The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[1robin]

Evidence to support your claim? If it is present, there is evidence.

I don't get it.

 

[1robin]

Sherlock figures the stuff out with evidence and data but that isnt without a path. The signs lead to more signs. Prediction is something a bit more than just speculation.

I never thought to be in a Sherlock debate. I happen to love the old BBC series with Jeremy Brett. It was the Sherlock pinnacle. Anyway he would take all the facts and make the best conclusion from them. In many cases he was wrong and had to recalibrate. However I no longer even know what the relevance is. BTW Sherlock never ruled out the supernatural, he just always managed to find a natural explanation. If you find one for what is under discussion better than my conclusion I would adopt it.

 

[1robin]

ok...I can go with that.....

God is ......no thing.....
He would then be Some'one'.

God is a being there for can't be a non-being. Persons are beings not non-beings. I did not mean a non-being. I meant non being, as in absent from reality, with no potential, no causality, no properties of any kind, and inert.

 

[idav]

I never thought to be in a Sherlock debate. I happen to love the old BBC series with Jeremy Brett. It was the Sherlock pinnacle. Anyway he would take all the facts and make the best conclusion from them. In many cases he was wrong and had to recalibrate. However I no longer even know what the relevance is. BTW Sherlock never ruled out the supernatural, he just always managed to find a natural explanation. If you find one for what is under discussion better than my conclusion I would adopt it.

It is about you saying "unlike you I don't bet on things". I am not a betting person either. However we do reach conclusions based on best evidence. Sherlock just like science recalibrates based on most recent data. There is nothing wrong with that and you have to use some of your conclusions to know what to even look for.

 

[1robin]

In Panendeism there is no such issue as god is the very first thing and everything is a product of god. Issue solved

Is the last realm of world of war craft the arbiter of all truth? If that is what your world view says then it is settled. Your world view is wrong. In reality God is the greatest possible being. He is primary to everything.

 

[1robin]

I think God could have put evolution in order! Actually I don't think God is anywhere in the causal chain the way molecules and atoms are. He is outside it all. That's how I think. And I also despise the lazy thought that all this came from BAM God. Science people! Study it!

I did for ten years, have a degree in it, and work in it. There exists no fundamental scientific explanation for reality. Evolution cannot even have a universe to occur in without an explanation science does not possess.

 

[1robin]

This sounds like a con-man's dream come true.

What? If I said to you if you keep smoking crack you will die and you stop and live or continue and die, where is the con? It would only be a con if I did not tell you the conditions linked with the results. Exactly what did the apostles gain from their con beyond a lifetime of persecution.

I'd like to read a couple that require absolutely no special pleading or retrofit - that are just straightforward statements along the lines of "this event [with full correct detail] will happen at precisely this time and in this place".
No, it's just a hunch.

Are you asking me to supply a few straight to the point non-conditional prophecies for you to evaluate from the bible?

This has been an interesting exchange, but it's got precious little to do with Evolution vs. Creationism. If you want to continue, maybe it should be in the Historicity of Claimed Miracles thread in General Religious Debates.

That is because there is no argument for nature causing the it's self to begin to exist. I am forced to go outside the lines. Nothing has no properties of any kind and can't create anything.

 

[idav]

That is because there is no argument for nature causing the it's self to begin to exist. I am forced to go outside the lines. Nothing has no properties of any kind and can't create anything.

Makes sense to me to go outside the box. What doesn't make sense is making an argument that should also apply to God, how is god self starting, how does it not make sense for the nature of existence to be its own source?

 

[1robin]

It is about you saying "unlike you I don't bet on things". I am not a betting person either. However we do reach conclusions based on best evidence. Sherlock just like science recalibrates based on most recent data. There is nothing wrong with that and you have to use some of your conclusions to know what to even look for.

I can agree with this. I have forgotten what the point was however so let me make a new one.

There are hundreds of millions of claims to the supernatural. My conclusion only requires one to be genuine. Yours or the non-theists side depends on them all being wrong. Which side seems more biased?

 

[1robin]

Makes sense to me to go outside the box. What doesn't make sense is making an argument that should also apply to God, how is god self starting, how does it not make sense for the nature of existence to be its own source?

Richard Dawkins asked the same question in his central argument. It has been called the worst argument against God in the history of western thought.

The applicable philosophy states.
1. All things that begin to exist have a cause.
2. All things that exist either have an explanation within themselves or external to themselves.

