The "something can't come from nothing" argument

[John Martin]

My hypothesis is that God does not create anything. There are two types of creation: one that comes from God and another that comes from abiogenisis and evolution.

The first type of creation is that which comes from God. It is not created by God out of nothing or out of something, it is just the radiance of the divine. It is like the Sun that radiates. This radiance is eternal as God is eternal. It is dependent on God just as the radiance is dependent on God.As this radiance moves away from its source its vibration level changes. These different vibration levels form a kind of mirror to the Sun(divine) in which the Sun reflects. There are two main levels of the radiance: the first level, very close to the Sun, is like the Moon. It is like a pure mirror and reflects the Sun. There is no movement of becoming there it is just manifests the eternity. The second layer of radiance is more like a dense matter where the reflection is not clear. The reflection of the divine in union with the matter produces another entity which we can call 'soul'. This soul is the combination of both spiritual and material. It more identifies with the matter. This soul, being the reflection of the divine spark, has the natural desire, to go back to its source. Since it is in a sate of ignorance, it project its object outside of itself. This desire inflates the matter and the beginning of the Big Bang. It is the beginning of time and space. The ultimate goal of this movement is to return to its original source, the divine spark, and the experience of oneness with God. But the immediate goal is to create a body that facilitates this goal. First it is the process material evolution until the life appears and then evolution of life from simple organisms to the complex organisms. This evolution proceeds until the appearance of brain that is capable of self consciousness. This self consciousness initiates a new evolution, which I call religious evolution, which is to find the meaning and purpose of life. All sacred scriptures, all religions and philosophies belong to this level. This level still belongs to the level of the soul, not divine spark, because divine spark does not evolve but manifests eternity. This level brings forth psychological time and space. The gap between what I am and what I want to become. This process is like a dream. The day will come when the soul realizes the limitations of this process and awakens to the divine spark, the eternal sphere. Then the psychological time comes to and end and the soul also comes to an end. It evaporates like the cloud.
The material evolution and the religious evolution are not the work of God but it is the desire of the soul to return to its source. It is this desire which propels the Big Bang and not God. What God radiates unfolds. There is not time. What the soul want to become produces time and space.

 

[1robin]

All of it was conjecture or irrelevant to your statement that "gravity is a complete mystery" but whatever.

I said what gravity is a mystery not what it does. We do know a bit about the latter. However since we can access less than .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the universe we must assume that it is the same everywhere.

Dark matter isn't gravity.

Quote my claim it was please.

Making something out of gravity and failing doesn't change knowing about it.

Quote my claim we made anything from gravity please.

Gravity the most important? Subjective

Ok, but it is the most important according to the scholars most trained to know.

And we do know what it is, curvature of spacetime. What we don't know about is spacetime, that is a huge difference.

No that is a tool we use to describe it. It is not what it is.

We have known e=mc^2 for almost a hundred years now and we know it has an opposite and is relative, we know these things. The m signifies what gravity would be.

For God's sake. M = mass not gravity.

In context of what the guy said makes sense. We don't know what it is in a fundamental way but now we have seen gravity waves, we prove einsteins formulations meaning we have known it all along. As to what the fabric of the cosmos is I have no idea, that would be what I consider a "complete mystery".

I tell you what in the interest of time and because I don't want to keep looking I will grant you could be right and we have found waves despite hundreds of hits when searching for them that said we didn't, and lets move on.

Now all these things I stated about gravity means it isn't a complete mystery.

I never said it was. I said what it's essence is, is still a mystery. We know something about how it acts, what it is based upon, and how to interact with it. We have no idea what it actually is. I have lost why this was important, do you remember?

 

[1robin]

You didn't "deal with it", you just made baseless assumptions about it and then dismissed the objection with fallacies.

Your something else. Distinguishing between experiential claims like observations of planets and fantastic guess about things we have no evidence for like multi-verse is perfectly justifiable and has been differentiated since man first existed. No fallacy, no dismissal, just perfectly justified fact.

Can you demonstrate that they were there, and that their beliefs were true?

I work in a defense laboratory not on an archeological site. However those that are and are NT scholars or historical lawyers, etc.... have and a virtual consensus exists that they were. That is why the Bible is officially classified as a historical biography. Since you will deny any number based on preference I will only give two but could give hundreds.

Professor Thomas Arnold, cited by Wilbur Smith, was for 14 years the famous headmaster of Rugby, author of a famous three-volume History of Rome, appointed to the char of Modern History at Oxford, and certainly a man well acquainted with the value of evidence in determining historical facts. This great scholar said: "The evidence for our LORD's life and death and resurrection may be, and often has been, shown to be satisfactory; it is good according to the common rules for distinguishing good evidence from bad. Thousands and tens of thousands of persons have gone through it piece by piece, as carefully as every judge summing up on a most important cause. I have myself done it many times over, not to persuade others but to satisfy myself. I have been used for many years to study the histories of other times, and to examine and weigh the evidence of those who have written about them, and I know of no one fact in the history of mankind which is proved by better and fuller evidence of every sort, to the understanding of a fair inquirer, than the great sign which GOD hath given us that Christ died and rose again from the dead."

Wilbur Smith writes of a great legal authority of the last century. He refers to John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863), recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history, the Solicitor-General of the British government in 1819, attorney-general of Great Britain in 1824, three times High Chancellor of England, and elected in 1846, High Steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices which a judge in Great Britain could ever have conferred upon him. When Chancellor Lyndhurst died, a document was found in his desk, among his private papers, giving an extended account of his own Christian faith, and in this precious, previously-unknown record, he wrote: "I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such evidence as that for the Resurrection has never broken down yet."
Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Ch. 10 p. 2

Let the arbitrary denial by preference fest commence.

For starters, you're hearing second or third-hand accounts without any extra-biblical corroboration. There is no reason to believe these claims came direct from Paul or that these claims are, in fact, true or have any supernatural explanation that adds credibility to the rest of their story.

