The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[Thief]

What is the singularity then, an unnatural infinite? Or it isn't infinite, how do you know?

For the singularity to be truly singular....no secondary point can be allowed.

Simultaneous to the secondary....infinity is there.

(an infinite number of points can exist between any two)

 

[1robin]

I don't agree. Natural phenomenon doesn't require wishful thinking. Supernatural does.

I did not say natural phenomena required wishful thinking. I said labeling or equating anything natural with a supernatural concept is. It is redundant, meaningless, and at best semantic exercise of no vale. I already have a word for gravity, light, mass, etc... in what way have I done anything useful by calling them God?

The point is everything is of god and god is the fabric of it all.

That is metaphysical speculation. I regard it is the most unwise act possible. Since every single natural entity is finite then God would be finite as well. You can believe whatever you wish but there is no justification in believing that particular view.

I have given these discriptions, physics has shown it. Einstein and Wheeler are two people that have expressed much of the issue.

You mean Wheeler and Einstein coughed up the same metaphysical speculation as you. There are no deductive arguments that lead to this conclusion. You can only accept it as a brute fact based on blind faith. Not only that but it is of no use or relevance even if true.

We get morals from trying to live with others in a state of progression and fulfillment. We need no law giver that has no stake in the matter.

No we do not. Even farther back than the Romans the natural of morality was understood to either be morals consistent with objective fact (Mallum en se'), or ethics only inconstant with social conventions (mallum prohibitum). You have no objective source for the former and so are left trying to reason out the latter. Your moral system makes what the Nazis did simply socially inconvenient or unfashionable and has no power to ever produce moral facts. There is no moral molecule in the universe, nature is amoral, lions do not murder zebras. It takes a moral being to make objective moral truth. Without a personal God human life is of no more importance that the lives of the cows you have eaten, there is no basis for human equality outside preference, no source of human rights, or the dignity of man. In your view we just more universal furniture and so is God.

I have given the Wheeler delayed choice experiment which shows the data and choice aspects of reality, omniscience. This is because of relativity and time isn't a factor either. We have to account for this in our GPS systems, we did the clock experiment, this stuff isn't made up it is real.

I do not recall any such experiment posted by you. Let me look it up. I knew it before I looked it but it was not a observational experiment it was merely a thought exercise. It is at it's core the famous double slit experiment which does not produce any conclusion. It only produces a paradox without a solution, and one which BTW could never occur because only one of the two outcomes can occur at any time. It is as much physics speculation as your faith is metaphysical speculation. Nothing concrete there.

"In the theory of relativity, time dilation is an actual difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses.

I do not, but lets pretend I grant that as stated. The stretching or shrinking of a quantity or quality will never ever make it either infinite or nonexistent. At best you may argue some parts of the universe are quite old but compared to infinity would still be brand new.

An accurate clock at rest with respect to one observer may be measured to tick at a different rate when compared to a second observer's own equally accurate clocks. This effect arises neither from technical aspects of the clocks nor from the fact that signals need time to propagate, but from the nature of spacetime itself.
"
Time dilation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Time slows down as you approach the speed of light, this is well understood by physics.

Since it makes no difference if I simply grant what you claim as you claim it I won't bother with it. Even slowed down time never ever becomes infinite. How can space time go on forever when almost all scientists claim space is less than 20 billions years old it's self. People far more educated about relativity than even Einstein constantly refer to the reality as composed of a single universe of finite duration and which has every appearance of being very young. If time or the universe was infinite why has the universe not died a heat death an infinite time ago? Why have all the stars no burned out? Why has temperature not become evenly distributed in space according to thermodynamics? The same person who invented relativity also said Thermodynamics was the most immutable law in history.

No we physically observed the beginnings of the universe, it all fits very well with the singularity.

You can certainly refer to the beginning as the singularity but just as referring to nature as God you have wasted your time. We still do not know anything scientific about it. However I have no need of knowing anything about beyond the fact that it began to exist. Calling something a singularity does not in any way get you out of the need for a cause.

