Shoe is on the other foot: Prove there is not God.

[McBell]

This is crazy. Ive never really had to argue about the whats in the bible and say look at the context. Gees the whole context shows its a regional flood. What is so hard about all things living that area to be killed and why would that have to mean it was worldwide? Besides, again, there is no scientific evidence for a worldwide flood. You guys are arguing for it just to try to disprove the bible.

So basically you are saying that "every living thing god made" was located in this limited local flood, right?

 

[godnotgod]

There was a beginning to creation. What that implies is that something outside of our universe started our universe, hence a creation.

That assumes there was a "creation" at all. For a creation to have occurred, something had to have come from nothing (ex nihilo), so we are now faced with a different problem in explaining how that is possible. In terms of science, it is not.

So we are left with two possibilities: that which we call the 'created universe' is actually an illusion, not requiring that anything pre-exist for the something to come into being, or that there was no "creation" at all; that is to say, that what we call the universe has always existed, except that it has always existed in one of two phases: on and off. When the universe is switched "on", it appears to have been "created", when, in fact, it is only being manifested in that moment. When it is in the "off" phase, it is unmanifested, but it is still there, just as a light bulb, though off, is still there. All that is required is for the switch to be flipped.

If it is a manifested apparition, whose appearance is so real that we think it to be real, the problem lies not with the universe, but with how we see it, and how we see it is via of a mind so conditioned that we are not aware that it is conditioned.

Even if a creation occurred, it does not mean there was an external creator-god responsible for its coming into being; the creative force could very well have come from within, unfolding as a flower unfolds. If that is the case, then the universe is the creative force itself manifesting itself as the universe*, and that is an entirely different ball game. According to the Hindus, the godhead is playing a cosmic game of hide and seek, in which he is hiding within all of the various manifestations of his "creation". The reason we don't see it that way is because we are part of the game as well. In other words:

"That which you are seeking is what is causing you to to seek".

* "The universe is the Absolute seen through the glass of time, space, and causation. Time, space, and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen, and when It is seen on the lower side, It appears as the Universe. So not only is the Universe apparitional, it's the Absolute seen through time and space, and that allows us to understand why the physics of the Universe takes the form that we see."

The Equations of Maya

 

[godnotgod]

Transformational Causation

"Now the rules that govern transformational causation are very well understood at the universities. The energy that goes into an operation at the beginning comes out at the end. Although the form of the energy may change, you never get any new energy that way. It's like pouring gold. You melt it and pour it into a set of forms. Then you remelt it and pour it into another set of forms. You never get rich that way. No matter how many times you remelt it, you never get any new gold. Transformational causation is like that. What you put in at the beginning comes out at the end. It is governed by the conservation laws. Whether it's matter, energy, momentum or electrical charge -- whatever you put in at the beginning comes out at the end. And since the Universe is made out of energy, the changes of which are governed by these conservation laws, the Universe cannot have arisen through transformational causation. It cannot have come out of nothing."

The Equations of Maya

 

[cottage]

This is like saying if we didn’t exist there is no way that He could exist because in order for Him to exist, He needs something to acknowledge that He exists. Sounds logical but is it really true? No. Why? Think about all the stuff that we didn’t think existed but after we discovered it we knew it had already existed, sometimes millions of years the things existed i.e. the things at the bottom of the ocean.

Those things at the bottom of the ocean, and even the ocean itself, do not have to exist, because God isn’t obliged to create anything. There doesn’t have to be any humans, there doesn’t have to be laws of gravity, laws of motion or the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. But if there is no law of cause and effect God immediately becomes impossible. Every scrap of contingent matter may be said to be absolutely dependent upon God, but God cannot be God without cause and effect, which is non-necessary and feature of the contingent material world! For if there is no such thing as causation (and there is no contradiction in saying there may not be) then God is not intelligible, since believers can only reason to a God by assuming the universe was caused. So the necessary truth ‘God is God’ is logically dependent upon a concept which is not itself logically necessary. (Continued further down the page.)

Yes, the bible even states He could have raised up rocks but no He made us. Theoretically yes God could have done it another way, but being perfect this way could have only been the correct, perfect way to achieve His desired goal. So no, it couldn’t have gotten the same results in a different way. Maybe to understand that this way is the only perfect way takes a higher understanding of what it means to be perfect and omnipotent.