There is every reason to. In the NIV over 100 biblical scholars contributed and they attributed every book to it's traditional author except one they could not get agreement on. Fortunately it is the most textually accurate book so the damage is minimal (not that slapping a name on anything makes it more reliable alone). Even skeptic conclude that the writers were definitely eyewitnesses. Some of Paul's source material goes back to less than ten years of Christ's death. Caesars Gallic wars is taught as accurate history in universities around the world every day yet the only two copies we have are from 950 years later and even the original was known as pure propaganda in it's time.

Unless the stories are myths or exaggerations based on real people and/or events that have been altered over time. Since the Bible contains no (or, at least, very few) contemporary sources - and no contemporary historical sources corroborate any claims of any supposed miracles, this is a very likely possibility. Your problem is your inability to separate a claim made in a book from the claims of people the book is talking about.

It contains more corroborating sources than almost any historical event of the times. You just reject them all because they agree. The Bible is not a single story. It is a collection of writers who did not know each other in many cases, were separated by over a thousand years and lived in completely different cultures, plus there are at least 40 extra biblical sources outside it. Probably no other event (and even if so very few) in ancient history have a fraction of the corroboration. However when you arbitrarily deny all those because they agree then your out to lunch to begin with.

Empirical evidence is evidence that can be objectively verified by anybody. If the evidence was only available to the individual making the claim, it is not empirical. Case in point: I have a friend who, when walking home one night, saw leprechauns hiding behind some cars. This experience was so real and terrifying to him, that he ran home. By your standards, his claim to have seen leprechauns is a truth claim with empirical evidence, rather than a hallucinogenic experience derived from the substances he had been taking that night. When your standard of evidence cannot differentiate between a drug-induced hallucination and real, empirical observation, it might be time to seriously re-evaluate your position.

No it is not. Empirical evidence is evidence that can be comprehended by the senses. Can you comprehend anything that occurred longer than a second ago. Is history 100%non empirical? The tomb's being empty was just as empirical then as my cars existence is today. Nothing is empirically available to everyone (or almost nothing).



Empirical evidence
Empirical evidence (also empirical data, sense experience, empirical knowledge, or the a posteriori) is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation. The term comes from the Greek word for experience, Εμπειρία (empeiría).

Your really desperate now aren't you. No mention of (to every human in existence) at all in that definition.

This would be perfectly reasonable, if these accounts were actually verifiable. Since none of them are, this apologetic tripe is meaningless. It might as well commend Chicken Little for concocting the "empirical burden" that the sky was falling.

Those accounts have been verified far beyond what anyone would expect to be available for claims that old. Historical claims are taught as fact by the millions in university that don't have a meaningful fraction of the corroboration the NT does.

 

[1robin]

My hypothesis is that God does not create anything. There are two types of creation: one that comes from God and another that comes from abiogenisis and evolution.

I want to get some problems with your premise straightened out before I read your conclusion.


1.

My hypothesis is that God does not create anything.

A. There is no evidence on which this can possibly be founded.
B. Modern cosmology suggests very strongly that the universe (space, time, matter) began to exist a finite time ago. If not God then who created it. Nature can't create nature because it did not exist to stand in a causal relationship.
C. The only potential cause of everything beginning to exist for which any evidence exists is God, nothing else what ever has any evidence. yet you deny the one thing with evidence. Why?

2.

abiogenesis

A. There is not a single observation of life coming from non life ever known.
B. Every observation supports that life only comes from life without exception.
C. Your going against every observation and with no observations. This is irrational.
D. Every experiment made by man to produce life from non-life has utterly and completely failed though I did hear that one is ongoing currently but even if successful it took intelligence to do it.

3.

evolution

1. Evolution changes it doe snot create anything new.
2. Creation in the theological context is to bring into existence not rearrange existing stuff.

 

[viole]

:beach:

No, science is done as if God did not exist because science does not have access to him. They all operate as if there is no God....

Yes, and that is exactly why science works. Another retroactive confirmation of a correct assumption, I guess.

Objectivity among a host of things means independent of the opinions of it's believers. There are billions of claims to supernatural experience. They are not stated as an opinion or conclusions of a hypothesis but a spiritual experience the same as seeing would be. Just as we have not all seen the empire state building (or even buildings never photographed) the massive amounts of reports of seeing it make it an objective probability perceived subjectively. Additionally we all act as if objective morality exists, even you, and others that deny it does. That is strong evidence that it does in fact exist. God demands faith so a lack of universal objective proof is not only irrelevant it can't exist except for those who had faith that produced the experience (just as I take the empire state building on faith but others have objective proof it exists)

But nobody has objective proof that God exists, so your analogy with the ESB is odd. I can easily confirm that the ESB exists. All you have to do is going to NYC.

Pointing out where Newton was wrong in one area (if he actually was) does nothing to prove he was in another. My point was about the persuasiveness of the evidence not about any one man's being omniscient. We know astrology was wrong but we do not by any means know a single claim in the bible was wrong (outside scribal error). Just as Newton knew believed in gravity and it survived while astrology did not so has the bible. Even with all this science Christianity add the equivalent of the population of Nevada per year.

Of course. If you demote to symbolic language what is obviously absurd. Once you do that, everything goes. I could do the same with the Odyssey, with a little of imagination, and prove Zeus.

This how it works:

Symbolic: what has been proven to be factually wrong
Literal: what has not yet been proven wrong. Might become symbolic later

At the time I was hostile to God I did not know of any Aztec God to hate....

How can someone be hostile to God? It is like saying that atheists hate God, which is obviously absurd.

If I know God then the question is academic. When I was mad at God I was ignorant of Quetzalcoatl, but before becoming a Christian I found out quite a lot about him. Like that he was actually embodied in a statue that the Aztecs carried around and made moral commands that completely defy the almost universal moral core people hold and for many additional reasons he was relegated to non-existent. If you want t o get into the Aztecs I can certainly oblige you but I have no idea why they are relevant. Do you know how or why the Aztecs wound up on the island (Tenochtitlan) that is now Mexico city to begin with?

The point is that your God and the Aztec one are equally plausible. You know and worship one and not the other because of an accident of birth.