That is non-nonsensical like asking whats north of north

No it isn't. Every particle ever seen to begin to exist has come from something that existed previous to it yet as we go back we run out of previous natural things to cause anything this inevitably leads to a supernatural pre-existing cause of nature. BTW north is a social or technical convention not a principle. Cause and effect is a universal principle.

It doesn't matter, it solves nothing. Begining of what? Time or existence? I doubt it. Consider me a skeptic.

I will go with Vilenkin, Guth, Bord, Sandage, Newton, and the majority of cosmologists and philosophers instead of the speculations or preferences of a poster. As I said my faith is consistent and even based on science, yours stands in opposition to it. Keep it if you wish but do not call it justifiable. Nature began to exist, so by definition your God began to exist and so can't be God.

No, I agree with the wording, its accurate just not relevant to the question.

What wording?

General relativity spells it all out for us.

"In the centre of a black hole is a gravitational singularity, a one-dimensional point which contains infinite mass in an infinitely small space, where gravity become infinite and space-time curves infinitely, and where the laws of physics as we know them cease to operate. As the eminent American physicist Kip Thorne describes it, it is "the point where all laws of physics break down"."
Singularities - Black Holes and Wormholes - The Physics of the Universe

That is complete crap. Modern science has for some reason begun an assault on what words mean. As Hawking states nothing is now gravity. Your source has an infinite amount of mass in a finite space. That is a logical contradiction and can't possibly be true. It mangles the word infinite so terribly that it no longer means anything. Infinite means it has no end. Black holes have ends. The universe is not one infinite black hole. It is not that what you said was wrong, it is that it can't possibly be true. Infinite mass is a logical absurdity but even if it did exist then it would have infinite gravity and so infinitely long ago it would have swallowed everything. There are no natural infinites: http://people.umass.edu/gmhwww/382/pdf/09-infinite sizes.pdf
and even if it were even theoretically possible we could never measure them.

Nature is much more than our domino effect, physics has shown it and you refuse to see it. It implies physics can explain away the magic. When physics breaks down we don't have to go by the cause assumption.

I never said reality is composed only of physics of cause and effect. It operates on the principle of cause and effect and many others in addition. Cause and effect is not even a physics principle it is a logical and philosophical principle which physics and other relationships obey in every single observation ever made. Again, my faith agrees with reality, yours assumes the opposite.

I did something much similar. I figured it out as I studied any sort of knowledge and truth I could find. Then found prominent philosphers and scientists saying the same things since the beginning.

Like me you could have found your faith pre-existent but unlike me you did not find it consistent with reality.

I don't declare, you want the evidence I present it. Physics is proving itself everyday, this stuff is natural and therefore testable. Almost like you don't want god to be testable. I am consistent with Einstein and Wheelers and Spinozas views and that is at least something, especially when I came to it by independent study and found it verified.

You have not given me any evidence what so ever. You have tried to prove an assumption by a theory or piled one declaration on top of another. I will make it easy find me a single example of any one of these: Something coming into being without a cause, something coming into being from nothing, an actual infinite (not merely a claim of one that is logical impossible and self contradictory), a universe without a beginning, or a natural law that tells us what we should do instead on simply what is. Good luck. You will get the Nobel if you can.

 

[1robin]

Indeed it was. It is unlikely that Christianity alone was the real, deep cause of all of Europe's wars of religion, but in time-honoured religious tradition it served its purpose as unimpeachable casus belli.
... the most secular democracies in the world score very high on international indexes of happiness and well-being and they have among lowest violent crime and homicide rates. ... when it comes to such things as life expectancy, infant mortality, economic equality, economic competitiveness, health care, standard of living, and education, it is the most secular democracies on earth that fare the best, doing much better than the most religious nations in the world. Sources cited in link.