But if God created things differently they would still be perfect – if that was his perfect will.

As to Humes statement, I just explained that above. What he says is partly true but not fully because whats true is that a cause does have a connection with its effect---that’s a no brainer. To show distinctly the origin of the idea [of a God], expressed by the definition---by a true definition of a God concept, a God cannot have a cause before it and can already exist before bringing anything else into existence.

Like I said, his statement is partly true because a God being the first cause of everything is connected to things He creates [they are the effects] and the things He creates do “help” His existence by them acknowledging Him

Think about His statement, If the effects or things created didn’t acknowledge a God then Humes statement falls short. They would have no [acknowledged] connection to that cause [God] and therefore there would be no origin of the idea.
Let me break down his statement again. This is what he says ‘Let anyone define a cause, and let him show distinctly the origin of the idea,’. Okay, God—an uncaused being or entity who existed prior to anything else that has/is existing. Origin of the idea---It came into His mind to created things that would acknowledge Him as the beginning of all things, the first cause, the USP. He existed before they were created, them being the effects of the origin of the idea makes them and Him connected.

I’m sorry but you’re misreading the argument. In two hundred and thirty-three years nobody yet has answered Hume. Far from defining cause you are actually committing exactly the common error that Hume’s exposition identified. In this case you are presupposing God as the cause and then saying from him came an idea and thus all created things! Hume explains: ‘If we examine the operations of body, and the production of efforts from their causes, we shall find that all our faculties can never carry us farther in our knowledge of this relation than barely to observe that particular objects are constantly conjoined, and that the mind is carried by a customary transition from the appearance of one to the belief of the other. Cause and effect is based on experience, which is founded upon the belief that the future must be like the past, which itself is based on experience. This circularity (The Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference) identifies the impossibility of directly observing causal effects. And so the assumption ‘God exists’ is dependent upon the assumption that a sequence of events must always follow, which is dependent upon a yet further assumption that such a phenomenon exists outside the world of experience. It comes down to this: If ‘God exists’ is true, then cause and effect is necessary; otherwise ‘God is the creator’ is false. But there is no demonstration to prove that cause is necessary. And there isn’t even an explanation for causality in empirical terms!

So God couldn’t have a desire before acting upon that desire? Does it not say in the scriptures that all this is for His pleasure [entirely focused on His self][that right there knocks out freewill]. You are proving my point here. I know the going dogma out there about God is that He doesn’t have wants and desires, but how can a world that doesn’t know God, KNOW God. Like it says only a few do know Him or part of what He wants known now, but later all will.

I'm sorry but I don't accept scripture as proof of anything, and in any case an argument to ignorance isn't an argument at all.

This is so untrue. Well the needs part true, but wants and desires, no. Many think that God, because He has the power to do things instantly, should do and always will do things instantly. Sounds like the young earthers and the six literal days of creation. No you see throughout the scriptures that He does things “slowly” or as a process. Read Proverbs 4:7 and then Proverbs 8. If God wanted perfect children in His image and they were to be like Jesus, then why didn’t He just make instantly a bunch of Jesuses? Well obviously this isn’t what happened and since we have this scripture “Let us be making man into Our image” [Check an interlinear and you will see that its “making” not “made” as the KJ and its sister bibles have it] we have [how big is the population now] 6-7 billion walking evidences of the fact that God definitely works things in a process.

The concept of Supreme Being (omnipotence and all sufficiency) doesn’t desire or want for anything because it has and is everything, by definition. And as there can only be one Supreme Being it follows that it cannot be the logically inferior biblical God. Interestingly, and in contrast, the concept of Supreme Being as the self-existent world, isn’t affected in the least by that problem.

 

[AK4]

Yet they are all example of false or unsubstantiated histories.