Nope, he only stopped the Christians from being killed. He made all religions (or at least Christianity and all the flavors of paganism) ok to practice. Christianity eventually took over. In another example Protégées missionaries went to India. Despite their being dependent on brutality and force at times even they were surprised how the Indians jumped into their arms. Hinduism validated strict sect systems where the bottom rungs could not ever advance. Whether practiced correctly at all times or not just having a foundation that made all men equal produced a tidal wave of conversions.

I think he is the guy that organized a meeting because Christians could not agree on some issues. Like whether Jesus was a man, a God or a superposition of the two. You know, those personal relationships with jesus can present some noise in the communication channel.

Your belief in the trinity is the result of that meeting.

Side note: Did you know Cortez was told by his Abbot that forced conversions were ungodly and he so he outlawed them? It was also the only known time a conquest was terminated for humanitarian considerations.

Yes, the Spanish inquisition and Cortez were famous for their tolerance, lol. Not to speak of the continued exploitation of resources and people perpetrated by good, non-secular Christians in the following centuries.

A good series of books about the benevolence of Christians in history is "the criminal history of Christianity" by KH Deschner.

The scholars most trained and capable of knowing the facts concerning what you said overwhelming adopt the exact opposite position. Your so far off the page I can now see why you love theoretical science so much. Apostolic sincerity is granted by almost every NT scholar there is.

Sure. But as I said, deluded people can be very sincere. They would probably all pass a lie detector test.

I did not use the term speculation, I have no ideas what your talking about. I said X and Y are not equal. You said BGVT was basically geodesics. I said it is mostly other stuff but it does not matter anyway because the conclusions is that this universe (you know the one we actually have evidence for) is finite in time. I do not care how long the words you use are that is still the conclusion.

What I said is very simple. BGVT assumes a classical (relativistic) spacetime. So, to use geodesics on the spacetime manifold is the core part of the theorem. If you deny that spacetime is a continuum (manifold) on which geodesics can be defined, you undermine the assumptions of the theorem. If you don't, then you make my point, basically.

I thought the context of your statement was cosmology not time. His model was cosmological and appeared to assume tensed time but I am guessing the last part somewhat. I was thinking time in my response.

And what is time if not a dimension of the cosmological spacetime continuum? I am afraid, you completely ignore or misunderstand the concepts used in the theorem.

We can review it together if you wish. I offer my services, free of charge, lol.

Yes I am very well aware that you consider plausible denial preferable to reliability. If our universe appears to need a cause it does not contain then as long as another scenario who's only merit is it's non impossibility is the escape mechanism. Your world view requires more faith than mine and more than I have.

Lol, I am going to byte the bullet here. i have strong faith in the Multiverse. Why? Because it explains the "fine tuning" so well, amongst other things.

So, my fait is reasonable. At least as much as yours, which should suffice to defuse the fine tuning argument as proof of anything. Unless, you like special pleading, of course.

But of course, there is no need to invoke the Multiverse. It is quite easy to defuse the fine tuning also with one universe.

I have no idea where he ever did so. If he did I was unaware and so could not have used that as a motivation. I doubt he ever got close to doing what you said and I even gave a few examples of why I am skeptical of him that had nothing to do with whatever your talking about.

He does not need to do that, even though he mentioned it. God is, indeed, superfluous.

Yes, and I do so without quoting his numerous quotes that were very positive about theology. He was a scientific genius but a theological schizophrenic. You have to judge his theology by the month.

Later,

I think you are schizophrenic, too . Wasn't Einstein who said that time is just an illusion? And that was a physical statement.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

Because in almost all cases that person who changed because the police were nearby quits doing so and reverts to what his nature dictates as soon as they pass. However note one thing here. Even that person is admitting an authority with a set of duties and the capacity to hold them responsible had observed them and they acted accordingly. One similarity would be that and the idea that God always observes them but it does not end there, God gives people the ability to act in ways they had attempted to many times and utterly failed. My case is an example, so would Johnny Cash's, Foreman's, and on and on. That is why in many areas theistic based self help attempts like the 12-steps, homosexual counseling, etc.... have much greater success rates. Just ask any Christian you know. Almost all of them will tell you they tried to quit X but failed, they were born again and succeeded. In my case even the desire to do X went away. One weird side effect was I cursed like the sailor I was (I'm a Navy vet) until the day I was saved. I not only stopped I couldn't even stand to hear it for a long time after words. This last one is a bit odd and requires some explanation but it did occur but I could give a dozen more just in my case alone. If you want some radical verifiable stories look up Ravi Zacharias' visit to Angola prison (Angola I think) his visit transformed the place.

Yes, maybe i have been a little too superficial. Who knows what goes in the mind of a person when she gets convinced to have God in their heart? Alas, I am not a psychologist. My Indian friend managed to give up several addictions after receiving Vishnu in his heart (whatever that means).

I don't know how it works, but I am pretty confident it was not Vishnu. Or was it?

And what do you mean with "homosexual counseling"? You mean like counseling about safe sex and the correct deployment of condoms?

We secular people do that too. Only to male homosexuals, obviously. Although we, in the North at least, try to teach it at school to young kids independently of their sexual orientation. So what?

Ciao

- viole

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Your something else. Distinguishing between experiential claims like observations of planets and fantastic guess about things we have no evidence for like multi-verse is perfectly justifiable and has been differentiated since man first existed. No fallacy, no dismissal, just perfectly justified fact.

You've yet to bring up a single fact in this debate - just accounts and beliefs. We have just as much, if not more, evidence for the existence of multiple Universes than you have for the occurrence of any Biblical miracles.

I work in a defense laboratory not on an archeological site. However those that are and are NT scholars or historical lawyers, etc.... have and a virtual consensus exists that they were. That is why the Bible is officially classified as a historical biography. Since you will deny any number based on preference I will only give two but could give hundreds.

I asked for evidence, not opinions. Please present me with facts, not the opinions of some people you randomly decide to name-drop.

There is every reason to. In the NIV over 100 biblical scholars contributed and they attributed every book to it's traditional author except one they could not get agreement on. Fortunately it is the most textually accurate book so the damage is minimal (not that slapping a name on anything makes it more reliable alone). Even skeptic conclude that the writers were definitely eyewitnesses. Some of Paul's source material goes back to less than ten years of Christ's death. Caesars Gallic wars is taught as accurate history in universities around the world every day yet the only two copies we have are from 950 years later and even the original was known as pure propaganda in it's time.