Citing four different studies, Zuckerman states: "Murder rates are actually lower in more secular nations and higher in more religious nations where belief in God is widespread." He also states: "Of the top 50 safest cities in the world, nearly all are in relatively non-religious countries." Within the United States, we see the same pattern. Citing census data, he writes: "And within America, the states with the highest murder rates tend to be the highly religious, such as Louisiana and Alabama, but the states with the lowest murder rates tend to be the among the least religious in the country, such as Vermont and Oregon."

Why is your entire post in the form of a link? So you instantly concede that your nation was built in large part on faith but have switched to the claim that while true it is not good.

1. Since most people of the era were Christians it stands to reasons that the fights involved Christians. That is not a cause but a necessary coincidence.
2. It was almost always secular nobles that fought over land. Of course that is unflattering so they clothed their greed in theological justification.
3. The bible says do not murder, the NT does not contain one verse authorizing violence of any kind. Blaming that book for murder is intellectually bankrupt.
4. It is obvious most of the wars were not theologically based because the Catholics fought on the same side as many of the protestants.
5. Even if I granted they were all religiously caused that does not indict God, but even if I granted God was at fault the death tolls are almost vanishingly small compared to the atheist utopias just in the 20th century. Stalin killed more people in any given year than all 400 years of the inquisition and the witch trials combined.
6. Only pointing out bad things Christians were involved in is proof of rabid bias when all the hospitals, public schools systems, and scientific advancement is conveniently absent. The most generous demographic on earth is the conservative Christians.

It is an impractical task to evaluate the world's morality. I have only managed to acquire a firm grasp on the statistic for the US since 1940. In almost every single moral statistic the situation grew astronomically worse since the secular revolution in the late 50's. Some statistics are worse by many orders of magnitude. I have posted or linked to hundreds of them if you want to search for them. Your world statistics are far too generic and broad and do not include the fact there are no pure secular governments in the west. Only in the east has religion been effectively absent at times, and has of coursed produce the worst moral events in history. That said probably the worst moral depravity ever committed is abortion and it is primarily supported by secularists. No genocide in history even compares. Nietzsche said (btw his work was presented by Hitler to both Stalin and Mussolini): Because philosophers and poets have killed God in the 19th century the 20th century will be the bloodiest in history and a general madness will prevail. Not only was it the bloodiest it was bloodier than all previous centuries combined and Nietzsche himself went insane. The only hope was the superman was coming but secularists have probably aborted before birth him anyway.

 

[1robin]

For the singularity to be truly singular....no secondary point can be allowed.

Simultaneous to the secondary....infinity is there.

(an infinite number of points can exist between any two)

Not actual points but only abstract ideas of points. Forget between two points you cannot count, find, or create an infinite number of points at all. Nature consists of real things, numbers are abstract things. If there are an actual number of physical infinite points between one and two you could never get from mile marker one to mile marker two. You cannot cross an infinite. Before the singularity is not infinity but eternity. There are important differences between them.

 

[idav]

I did not say natural phenomena required wishful thinking. I said labeling or equating anything natural with a supernatural concept is. It is redundant, meaningless, and at best semantic exercise of no vale. I already have a word for gravity, light, mass, etc... in what way have I done anything useful by calling them God?


That is metaphysical speculation. I regard it is the most unwise act possible. Since every single natural entity is finite then God would be finite as well. You can believe whatever you wish but there is no justification in believing that particular view.



You mean Wheeler and Einstein coughed up the same metaphysical speculation as you. There are no deductive arguments that lead to this conclusion. You can only accept it as a brute fact based on blind faith. Not only that but it is of no use or relevance even if true.


No we do not. Even farther back than the Romans the natural of morality was understood to either be morals consistent with objective fact (Mallum en se'), or ethics only inconstant with social conventions (mallum prohibitum). You have no objective source for the former and so are left trying to reason out the latter. Your moral system makes what the Nazis did simply socially inconvenient or unfashionable and has no power to ever produce moral facts. There is no moral molecule in the universe, nature is amoral, lions do not murder zebras. It takes a moral being to make objective moral truth. Without a personal God human life is of no more importance that the lives of the cows you have eaten, there is no basis for human equality outside preference, no source of human rights, or the dignity of man. In your view we just more universal furniture and so is God.