1. No evidence of supernatural Angels helping the British in Mons.
2. Marie never mentioned "cake" . It was a story perpetuated by the French Revolutionaries.
3. No archeological or other evidence of the Aryan Invasion.
4. No evidence at all of ancient astronauts.
5. Newtons "apple on the head" story is not historical at all. Voltaire attributed the orchard story to Newton many years later.
6. The historical Robin Hood did not reside in Sherwood. The real folk hero resided in Yorkshire.
7. The legend of King Arthur can at best be attributed to a Briton chieftain or warrior, no knights, no round table, no Excalibur, no Camelot.
8. Those accused of witchcraft in Salem were hung by their necks to die, one was stoned to death.
9. Fiddles (or Violins) were invented 1000 yrs after Nero's Rome burned.
10. Cleopatra was a direct descendant of Ptolemy the Great, a Greek. A pure Greek bloodline can be traced from Ptolemy to Cleopatra.
11. Edison perfected the filament of the light bulb. The light bulb itself was invented by Humphry Davy.
12. As for the Vikings, archaeologists have never found examples of such helmets. Roman writers report that earlier Celtic and Germanic warriors did wear helmets with horns but the practice had died out hundreds of years before the Viking raids began.

And as has been shown, the historical accuracy of the Bible is equally filled with unsubstantiated and false myths and legends.

Okay so like the evolution that is being taught as truth and believed by most to be true yet there is no proof of it. Although i dont really want to get into the evolution argument. I noticed how you made lists of superficial things. Compare your list to just the evolution theory and the bible. See there is a big difference there.

 

[cottage]

I don’t have a prior belief or an ideological position that I must defend at all costs, and I’m a sceptic because even without the evident contradictions in religions there is no compelling reason at all to believe that that there is a deity, a personal God, who seeks a relationship and interacts with his creation. But on a purely metaphysical level I have no logical objection to the concept of a necessary being upon which all existence depends.

Therefore the argument is founded on the premise that where there are only two possibilities, in this case a self-existent world or a created world, only one of the possibilities can be true, and the most reasonable explanation will be the acceptable one. Which, then, is the more likely or reasonable – a world that we agree exists, in which cause and effect is a known phenomenon, or a supposed external source that is assumed to have those features of our known world, upon which the theist must depend in order to argue for what is claimed? Both hypotheses can be denied without contradiction, and so neither of them is demonstrably true, but I contend that my argument is the more reasonable. For if the universe is necessary, then God is not. And while we cannot of course demonstrate that the universe is necessary, we know for certain that it exists, but in the case of God we have no such assurance!

Heat, precipitation, oxygen and nitrogen etc supply our needs for life; objects degrade and die and new objects appear from the old constituents and then grow to maturity, ensuring the continuity and the cyclical balance of life. So the undeniable fact is that the universe exists as a sustaining power. Why then is it necessary to look for a further sustaining power? And why should the world be created? This last point is known as an argument from sufficient reason. A self-existent world (or God) doesn’t require an explanation or need a reason for being, but if a thing is created there must be a reason or a purpose for its creation. So what is it?

 

[McBell]

Okay so like the evolution that is being taught as truth and believed by most to be true yet there is no proof of it.

At best, this is flat out wrong.
At worst, it is a bold faced lie.

Although i dont really want to get into the evolution argument.

Good.
Because you do not know enough about it to argue effectively.

I noticed how you made lists of superficial things.

What makes the Bible anything more than superficial?
I mean other than your wanting it to be more than it is?

Compare your list to just the evolution theory and the bible.

Ok

See there is a big difference there.

Yes there is.
The Theory of Evolution is the only one based upon verifiable fact.

Seems to me that you seem to think that the number of people who believe is somehow related to how true said belief is.

 

[AK4]

Again, the text clearly states God would destroy every living thing he had created. Not just those in that area.
I am not arguing for a world wide flood. In fact I think the writer was clearly mistaken. But the story, taken in its entirety, clearly indicates that the author believed that the entire world was flooded.

The text states?....The translation states. And the translation is not consistent with the word. The author could not have at all thought it was literally the whole world, but i will give ya that he could have thought it was the whole world in the sense of what he knew to be the whole world which still makes it local, regional. To further prove my point you have in Jeremiah the same scenario and do you really think he meant the whole world too here or all the kingdoms of the whole earth came out to fight Jerusalem...