I can't help but notice that your'e continuing to give opinions, not facts. Please, present evidence of your claims.

It contains more corroborating sources than almost any historical event of the times.

Such as?

You just reject them all because they agree. The Bible is not a single story. It is a collection of writers who did not know each other in many cases, were separated by over a thousand years and lived in completely different cultures, plus there are at least 40 extra biblical sources outside it. Probably no other event (and even if so very few) in ancient history have a fraction of the corroboration. However when you arbitrarily deny all those because they agree then your out to lunch to begin with.

Because you're talking nonsense. Please present an example of extra-Biblical corroboration of any of the miracles Jesus performed.

No it is not. Empirical evidence is evidence that can be comprehended by the senses.

Wrong. Again, the leprechaun example. My friend's experience was sensory, so he must have therefore experienced empirical evidence of leprechauns. For something to be empirical it must be detectable, and an even which is claimed to have happened is not detectable. What you can do is find corroboration of the claims, or otherwise other, objectively verifiable forms of evidence that the claim is true. That is empirical evidence. A claim, on its own, is not. It's ridiculous to assert otherwise.

Can you comprehend anything that occurred longer than a second ago. Is history 100%non empirical? The tomb's being empty was just as empirical then as my cars existence is today.

Which tomb? Where? Where is the corroboration?

Nothing is empirically available to everyone (or almost nothing).

True, which is why we rely on evidence, not claims, and why claims alone are insufficient to establish truth.

Empirical evidence
Empirical evidence (also empirical data, sense experience, empirical knowledge, or the a posteriori) is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation. The term comes from the Greek word for experience, Εμπειρία (empeiría).

Your really desperate now aren't you. No mention of (to every human in existence) at all in that definition.

But it does say "obtained by means of observation or experimentation". Since you cannot observe or test a single person's experience, an experience is not empirical evidence. It is evidence which is intended to justify a belief, so saying "x occurred" is not evidence - it is a claim.

Empirical evidence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twisting definitions does not bode well for your position.

Those accounts have been verified far beyond what anyone would expect to be available for claims that old. Historical claims are taught as fact by the millions in university that don't have a meaningful fraction of the corroboration the NT does.

And yet you've not once presented any corroboration whatsoever, in spite of being repeatedly asked. Where are these extra-Biblical sources? Give me a single example of extra-Biblical, contemporary evidence of the feeding of the five-thousand. Just one.

 

[1robin]

:beach:

Yes, and that is exactly why science works. Another retroactive confirmation, I guess.

What? God is no impediment to science, belief in him actually created modern science. Ask faraday, Newton, Laplace, Copernicus, Galileo, Da Vinci, Bacon, Kepler, Descartes, Gassendi, Pascal, Boyle, Leibnitz, Lavoisier, Coulomb, Ampere, etc.... ad infinitum if faith made their science unworkable. In fact 9 out of 10 scientific greats I was taught in college about the great breakthroughs in science were Christian plus a few Jewish scientists.

But nobody has objective proof that God exists, so your analogy with the ESB is odd. I can easily confirm that the ESB exists. All you have to do is going to NYC.

Yes people do and I am one of millions but it not available to all nor was it intended to be. Most will never see the ESB or millions of other things that are objective facts. Objectivity does not include universal perception in it's definition. It only means no human opinion formed the conclusion.

Of course. If you demote to symbolic language what is obviously absurd. Once you do that, everything goes. I could do the same with the Odyssey, with a little of imagination, and prove Zeus.

I did not mention symbolic language. You could subtract all the symbolism in the bible and you would still have an embarrassment of evidence that is more than enough to justify reasoned faith.

This how it works:

Symbolic: what has been proven to be factually wrong
Literal: what has not yet been proven wrong. Might become symbolic later

No that is how you said it works. I am the greatest expert in human history on how I mean symbolism (and I did not mention it) and your system is completely wrong. I use proper exegesis and hermeneutics that has been established for centuries in doing so. The symbolic interpretation of genesis days of creation (for example) has been prominent since the cabalists. If Catholicism had not won so many wars you may not have heard of many literal interpretations like Hell having actual fire instead of being a metaphor from the garbage heap outside Jerusalem.

How can someone be hostile to God? It is like saying that atheists hate God, which is obviously absurd.

Oh they do. I love Hitchens but he got so mad in a debate that his opponent said his book should have been called "God doe snot exist and I hate him". Atheists constantly act in ways their world view does not justify. I am not specifically referring to you but generally.

The point is that your God and the Aztec one are equally plausible. You know and worship one and not the other because of an accident of birth.

That is crap because I turned on the God of my youth. I didn't only not care about him like Allah or Vishnu I hated the very concept. I was taught he heals yet the only Christina in my family suffered in agony for 5 years then died so I hated every verse and the idea of the Christian God with a passion. Though intellectually I did not think he existed. Christianity is the only faith present significantly in every culture and nation on earth. It transcends every boundary and is not culturally based as so many others are. It forms no governments like Islam and no caste systems like Hinduism.

I think he is the guy that organized a meeting because Christians could not agree on some issues. Like whether Jesus was a man, a God or a superposition of the two. You know, those personal relationships with jesus can present some noise in the communication channel.

He was the king of a nation with many faiths. He was a Christian and so resented division within it. He naturally asked 1800 bishops to resolve major disagreements. With two dissentions they did so. That was long after Christianity had conquered through persuasion those who had persecuted them. Actually some of the conquering was not peaceful but much of it was. Notably Constantine did not speak a word on he issue to be settled. He merely asked them to do so and left them to it.

Your belief in the trinity is the result of that meeting.

Man your way off your rocker. I have no firm position on the trinity. Never have. I need to do the exact same thing to get to heaven whether it is true or not and so have never bothered too much with it. However if I did adopt it all the evidence I need was in the bible long before Constantine existed. That was not even the question they resolved at Nicaea. It was the result of Gnostics claiming Jesus was 100% human in essence and is very complex.