I do not recall any such experiment posted by you. Let me look it up. I knew it before I looked it but it was not a observational experiment it was merely a thought exercise. It is at it's core the famous double slit experiment which does not produce any conclusion. It only produces a paradox without a solution, and one which BTW could never occur because only one of the two outcomes can occur at any time. It is as much physics speculation as your faith is metaphysical speculation. Nothing concrete there.

I do not, but lets pretend I grant that as stated. The stretching or shrinking of a quantity or quality will never ever make it either infinite or nonexistent. At best you may argue some parts of the universe are quite old but compared to infinity would still be brand new.

Since it makes no difference if I simply grant what you claim as you claim it I won't bother with it. Even slowed down time never ever becomes infinite. How can space time go on forever when almost all scientists claim space is less than 20 billions years old it's self. People far more educated about relativity than even Einstein constantly refer to the reality as composed of a single universe of finite duration and which has every appearance of being very young. If time or the universe was infinite why has the universe not died a heat death an infinite time ago? Why have all the stars no burned out? Why has temperature not become evenly distributed in space according to thermodynamics? The same person who invented relativity also said Thermodynamics was the most immutable law in history.



You can certainly refer to the beginning as the singularity but just as referring to nature as God you have wasted your time. We still do not know anything scientific about it. However I have no need of knowing anything about beyond the fact that it began to exist. Calling something a singularity does not in any way get you out of the need for a cause.


No it isn't. Every particle ever seen to begin to exist has come from something that existed previous to it yet as we go back we run out of previous natural things to cause anything this inevitably leads to a supernatural pre-existing cause of nature. BTW north is a social or technical convention not a principle. Cause and effect is a universal principle.


I will go with Vilenkin, Guth, Bord, Sandage, Newton, and the majority of cosmologists and philosophers instead of the speculations or preferences of a poster. As I said my faith is consistent and even based on science, yours stands in opposition to it. Keep it if you wish but do not call it justifiable. Nature began to exist, so by definition your God began to exist and so can't be God.


What wording?


That is complete crap. Modern science has for some reason begun an assault on what words mean. As Hawking states nothing is now gravity. Your source has an infinite amount of mass in a finite space. That is a logical contradiction and can't possibly be true. It mangles the word infinite so terribly that it no longer means anything. Infinite means it has no end. Black holes have ends. The universe is not one infinite black hole. It is not that what you said was wrong, it is that it can't possibly be true. Infinite mass is a logical absurdity but even if it did exist then it would have infinite gravity and so infinitely long ago it would have swallowed everything. There are no natural infinites: http://people.umass.edu/gmhwww/382/pdf/09-infinite sizes.pdf
and even if it were even theoretically possible we could never measure them.

I never said reality is composed only of physics of cause and effect. It operates on the principle of cause and effect and many others in addition. Cause and effect is not even a physics principle it is a logical and philosophical principle which physics and other relationships obey in every single observation ever made. Again, my faith agrees with reality, yours assumes the opposite.


Like me you could have found your faith pre-existent but unlike me you did not find it consistent with reality.

You have not given me any evidence what so ever. You have tried to prove an assumption by a theory or piled one declaration on top of another. I will make it easy find me a single example of any one of these: Something coming into being without a cause, something coming into being from nothing, an actual infinite (not merely a claim of one that is logical impossible and self contradictory), a universe without a beginning, or a natural law that tells us what we should do instead on simply what is. Good luck. You will get the Nobel if you can.

I have no idea why your so stuck on infinities, it is irreverent in my view. And you choose to ignore the evidence and more importantly the implications.

Quantum physics has shown cause and effect isn't all there is to nature. You can say "oh it is just an explanation" but no explanation can get away from the paradox that is shown to be a reality and completely natural.

Those things you listed that I should show evidence for don't concern me and are irrelevant IMO. You wanna add show proof of god in that, jeez? I have shown that a "beginning" is absolutely meaningless.