Jer 34:1 …and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem…

Oh, really? All the kingdoms of the earth? The Chinese came down and the Japanese came over and the Indians and the Aborigines and the American Indians, they were all over here in the fight against Jerusalem were they? No. “All the kingdoms of the land,” that land.

So if that land, if it’s only the kingdoms of that land that came up against Jerusalem, then you have no reason to say that this water covered the whole earth. It’s the land. What land? The land where all these corrupt people were doing all these corrupt things. It doesn’t say that there weren’t any bad people anywhere else in the world. This was just a spot of utter corruptness.

The word earth is used locally all through the bible. If the translators were consistent you would see this. But as the Word says it is because of people like them His name is blasphemed throughout the world. Its no coincidence it says this about the scribes and religious leaders of that time

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]Jer 8:8 - "How can you say, 'We are wise, And the law of the LORD is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made {it} into a lie. [/FONT]


and the same thing could be said of the scholars and theologians since then all the way up to our time.

 

[godnotgod]

So the undeniable fact is that the universe exists as a sustaining power. Why then is it necessary to look for a further sustaining power?

If the universe is a self-sustaining power, is the next logical question whether it has consciousness or not?

And why should the world be created? This last point is known as an argument from sufficient reason. A self-existent world (or God) doesn’t require an explanation or need a reason for being, but if a thing is created there must be a reason or a purpose for its creation. So what is it?

In either case, can we ask the question as to whether the universe is a serious matter or not? That is to say, is it at all possible that the universe might actually be the result of a kind of playfulness, with no real purpose other than the sheer fun, or sport, of its being manifested?

In the Judeo-Christian view, the universe is a created artifact, known as the ceramic model of the universe, while in Chinese thought, the universe is grown organically. In between these two, we have what is known as the fully automatic universe, in which the universe runs according to laws without a lawmaker, a mechanism, if you will.

Here is a link to a very interesting lecture by Alan Watts on the subject of the three models of the universe and the nature of consciousness:

http://deoxy.org/w_nature.htm

 

[McBell]

The text states?....The translation states. And the translation is not consistent with the word. The author could not have at all thought it was literally the whole world, but i will give ya that he could have thought it was the whole world in the sense of what he knew to be the whole world which still makes it local, regional. To further prove my point you have in Jeremiah the same scenario and do you really think he meant the whole world too here or all the kingdoms of the whole earth came out to fight Jerusalem...

Jer 34:1 …and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem…

Oh, really? All the kingdoms of the earth? The Chinese came down and the Japanese came over and the Indians and the Aborigines and the American Indians, they were all over here in the fight against Jerusalem were they? No. “All the kingdoms of the land,” that land.

So if that land, if it’s only the kingdoms of that land that came up against Jerusalem, then you have no reason to say that this water covered the whole earth. It’s the land. What land? The land where all these corrupt people were doing all these corrupt things. It doesn’t say that there weren’t any bad people anywhere else in the world. This was just a spot of utter corruptness.

The word earth is used locally all through the bible. If the translators were consistent you would see this. But as the Word says it is because of people like them His name is blasphemed throughout the world. Its no coincidence it says this about the scribes and religious leaders of that time

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, Arial, Geneva]Jer 8:8 - "How can you say, 'We are wise, And the law of the LORD is with us'? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes Has made {it} into a lie. [/FONT]


and the same thing could be said of the scholars and theologians since then all the way up to our time.

again:

So basically you are saying that "every living thing god made" was located in this limited local flood, right?​

 

[godnotgod]

Okay so like the evolution that is being taught as truth and believed by most to be true yet there is no proof of it.

This is a common misconception about the Theory of Evolution. The word "theory" as commonly used by lay people does not carry the same meaning that the scientific use of the term does. A scientific theory is a working model, one which, for all practical purposes, is a fact. It is beyond just an idea or hypothesis. New findings continue to confirm the Theory of Evolution as being true, even though some of these findings alter previous conclusions, making the Theory of Evolution a dynamic process. The fact is that the Theory of Evolution is being proven every day, both by new archaeological findings and by those in the life sciences.

On the other hand, the religious view of nature is a relatively fixed, static view. It is for this reason that it has come to be known as the 'artifact' model of the universe.

 

[AK4]

Laws do not cause. Laws are statements of fact meant to describe, in concise terms, an action or set of actions.

