we have.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I do not think a single thing I said is equal to anything you claim I did. I did not say there was evidence that a disembodied mind exists.There however is much evidence.

Wait, so you didn't say that there is evidence that a disembodied mind exists but then right after that you say there is much evidence that disembodied minds exist? What?

Actually, the evidence is to the contrary. We have absolutely no evidence of minds existing without brains, and all the evidence shows that minds are products of brains. This is quite demonstrable. Go check out an fMRI sometime.

IMO every atom in the universe came from what philosophers say had to be either an abstract concept like numbers or a mind. Abstracts do not create and that kind of narrows it down. One thing is certain natural law did not create natural law. That is a fact. As for Google it is quite populated with studies showing that mind is greater than the sum of its material parts. And that is only a human mind.

Such as ... ?

All the evidence we have shows that minds are products of brains. In fact, scientists can hook electrodes up to our scalps, monitor our brain activity and actually "read our minds" so to speak, and predict what we're going to do before we are aware of it ourselves. (Why? Because such things are functions of brains.)

I also got this idea from debates in 2012, the Bible does not really spell this out at all. I said, in fact I will quote me I said nothing about arguments used or misused as evidence. I meant you can't give me a fact that makes God less likely to exist. The best you can do is "claim" you think something is an argument against a single interpretation of a single Biblical concept. That says nothing about God's existence even if true and most of the time they aren't.

The Bible is neither evidence nor proof of god's existence.

So you did not answer the one question I asked, made 3 inaccurate statements about my claims, and one partially accurate claim if looked at in a certain light, but that has zero effect on whether Gdo exists or not.[/quote]
The person you were speaking with asked you about disembodied minds and you replied with something about Jesus. That's where the confusion lies.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I think it is consistent with a common sense interpretation of Genesis but that has NOTHING to do with my claims you are responding to. In my whole post I only mentioned one verse from Genesis and yes that verse is perfectly accurate. If you will address the points I made we can afterward discuss Genesis and cosmology. I imagine whatever you think is inconsistent with Genesis and cosmology is only concerning one very hyper literal interpretation (among many) not Genesis its self, but we can discuss that when you respond to my post. Christian cosmologists have said if they would have guessed what the universe would have been like using only the Pentateuch it would have been identical to the one we have.

Right, so it has to be interpreted (or re-interpreted) to fit with what we presently know about cosmology. That's all I wanted to know.

 

[Skeptisch]

But that still doesn't make Genesis an accurate scientific account of anything.

We, “the science oriented people”, just have to accept that our fine feathered friend seems to have absolutely no desire to learn anything and he has no need for scientific evidence. He doest not even seem to know what the scientific method is. He would destroy his whole “make believe world” by accepting scientific evidence.

Today, scientific illiteracy often has its roots in Abrahamic faith. But only by disobeying god, can we escape from his totalitarian prison where we cannot ask questions, where we must never question authority. Only by disobeying god can we become our human selves and follow our own moral compass.

Most of us don’t need the bible for not running around killing and raping people, but many apparently do. Maybe our feathered friend does?