If you can't accept something as simple as time dilation then you are choosing to ignore science and physics. It has been shown to be true and has to be accounted for. Time slows down the faster you go, a photon is presumably timeless. A singularity would not have issues with time, thats physics.

 

[1robin]

I have no idea why your so stuck on infinities, it is irreverent in my view. And you choose to ignore the evidence and more importantly the implications.

I have over 9000 posts and less than 1% mention infinity. Why are you so hung up on insinuating others are hung up? What evidence? There is not one single known example of a natural infinite. There is nothing to ignore. I challenged you to provide it above but still do not see it.

Quantum physics has shown cause and effect isn't all there is to nature. You can say "oh it is just an explanation" but no explanation can get away from the paradox that is shown to be a reality and completely natural.

For Pete's sake. I never ever said, hinted, or thought that cause and effect is all here is. That does not even make sense. The quantum is no violation of cause and effect, it actually confirms it in every way. It only changed what was known about what causes exist and how they operate. However the quantum is in it's infancy. I am always amazed at how every single scientific argument against theism comes only from the most theoretical end of science. Why is the reliable and well understood 9/10ths of science never used to argue against theism. Are you hiding the absence of evidence in ambiguity?

Those things you listed that I should show evidence for don't concern me and are irrelevant IMO. You wanna add show proof of god in that, jeez? I have shown that a "beginning" is absolutely meaningless.

I rather thought you would avoid my requests. Fine, but you then cannot say I am ignoring evidence because you are refusing to supply any. I did not ask you for proof, I asked you for examples of evidence. I can supply them for Christ and will run away or act as if they are irrelevant. First let me state four claims that the majority of NT scholars (regardless of their faith) believe are historically valid.

1. Christ appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. He was killed crucifixion by Rome.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Enemy his enemies sincerely believed they had witnessed him after death.

As for his being God that is another subject but will not hide.
1. He claimed to be eternal.
2. He claimed to be the word and the word existed before the universe.
3. He claimed to forgive sin.
4. He did miracles, cast out demons, healed the sick, fed the hungry, etc.. in his own name. Others only did so in God's name.

BTW as theology has the faith position and your scientific God has the knowledge position you have the burden of proof not me. I did not ask for it, but only evidence or at least a logical deduction, and of course you refused even this lowered burden.

If you can't accept something as simple as time dilation then you are choosing to ignore science and physics. It has been shown to be true and has to be accounted for. Time slows down the faster you go, a photon is presumably timeless. A singularity would not have issues with time, thats physics.

What the heck? I not only accepted it I repeated it as fact. What I said was that even given a starching or shrinking of time you will never ever get eternity out of it. You will always be infinitely short. I am starting to get the distinct impression you only skim my responses and have no intention of providing evidence either.

 

[idav]

I have over 9000 posts and less than 1% mention infinity. Why are you so hung up on insinuating others are hung up? What evidence? There is not one single known example of a natural infinite. There is nothing to ignore. I challenged you to provide it above but still do not see it.

For Pete's sake. I never ever said, hinted, or thought that cause and effect is all here is. That does not even make sense. The quantum is no violation of cause and effect, it actually confirms it in every way. It only changed what was known about what causes exist and how they operate. However the quantum is in it's infancy. I am always amazed at how every single scientific argument against theism comes only from the most theoretical end of science. Why is the reliable and well understood 9/10ths of science never used to argue against theism. Are you hiding the absence of evidence in ambiguity?

I rather thought you would avoid my requests. Fine, but you then cannot say I am ignoring evidence because you are refusing to supply any. I did not ask you for proof, I asked you for examples of evidence. I can supply them for Christ and will run away or act as if they are irrelevant. First let me state four claims that the majority of NT scholars (regardless of their faith) believe are historically valid.

1. Christ appeared in history with an unprecedented sense of divine authority.
2. He was killed crucifixion by Rome.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. Enemy his enemies sincerely believed they had witnessed him after death.