God did not begin to exist and so requires no cause. The universe does not contain it's own explanation but God does. Believing that men thousands of years before we knew what questions to ask, got all the answers right by accident takes more faith than I have.

 

[idav]

There are hundreds of millions of claims to the supernatural.

And hundreds of millions of counter claims.

My conclusion only requires one to be genuine.

Your conclusion just needs supernatural to show it even exists. Regardless of what people think.

Yours or the non-theists side depends on them all being wrong.

Not really just that anything that influences nature would be natural, aside from the fact we don't know most anything.

Which side seems more biased?

When there is repeated evidence contrary to supernatural, it is only natural to think that is all there is. I and many people like me are done looking for supernatural to be real because the centuries and milleniums of knowledge have shown it to be a fruitless efforts. Rather now we search for explanations for what we don't understand in our natural universe.

 

[ArtieE]

The applicable philosophy states.
1. All things that begin to exist have a cause.
2. All things that exist either have an explanation within themselves or external to themselves.

"The Big Bang Didn't Need God to Start Universe, Researchers Say" The Big Bang Didn't Need God | Creation of the Universe | Space.com

 

[outhouse]

I don't get it.

Figured as much.


It means if something like a god is present, there would be something to prove his existance.

But if nothing is present, there is nothing there.


Imagination is powerful, and nothing AT ALL suggest god exist outside of imagination, correct?

 

[1robin]

And hundreds of millions of counter claims.

What? What is a supernatural counter claim?

Your conclusion just needs supernatural to show it even exists. Regardless of what people think.

What? You almost incoherent here.

Not really just that anything that influences nature would be natural, aside from the fact we don't know most anything.

What is going on here? This is incoherent.

When there is repeated evidence contrary to supernatural, it is only natural to think that is all there is. I and many people like me are done looking for supernatural to be real because the centuries and milleniums of knowledge have shown it to be a fruitless efforts. Rather now we search for explanations for what we don't understand in our natural universe.

I can't even imagine what it is you think is contradictory to the supernatural. That does not even make sense. There are no such things as anti-miracles. There are no such things as ways to falsify God. You can conclude you do not believe he exists you can never have evidence he doesn't.

 

[1robin]

"The Big Bang Didn't Need God to Start Universe, Researchers Say" The Big Bang Didn't Need God | Creation of the Universe | Space.com

This is another false definition claim. First let me state what it is that the latest most reliable cosmology suggests: The BGV's co-author says: Vilenkin’s verdict: “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.”

What is it that began? The universe is defined as everything natural. That includes laws, matter, time, and even space. None of these existed before the big bang. That site was an attempt to redefine nothing as something but yet call the something nothing so you can claim something came from nothing. This is slight of hand crap, not science. Another example is Hawking's famous

'Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.

(Page 180)

But gravity is something. Natural laws are properties of nature they are not the absence of being. Laws equal something so Hawking actually said because something existed you can get something from something. Nice job Hawking.

There were no laws, no matter, no space to put them in, and no time for them to interact through. This is science fiction requiring more faith given less evidence than anything I posit. It is not even honesty.

 

[1robin]

Figured as much.


It means if something like a god is present, there would be something to prove his existance.

But if nothing is present, there is nothing there.


Imagination is powerful, and nothing AT ALL suggest god exist outside of imagination, correct?

That is just false. There need not be any proof of God at all. We happen to have mountains of evidence (an entire universe of it in fact) but have no reason to dictate that if God exists there should be X amount, or any at all.

 

[ArtieE]

What is it that began? The universe is defined as everything natural. That includes laws, matter, time, and even space. None of these existed before the big bang. That site was an attempt to redefine nothing as something but yet call the something nothing so you can claim something came from nothing. This is slight of hand crap, not science.

New Scientist TV: How the universe appeared from nothing

 

[technomage]

We happen to have mountains of evidence (an entire universe of it in fact)

You have preconceptions that define creation as "evidence," Robin. For those who do not share your preconceptions, your "evidence" is nothing of the sort.

 

[1robin]

You have preconceptions that define creation as "evidence," Robin. For those who do not share your preconceptions, your "evidence" is nothing of the sort.

I am not responsible for what people do with the defense of my faith. I am only required to be ready to supply it.

New International Version
Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him.
John 12:37

 

[technomage]

I am not responsible for what people do with the defense of my faith.

Problem is, you're not defending your faith. You're defending your preconceptions ... and generally doing your best to make Christians look ignorant.

Considering the quality of some of the arguments you're using, you're doing far more to bring shame to your faith.