Yes, the Spanish inquisition and Cortez were famous for their tolerance, lol. Not to speak of the continued exploitation of resources and people perpetrated by good, non-secular Christians in the following centuries.

Lets compare them shall we.

Over 400 years the inquisition (all of them not just the Spanish) killed roughly 2000 people compared with just a minor league atheist like Pol Pot's 2 million in a decade or less.

Cortez killed less than 10,000 (his men probably only a few hundred, Indians that hated the Aztecs killed over 90%) in conquering a country. Stalin killed 20million in suppressing his own country.

I will admit and condemn atrocities committed by Christians (even though the bible justifies none of them) if you will admit and condemn the overwhelming mountain of bodies sacrificed for atheism (and consistently with social Darwinism).

If you want to compare numbers you will lose by orders of magnitude.

A good series of books about the benevolence of Christians in history is "the criminal history of Christianity" by KH Deschner.

Explain the reasoning that produced that statement.

Sure. But as I said, deluded people can be very sincere. They would probably all pass a lie detector test.

I was not talking about my side but the secular side on NT scholars. Regardless despite your double standard it is the best source we have. I could use the potentially deluded excuse to ignore anything inconvenient in any subject but I don't use crutches.

What I said is very simple. BGVT assumes a classical (relativistic) spacetime. So, to use geodesics on the spacetime manifold is the core part of the theorem. If you deny that spacetime is a continuum (manifold) on which geodesics can be defined, you undermine the assumptions of the theorem. If you don't, then you make my point, basically.

Since it is not my theorem I have no need to do anything you suggest. All I need to do is get the conclusion of the theory from those that constructed it and are far better qualified to do so. Your requests all would require significant investments of time so where I can without costs of any kind I will avoid having to do so when not made necessary in any way.

And what is time if not a dimension of the cosmological spacetime continuum? I am afraid, you completely ignore or misunderstand the concepts used in the theorem.

I have no need to understand every aspect of a cutting edge theorem. I only need to know this:

Vilenkin concluded by saying “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” The power of this statement, and its source, should not be underestimated. Like many other cosmologists, Vilenkin was not satisfied to conclude that the Standard Model (Big Bang) was the end of the story. He wanted the universe to be eternal. He has been involved in projects trying to restore an eternal universe, and yet based on the evidence, he is willing to admit that an eternal universe does not appear to be a physical possibility. All the evidence points to a beginning. And if there is a beginning, then the question of what caused the universe to come into being needs to be answered.
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=3862503

That is what the theory equals that is irrelevant. If you think Vilenkin wrong then tell him not me.

We can review it together if you wish. I offer my services, free of charge, lol.

I am tempted to do so as you would probably be very helpful but at present I just do not have time. Sorry.

Lol, I am going to byte the bullet here. i have strong faith in the Multiverse. Why? Because it explains the "fine tuning" so well, amongst other things.

That is exactly what I already knew long before you said so. The honesty is enough for me to accept it as your position and not to point out it's flaws.

So, my fait is reasonable. At least as much as yours, which should suffice to defuse the fine tuning argument as proof of anything. Unless, you like special pleading, of course.

Your position is not as likely or as evidenced but it equals mine in that it is not impossible (possibly, lol).

But of course, there is no need to invoke the Multiverse. It is quite easy to defuse the fine tuning also with one universe.

Well that is original, let her rip.

He does not need to do that, even though he mentioned it. God is, indeed, superfluous.

So a natural universe has no explanation but God is superfluous, morality having no natural foundation makes God superfluous, the fact anything exists makes God superfluous. I think your statement was superfluous.

I think you are schizophrenic, too . Wasn't Einstein who said that time is just an illusion? And that was a physical statement.

I don't get any part of this. Lets just pretend that you blamed that on me, and then I asked you to prove it was my fault. Your turn.

Ciao

- viole

"Te veo despues"

 

[1robin]

Yes, maybe i have been a little too superficial. Who knows what goes in the mind of a person when she gets convinced to have God in their heart? Alas, I am not a psychologist. My Indian friend managed to give up several addictions after receiving Vishnu in his heart (whatever that means).

As far as I know there are no doctrinal promises that give anyone an expectation of receiving Vishnu in their heart in the Vedas. I believe Hinduism teaches that over many life times a person learns that there is no good or bad and receives enlightenment but it is not similar to being born again. I am no Hindu so can't be certain but I have never heard of a parallel between being born again and enlightenment that was meaningful. It is also not merely Foreman, Cash, or myself that make the claim strong enough that it must be reckoned with literally millions of changed lives and so dramatic they defy any natural explanation. No other faith even makes a meaningful fraction of the claims to spiritual birth as Christians do, nor is there even a doctrinal reason to expect they would. I try not to question any one person but look at the aggregate.

I don't know how it works, but I am pretty confident it was not Vishnu. Or was it?

I can't say personally but I know of no Hindu teachings that would corroborate the story but Christianity's very core does validate the millions of claim to spiritual birth and the evidence for it. IOW it is no challenge to a hundred millions claims that correspond to clear core doctrine with a few that have no clear doctrinal basis. Without having to question anyone's individual sincerity that would remain he case.

And what do you mean with "homosexual counseling"? You mean like counseling about safe sex and the correct deployment of condoms?

No, restoring them to the sexual preference intended by nature (as much as natural architecture can intend) and/or God. I consider it a sin, a moral evil. However I consider some things I do as the same moral evils. The difference is that I seek forgiveness and admit the sin where as pop culture has refused to do the same in the case of homosexuality. I am quite sure you do not agree as when God is absent whatever is wrong becomes a factor of preference and convenience. I argued long and hard to show that using only two statements I can show without appealing to God at all that homosexuality is inexcusable but I will not open that can of worms here. That is my view take it or reject it as you wish, but faith based institutions have the best record of restoring them to heterosexuality (and that came from a secular person arguing in favor of homosexuality not me).

We secular people do that too. Only to male homosexuals, obviously. Although we, in the North at least, try to teach it at school to young kids independently of their sexual orientation. So what?

You do what to? What is this in response to?

Ciao

- viole

Orivwa Gopheer (what movie is that from?)