As for his being God that is another subject but will not hide.
1. He claimed to be eternal.
2. He claimed to be the word and the word existed before the universe.
3. He claimed to forgive sin.
4. He did miracles, cast out demons, healed the sick, fed the hungry, etc.. in his own name. Others only did so in God's name.

BTW as theology has the faith position and your scientific God has the knowledge position you have the burden of proof not me. I did not ask for it, but only evidence or at least a logical deduction, and of course you refused even this lowered burden.

What the heck? I not only accepted it I repeated it as fact. What I said was that even given a starching or shrinking of time you will never ever get eternity out of it. You will always be infinitely short. I am starting to get the distinct impression you only skim my responses and have no intention of providing evidence either.

I think our issue here is largely semantical. I am not the one insisting eternal be an absolute true infinity. If even timeless isnt enough then your caught up in the labeling.

A number of experiments exist which appear to support SR time dilation. They are:. Clocks on orbiting satellites move slower. Atomic clocks on planes move slower. Michelson-Morley experiment. Muon particles decay more slowly while falling
Experimental Evidence for Time Dilation

 

[1robin]

I think our issue here is largely semantical. I am not the one insisting eternal be an absolute true infinity. If even timeless isnt enough then your caught up in the labeling.

Well I certainly welcome any chance to not a have a semantic debate. However the main issue isn't time, it is that the universe can't explain it's self and requires something beyond it to account for it. If you can live with that we can let the semantics go.

 

[viole]

Why is your entire post in the form of a link? So you instantly concede that your nation was built in large part on faith but have switched to the claim that while true it is not good.

1. Since most people of the era were Christians it stands to reasons that the fights involved Christians. That is not a cause but a necessary coincidence.
2. It was almost always secular nobles that fought over land. Of course that is unflattering so they clothed their greed in theological justification.
3. The bible says do not murder, the NT does not contain one verse authorizing violence of any kind. Blaming that book for murder is intellectually bankrupt.
4. It is obvious most of the wars were not theologically based because the Catholics fought on the same side as many of the protestants.
5. Even if I granted they were all religiously caused that does not indict God, but even if I granted God was at fault the death tolls are almost vanishingly small compared to the atheist utopias just in the 20th century. Stalin killed more people in any given year than all 400 years of the inquisition and the witch trials combined.
6. Only pointing out bad things Christians were involved in is proof of rabid bias when all the hospitals, public schools systems, and scientific advancement is conveniently absent. The most generous demographic on earth is the conservative Christians.

It is an impractical task to evaluate the world's morality. I have only managed to acquire a firm grasp on the statistic for the US since 1940. In almost every single moral statistic the situation grew astronomically worse since the secular revolution in the late 50's. Some statistics are worse by many orders of magnitude. I have posted or linked to hundreds of them if you want to search for them. Your world statistics are far too generic and broad and do not include the fact there are no pure secular governments in the west. Only in the east has religion been effectively absent at times, and has of coursed produce the worst moral events in history. That said probably the worst moral depravity ever committed is abortion and it is primarily supported by secularists. No genocide in history even compares. Nietzsche said (btw his work was presented by Hitler to both Stalin and Mussolini): Because philosophers and poets have killed God in the 19th century the 20th century will be the bloodiest in history and a general madness will prevail. Not only was it the bloodiest it was bloodier than all previous centuries combined and Nietzsche himself went insane. The only hope was the superman was coming but secularists have probably aborted before birth him anyway.

a thought can come from nothing, like if i think of nothing then start to think of an orange, that's something from nothing

Interesting comment.

Where do decisions, under the free will assumption, come from?

Is there a chain of events/causes that leads to my final decision to sin? Is it finite or infinite? If it is finite, who caused the very first one?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Interesting comment.

Where do decisions, under the free will assumption, come from?

What? Thoughts do not come from nothing they come from a brain or a mind. Out of nothing comes is a principle which no known exception exists.

Is there a chain of events/causes that leads to my final decision to sin? Is it finite or infinite? If it is finite, who caused the very first one?