So the law of gravity doesnt cause supernovas, solar systems, galaxies, etc etc?

The law that says you must pay your taxes or youll go to jail doesnt make you pay your taxes?

Etc etc etc.

However you want to try to bend the definition of law, it still is a cause that produces effects

 

[AK4]

No, you limit him.

The text says that God would destroy "every living substance that I have made". You've told us that God's destructive act didn't flood the whole Earth and didn't destroy every living substance.

If we accept both the text and your interpretation as correct, then the only way to reconcile these two things is to conclude that the living things that God didn't destroy were not "living substances that God had made".

Look at the way the sentence is set up. For illustrative purposes, I'll change the subject. Instead of "every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth", let's use something that has the same grammatical form:

"Every dog that I own, I will bring into the house from the yard."

Assuming I did what I said, say you see a dog wandering around the street. What could you conclude about that dog?

For starters, because you know that all my dogs have been brought into the house, you could deduce that that dog does not belong to me.

See how it works?

Incredible. See post 1568

 

[johnhanks]

So the law of gravity doesnt cause supernovas, solar systems, galaxies, etc etc?

No. The law of gravity states that massive bodies attract each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them. It is this force that does the things you describe; but the law does not explain the force, it merely describes it.

The law that says you must pay your taxes or youll go to jail doesnt make you pay your taxes?

Now you equivocate; scientific laws and statutory laws are quite separate phenomena.

However you want to try to bend the definition of law, it still is a cause that produces effects

I'm afraid all you reveal here is your weak comprehension.

 

[AK4]

There is a large, truck sized hole in your argument.

The bibles, neither the OT or NT, are merely "teaching tools".

They quite clearly lay out and define not only their respective and subjective moral sets and laws, they create what I will have to, in all honesty but still grudgingly, admit is a Theopolitical Manifesto of a superb caliber, one that is effective even in this modern age in western society.

The myths contained within, especially the Creation, Adam and Eve, Flood/Noah, and Job myths are intended solely to put an ultimate authority in Jehovah, and through that deity, supreme power, control, and authority of the clergy of the related religions. The scriptures also specifically target competing religions as well, relegating them to some "primitive ignorance" that must be stamped out and corrected, and those poor innocent devil worshiping heathens corrected at any cost.

If you was God and you were sending your message to your creation in one book and that book is supposed to be the authority of of all your revelations, yes this is what your message would do. All accept the "at any cost" thing.

 

[AK4]

What is amazing is that after this statement, he spends over four pages arguing for the substantiated truth contained in the Bible.
Most myths are built upon some reality.
Hercules may have been a strong guy, but I doubt he was the son of Zeus and fought monsters.
Aurthur may have been a great chieftain, but he was no great king who unified Briton after receiving a supernatural sword from the Lady of the Lake.
Equally, many of the stories in the OT may have originated from an actual event, or a misconception of reality, but were blown to mythical proportions by biblical writers and earlier oral storytellers.

Could be. But i also think that maybe it could have actually happened, its just that scholars and theologians have brainwashed the masses to think a certain way and blinded people to think that their views are correct.

 

[AK4]

Whaaaaa? Is that kinda like "the left hand knoweth not what the right hand doeth"?...or maybe...."the hand is quicker than the eye"...or even..."the devil made me do it"....or perhaps.......nah!

?????????????????????????? Not even close

 

[johnhanks]

... its just that scholars and theologians have brainwashed the masses to think a certain way ...

Fascinating. With what motive, do you suppose?

 

[AK4]

Really?
Interesting since you cannot show that there was a creation to begin with....


this is based upon an unsubstantiated premise.


quote]

Which is more unsubstantiated? A self existing, self producing, eternal universe or the fact that if something has a beginning, it demands that something was before it.

 

[AK4]

Let us run with your alleged win.
Where did god come from?
Since nothing is eternal, like you say...

Notice carefully the words i am about to put or as i was told over and over "you gotta pay attention to all the words". Okay notice this is what ive been saying

There is nothing INSIDE CREATION that is eternal. That is why i say to you guys if yall can prove that anything INSIDE CREATION is eternal then you guys easily win the debate.