 

[idav]

I never said it was. I said what it's essence is, is still a mystery. We know something about how it acts, what it is based upon, and how to interact with it. We have no idea what it actually is. I have lost why this was important, do you remember?

Well the issue seems to be you haven't seen the that gravity waves have been verified. They have the data of gravity waves make spacetime ripples. Did you see the article, makes a bunch of theories irrelevant?

Then in essence gravity is waves, like sound but it is a reverse energy, its what they call it. Waves that bend spacetime as a reverse energy coming from the energy side of the general relativity equation. Mass is important in determining what gravity force there is and general relativity says gravity is a fictitious force based on mass actually doing something and causing the spacetime distortions.

The notion of "fictitious force" comes up in general relativity.[15][16] All fictitious forces are proportional to the mass of the object upon which they act, which is also true for gravity.[17] This led Albert Einstein to wonder whether gravity was a fictitious force as well. He noted that a freefalling observer in a closed box would not be able to detect the force of gravity; hence, freefalling reference frames are equivalent to an inertial reference frame (the equivalence principle). Following up on this insight, Einstein was able to formulate a theory with gravity as a fictitious force; attributing the apparent acceleration of gravity to the curvature of spacetime. This idea underlies Einstein's theory of general relativity. See Eötvös experiment.
Fictitious force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[1robin]

You've yet to bring up a single fact in this debate - just accounts and beliefs. We have just as much, if not more, evidence for the existence of multiple Universes than you have for the occurrence of any Biblical miracles.

What? The claim you responded to is an absolute fact that you yourself affirm every day.

I asked for evidence, not opinions. Please present me with facts, not the opinions of some people you randomly decide to name-drop.

So a fact from me is better than the conclusion of those who swim in then facts. Why? Fine are you asking for evidence that makes the apostles eyewitnesses to the events? I must nail it down so you can't apply them some where else. Keep in mind that faith only requires the absence of a defeater so it's your burden in reality but I will do it but my burden is only that the evidence suggest it is more probable they were eyewitnesses than not. If you agree and understand I will supply some.

I can't help but notice that your'e continuing to give opinions, not facts. Please, present evidence of your claims.

Your needle is stuck. I have been discussing the conclusions of those in the best position to have the most facts. What could possibly be better than that? If you have a heart attack are you going to ask me to help or a doctor? If you build a house do you want my design or an architect. Non-theists almost never act as if their world views are actually true.

Such as?

The four gospels alone are more than most ancient historical events have even the most important. Add in Pliny, Tacitus, Tranquillas (what a name), Josephus, Trajan, Hadrian, Lucian, Serapion, Valentius, Saturnisus, GOT, Pilate, Phlegon, etc...... Some mention Jesus specifically, events of his life, one even mentions a miracle, and others the instant explosion of the faith. The latter will most likely be your arbitrary target but lies do not normally have massive agreement that early or widespread. They usually take off only when the eyewitnesses die off. However Christianity exploded within a decade of Christ across borders, in spite of oppressions, and in a country and empire hostile to it. 9/11 conspiracies did not do that, other gunman in JFK's death did not do that, Homer's troy and even Herodotus' history of Thermopylae have never been taken widely as truth. Myths take a long time to take off in most cases. There is even a formula to estimate it. Write a story of how Obama parted lake Michigan and see if anyone but a few cults buy it until generations later. Not one single "I was there and X did not occur" exists anywhere from that period. Nor is there a single alternate person who claimed to have written a single book of the bible. I can hear the forced censorship gears already turning.

Because you're talking nonsense. Please present an example of extra-Biblical corroboration of any of the miracles Jesus performed.

Now you have changed the whole subject and imposed a completely contrived standard. Why outside the bible? Do I require non biologists as a source for evolution or non cosmologists for multiverse no I use the exact sources in the field and most reliably know. If you want a hostile witness then Paul was as hostile as they get. he was literally killing Christians in God's name yet switched sides over night, give me a better explanation than his and quit amplifying uncertainties beyond justification. he is the best possible expert on what occurred on the road to Damascus. Yet you deny the best and request far worse for no reason what ever.

Wrong. Again, the leprechaun example. My friend's experience was sensory, so he must have therefore experienced empirical evidence of leprechauns. For something to be empirical it must be detectable, and an even which is claimed to have happened is not detectable. What you can do is find corroboration of the claims, or otherwise other, objectively verifiable forms of evidence that the claim is true. That is empirical evidence. A claim, on its own, is not. It's ridiculous to assert otherwise.

If a hundred million people said they saw a leprechaun you, me, no one would feel it was likely they were all lying. Heck most of what you believe about everything came from vastly fewer people and many times not from observations. In fact almost everything in science used to combat God has never been seen by anyone and there is no reasons to think it ever will be. The apostles made an empirical claim they had no need of if not true. One of the greatest philosophers I have ever heard of stated it just that way and I have never heard anyone with a relevant degree even hint it was incorrect. Ravi has 3-4 earned degrees and maybe 3 more honorary doctorates (actually more I think). If their claim was not empirical then no claim of any kind you are not viewing this second ever was and we can close the schools and forget the word ever existed. Why are you inventing fabricated criteria for the bible that you nor much of anyone uses for the rest of their lives? This is complete garbage. I gave you the definition for crying out loud.

Which tomb? Where? Where is the corroboration?

What? The Romans sealed it after a good friend of the apostles took Christ there under guard then three days later they all went there. I hope this is not the wrong tomb theory. It is the worst of the whole terrible lot of revisionist history. Not only that but it was marked from that time and Constantine build an entire sanctuary over it that is over 1500 years old. The Romans and Jews had every possible motive to both seal the tomb with Christ in it and to find the body when it was found missing. They failed to do what your pathetic theory necessitates.

True, which is why we rely on evidence, not claims, and why claims alone are insufficient to establish truth.

My physics, mathematics, history, and chemistry books used in college contain 100% claims to evidence and no evidence it's self. Congratulations you just invalidated every degree in the history of man and 99.9999999% of everything ever believed.

But it does say "obtained by means of observation or experimentation". Since you cannot observe or test a single person's experience, an experience is not empirical evidence. It is evidence which is intended to justify a belief, so saying "x occurred" is not evidence - it is a claim.