There is a host of influences but the final decision is a result of will. No chain of causation can actually force me to do anything I do not will.

 

[viole]

What? Thoughts do not come from nothing they come from a brain or a mind. Out of nothing comes is a principle which no known exception exists.

There is a host of influences but the final decision is a result of will. No chain of causation can actually force me to do anything I do not will.

And what caused will?

Ciao

- viole

 

[idav]

Well I certainly welcome any chance to not a have a semantic debate. However the main issue isn't time, it is that the universe can't explain it's self and requires something beyond it to account for it. If you can live with that we can let the semantics go.

I am not sure something must account for existence cause with god I have to think something must accout for it existing. God must be more than just a convenient exception.

 

[1robin]

And what caused will?

Ciao

- viole

Your not building a case of something from nothing. Your trying to erect a infinite causal regression which I believe you have agreed is impossible. In many fields (though I regard it as speculative as quantum theory at the moment) mind is all the more looking as if it's is primary to matter. In other words only mind is absolute and all other reality derivative. I do not even understand it but it is only growing in likeliness according to scholars. So mind is absolute and will a property or derivative of mind. Even if no known source was known the by far worst assumption is that no source exists.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is an impractical task to evaluate the world's morality. I have only managed to acquire a firm grasp on the statistic for the US since 1940. In almost every single moral statistic the situation grew astronomically worse since the secular revolution in the late 50's. Some statistics are worse by many orders of magnitude. I have posted or linked to hundreds of them if you want to search for them. Your world statistics are far too generic and broad and do not include the fact there are no pure secular governments in the west. Only in the east has religion been effectively absent at times, and has of coursed produce the worst moral events in history. That said probably the worst moral depravity ever committed is abortion and it is primarily supported by secularists. No genocide in history even compares. Nietzsche said (btw his work was presented by Hitler to both Stalin and Mussolini): Because philosophers and poets have killed God in the 19th century the 20th century will be the bloodiest in history and a general madness will prevail. Not only was it the bloodiest it was bloodier than all previous centuries combined and Nietzsche himself went insane. The only hope was the superman was coming but secularists have probably aborted before birth him anyway.

In my opinion, it is a wholly practical task to compare and contrast varying levels of religiosity across countries and cultures in order to ascertain the world's sense of morality. Why just stick to the US? Don't you think you need something to compare it to if want to make an accurate assessment?

I don't know if you're aware of it or not but you are actually doing that anyway when you talk about secularity in the US and then go on to talk about history's genocides that took place across the world.

 

[1robin]

I am not sure something must account for existence cause with god I have to think something must accout for it existing. God must be more than just a convenient exception.

Please take note how many of your faith's paradox's or questions my faith perfectly resolves.

Philosophy only states that things that begin to exist have causes. God (my God anyway) has been believed to be eternal long before any scientists or philosopher knew that all chains of cause and effect MUST begin with an uncaused first cause. I have no need for a creator for a non-created being. Again as I have shown with me analogy with the person who asks to borrow a dollar everything MUST have an uncaused first cause as it's ultimate explanation. Causal chains that abruptly end (as in your faith and atheism) with the coming into existence of nature or do not make any sense. Only mine (even among most other theological systems) perfectly mirrors reality without these dead ends. Mine has the necessary uncaused first cause that existed eternally so as to provide the required explanation for the universe that the universe does not contain. My faith perfectly answers all these questions like you stated above without any required gaps or inconsistencies with scholarship.

 

[1robin]

In my opinion, it is a wholly practical task to compare and contrast varying levels of religiosity across countries and cultures in order to ascertain the world's sense of morality. Why just stick to the US? Don't you think you need something to compare it to if want to make an accurate assessment?

Where the heck have you been? Forgot all about you. Glad your back. If you think you can morally evaluate the morality and secureness of the entire world then have at it. I live in the USA and only have finite time. It has a vey discernible demarcation where it started to started to go secular and is a very diverse and representative sample. I can only do so much so have started off with the

best. Why would I think statistics so undeniable correlative in he USA would be different anywhere else?