Then how do you know anything which you did not test personally or see with your own eyes is true. In fact stop being a selective knowledge nihilist and admit you don't know anything with certainty except that you think and lets just end this who useless discussion. At least you would be consistent.

Empirical evidence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twisting definitions does not bode well for your position.

I copied the first definition that appeared. Quit lying and I rarely use that word.

Lets try it again.

1: Empirical evidence (also empirical data, sense experience, empirical knowledge, or the a posteriori) is a source of knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation. The term comes from the Greek word for experience, Εμπειρία (empeiría).
BTW that is Wikipedia.

2: originating in or based on observation or experience
Empirical - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

3: Based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic:
empirical: definition of empirical in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)

4: empirical
If knowledge is empirical, it's based on observation rather than theory.
empirical - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com

The 4 claims I originally used about NT conclusions and the observations of the apostles is way more than is necessary to justify faith and they are perfectly empirical as the definitions all suggest. They SAW him crucified, They saw him feed thousands without even remotely enough food, they felt the fish spilling out of previously completely empty nets, they saw the lame walk, they saw the 3 day old dead body come out of a tomb, they saw Christ pass through walls, as if to prove you specifically wrong Thomas touched the wounds in his hands and spear cut in his chest, The Romans would have been killed if Christ was not dead so they verified by observation and testing to make sure, they saw the stone rolled away, they saw angelic beings, they saw him ascend into the sky, etc...... I could go on for days with empirical claims that without any theory imposed or added to them would be far more than enough to venture faith.

You are dead wrong here and your inability to admit it only makes it worse.
They could all be lies (though that would be the worst conclusion possible) but the claims are empirical claims even if they were lies. That is their type like it or not.

And yet you've not once presented any corroboration whatsoever, in spite of being repeatedly asked. Where are these extra-Biblical sources? Give me a single example of extra-Biblical, contemporary evidence of the feeding of the five-thousand. Just one.

I would have thought that the conclusions of those who have more access to the evidence than any other group would have been far more meaningful but gave individual examples in this post since we are obviously in Bizarro-world here.

 

[viole]

What? God is no impediment to science, belief in him actually created modern science. Ask faraday, Newton, Laplace, Copernicus, Galileo, Da Vinci, Bacon, Kepler, Descartes, Gassendi, Pascal, Boyle, Leibnitz, Lavoisier, Coulomb, Ampere, etc.... ad infinitum if faith made their science unworkable. In fact 9 out of 10 scientific greats I was taught in college about the great breakthroughs in science were Christian plus a few Jewish scientists.

So, you have to make up your mind. Do, or do they not, assume God when they do science (independently from their private metaphysical beliefs)?

Yes people do and I am one of millions but it not available to all nor was it intended to be. Most will never see the ESB or millions of other things that are objective facts. Objectivity does not include universal perception in it's definition. It only means no human opinion formed the conclusion.

You can watch the ESB with google earth or on TV. Can you do the same with God? Is He also on fifth Av.?

I did not mention symbolic language. You could subtract all the symbolism in the bible and you would still have an embarrassment of evidence that is more than enough to justify reasoned faith.

The only embarassment left would be indulgence of slavery and acts of racial cleansing. Or is that metaphorical, out of context, or derived by applying the wrong hermeneutics?

No that is how you said it works. I am the greatest expert in human history on how I mean symbolism (and I did not mention it) and your system is completely wrong. I use proper exegesis and hermeneutics that has been established for centuries in doing so. The symbolic interpretation of genesis days of creation (for example) has been prominent since the cabalists. If Catholicism had not won so many wars you may not have heard of many literal interpretations like Hell having actual fire instead of being a metaphor from the garbage heap outside Jerusalem.

A metaphor of the garbage heap outside Jerusalem? Will atheists spend all eternity there?

By the way: why does the word of God requires experts, exegesis and hermeneutics? If I read an average book I don't need much to understand it. Are human authors better communicators than God?

Oh they do. I love Hitchens but he got so mad in a debate that his opponent said his book should have been called "God doe snot exist and I hate him". Atheists constantly act in ways their world view does not justify. I am not specifically referring to you but generally.

And do you think that the statement of his oppononent is a fact?

We love the believer, but hate the belief. And we don't hate which does not exist. I don't hate Santa for not bringing me presents either.

And we hate the belief because it interferes with our life. I am lucky to come from a country where belief in God is as relevant as the belief in Mother Goose, but not everyone is so lucky.

That is crap because I turned on the God of my youth. I didn't only not care about him like Allah or Vishnu I hated the very concept. I was taught he heals yet the only Christina in my family suffered in agony for 5 years then died so I hated every verse and the idea of the Christian God with a passion. Though intellectually I did not think he existed. Christianity is the only faith present significantly in every culture and nation on earth. It transcends every boundary and is not culturally based as so many others are. It forms no governments like Islam and no caste systems like Hinduism.

Why crap? It is my point. Isn't the timespace location of your youth not an accident of birth? What if your youth had taken place in India?

Off topic, though.

He was the king of a nation with many faiths. He was a Christian and so resented division within it. He naturally asked 1800 bishops to resolve major disagreements. With two dissentions they did so. That was long after Christianity had conquered through persuasion those who had persecuted them. Actually some of the conquering was not peaceful but much of it was. Notably Constantine did not speak a word on he issue to be settled. He merely asked them to do so and left them to it.

Well, I have to trust you here. I am not a historian. But what are you historical qualifications? - kidding. lol

Man your way off your rocker. I have no firm position on the trinity. Never have. I need to do the exact same thing to get to heaven whether it is true or not and so have never bothered too much with it. However if I did adopt it all the evidence I need was in the bible long before Constantine existed. That was not even the question they resolved at Nicaea. It was the result of Gnostics claiming Jesus was 100% human in essence and is very complex.

I doubt anyone has a firm position about the trinity.

Lets compare them shall we.

Over 400 years the inquisition (all of them not just the Spanish) killed roughly 2000 people compared with just a minor league atheist like Pol Pot's 2 million in a decade or less.