I don't know if you're aware of it or not but you are actually doing that anyway when you talk about secularity in the US and then go on to talk about history's genocides that took place across the world.

I do not recall attempting to do the former by claiming the latter. I have mentioned both but not as equivalent.

 

[viole]

Your not building a case of something from nothing. Your trying to erect a infinite causal regression which I believe you have agreed is impossible. In many fields (though I regard it as speculative as quantum theory at the moment) mind is all the more looking as if it's is primary to matter. In other words only mind is absolute and all other reality derivative. I do not even understand it but it is only growing in likeliness according to scholars. So mind is absolute and will a property or derivative of mind. Even if no known source was known the by far worst assumption is that no source exists.

Well, in those few lines there is a lot of material. In order to avoid an explosion, let me address one at a time.

First: what makes you believe that I agreed that an infinite causal regression is impossible?

Ciao

- vole

 

[johnhanks]

Why is your entire post in the form of a link?

An error, in retrospect, imposed by time constraints; though in fact three links.

So you instantly concede that your nation was built in large part on faith but have switched to the claim that while true it is not good.

Not quite. You were keen to impress upon us that European culture and values were shaped by Christianity; I was pointing out that Europe was at its bloodiest when Christianity was at its most all-powerful. I might also have pointed out that the bloody expansion of the British Empire was sustained in large part by pietistic religious sentiment. The decades of internal peace in Europe since WW2 have coincided with its widespread secularisation.

In almost every single moral statistic the situation grew astronomically worse since the secular revolution in the late 50's...etc

Your religious (and I suspect political) convictions require that for you this must be true, whatever the evidence indicates. And what it indicates is that - to take just a few indicators - atheists and agnostics have lower divorce rates than religious Americans; that women in conservative Christian households experience higher rates of domestic violence; that secular nations such as those in Scandinavia donate the most money and supportive aid, per capita, to poorer nations. In addition there are studies that show that, during the Holocaust, secular people were more likely to rescue and help persecuted Jews. (Some of this text is pasted directly from the source.)

Sorry, Robin, but secularisation does not equate to moral decline. Trends suggest that, if anything, the opposite is true.

 

[idav]

Please take note how many of your faith's paradox's or questions my faith perfectly resolves.

But it doesn't, it pushes teh answer back. I simply accept things for what they are, no paradox necessary.

Philosophy only states that things that begin to exist have causes. God (my God anyway) has been believed to be eternal long before any scientists or philosopher knew that all chains of cause and effect MUST begin with an uncaused first cause.

Yes the convenient exception, I know. That doesn't answer anything or how.

I have no need for a creator for a non-created being.

I have no need for a creator for non-created existence.

Again as I have shown with me analogy with the person who asks to borrow a dollar everything MUST have an uncaused first cause as it's ultimate explanation.

Yes as the ultimate explanation such as existence itself.

Causal chains that abruptly end (as in your faith and atheism) with the coming into existence of nature or do not make any sense. Only mine (even among most other theological systems) perfectly mirrors reality without these dead ends. Mine has the necessary uncaused first cause that existed eternally so as to provide the required explanation for the universe that the universe does not contain. My faith perfectly answers all these questions like you stated above without any required gaps or inconsistencies with scholarship.

I simply don't have to just look at the narrowly defined universe but at existence itself. Of course existence itself is uncaused at some point which counts god with is the product of everything that is and will be. I have no issues with that. It's the super intelligent designer I have issue with, there is no need for it and that is what people like Hawking are finding.

 

[1robin]

Well, in those few lines there is a lot of material. In order to avoid an explosion, let me address one at a time.

First: what makes you believe that I agreed that an infinite causal regression is impossible?

Ciao

- vole

To start with because you are intelligent and infinite regression of causation is a logical absurdity that would never produce anything, and I have never heard even a liberal or atheistic scholar hint that it was possible. I hope I was not wrong in believing you agreed.