Cortez killed less than 10,000 (his men probably only a few hundred, Indians that hated the Aztecs killed over 90%) in conquering a country. Stalin killed 20million in suppressing his own country.

I will admit and condemn atrocities committed by Christians (even though the bible justifies none of them) if you will admit and condemn the overwhelming mountain of bodies sacrificed for atheism (and consistently with social Darwinism).

If you want to compare numbers you will lose by orders of magnitude.

Explain the reasoning that produced that statement.

I wonder why you did not mention Hitler

I condemn the ideology they used to kill those people. I even suspect that some of the greatest Christian criminals did not believe in God. But nobody kills in the name of the absence of God, they kill in an ideology (e.g. Communism) which is atheistic, among other things.

So, when someone kills in the name of X, I condemn X. And X has been "God" several times in history.

By the way, you forgot to count the genocides ordered by God in the Bible. In this case, I am confident that the main perp believes in God.

And we are drifting off-topic.

I was not talking about my side but the secular side on NT scholars. Regardless despite your double standard it is the best source we have. I could use the potentially deluded excuse to ignore anything inconvenient in any subject but I don't use crutches.

Which raises qustions about their sanity. How do you stay secular if you are convinced that the apostles were sincere and not deluded?

Fun, but off-topic.

I have no need to understand every aspect of a cutting edge theorem. I only need to know this:

Oh. So now "cutting edge" is OK.

And if there is a beginning, then the question of what caused the universe to come into being needs to be answered.
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=3862503

That is what the theory equals that is irrelevant. If you think Vilenkin wrong then tell him not me.

Well no. Because I could appeal to tenseless theory and defuse causality leaving the theorem intact. The beginning of the Universe would require an explanation as much as the north pole of the earth requires one.

The irony is that several "tensed" thinkers, like B. Monton for instance, defend presentism by postulating that relativity is not the end of the story, and they might very well be right, even though it is not clear if the next big theory will recover absolute and independent time.

But if you want to defuse tenseless time (and recover the tensed version of beginning of the universe) you need to appeal to cutting edge physics, which is still in its infancy. Physics, under which regime, the premises of the theorem are not valid anymore.

I believe there is an email of Vilenkin running around that says that the theorem is not valid if you introduce QM, for instance (google Vilenkin/email/Craig/Krauss).

That is exactly what I already knew long before you said so. The honesty is enough for me to accept it as your position and not to point out it's flaws.

Your position is not as likely or as evidenced but it equals mine in that it is not impossible (possibly, lol).

If you think that God is more evidenced than the Multiuniverse, then well, I think you are dreaming. Incidentally, the inflationary regime wich is used in the abovementioned theorem expects Multiverses and that is why Vilenkin is also a strong supporters of the Multiverse.

Well that is original, let her rip.

Yeah, well, using the Multiverse is too easy, so it is fun to think of alternatives. So let's see. I can think of two strategies:

- the entropic argument
- the question begging argument

Which one do you prefer?

For instance, you mentioned that life never comes from non-life. What do you mean? That life has been created by God
in a pre-existing Universe? If that s the case, what do you need fine tuning for, if the physical conditions require supernatural
intervention, anyway?

So a natural universe has no explanation but God is superfluous, morality having no natural foundation makes God superfluous, the fact anything exists makes God superfluous. I think your statement was superfluous.

The Universe does not require an explanation, morality is natural, existing things do not necessarily require pre-existing things, and my statement was, indeed, superflous.

I don't get any part of this. Lets just pretend that you blamed that on me, and then I asked you to prove it was my fault. Your turn.

What?

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

As far as I know there are no doctrinal promises that give anyone an expectation of receiving Vishnu in their heart in the Vedas. I believe Hinduism teaches that over many life times a person learns that there is no good or bad and receives enlightenment but it is not similar to being born again. I am no Hindu so can't be certain but I have never heard of a parallel between being born again and enlightenment that was meaningful. It is also not merely Foreman, Cash, or myself that make the claim strong enough that it must be reckoned with literally millions of changed lives and so dramatic they defy any natural explanation. No other faith even makes a meaningful fraction of the claims to spiritual birth as Christians do, nor is there even a doctrinal reason to expect they would. I try not to question any one person but look at the aggregate.

I can't say personally but I know of no Hindu teachings that would corroborate the story but Christianity's very core does validate the millions of claim to spiritual birth and the evidence for it. IOW it is no challenge to a hundred millions claims that correspond to clear core doctrine with a few that have no clear doctrinal basis. Without having to question anyone's individual sincerity that would remain he case.

It worked, nevertheless.

No, restoring them to the sexual preference intended by nature (as much as natural architecture can intend) and/or God.

Do you believe that nature has intentions and goals? You seem to see agents and goals everywhere. What exists in nature is, by definition, natural. The alternative is that homosexuality is supernatural, lol.

I consider it a sin, a moral evil. However I consider some things I do as the same moral evils. The difference is that I seek forgiveness and admit the sin where as pop culture has refused to do the same in the case of homosexuality.

Yes, and that is why we love you and hate your belief. To call homosexuality a moral evil is a moral evil, from my point of view. How do you intend to prove that I am objectively wrong? By appealing to the directives of a being that cannot be proven to be objectively real?

And how is that a sin? The official (Lutheran) church of Sweden happily marries gay couples. Do you think they apply the wrong hermeneutics or exegesis?

I am quite sure you do not agree as when God is absent whatever is wrong becomes a factor of preference and convenience. I argued long and hard to show that using only two statements I can show without appealing to God at all that homosexuality is inexcusable but I will not open that can of worms here. That is my view take it or reject it as you wish, but faith based institutions have the best record of restoring them to heterosexuality (and that came from a secular person arguing in favor of homosexuality not me).

If you think that homosexuality is a preference, convenience or a choice, then you are bi-sexual, or you think like one.

Orivwa Gopheer (what movie is that from?)

No clue.

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

No it does not. I look at fluid dynamics in my pool, at evaporation rates, at weight volume equivalence, etc...... and extrapolate about water everywhere. Now before you object you should know that is exactly what science does about most everything. We look at the tiny fraction we can and extrapolate about other places. Which by the way only makes sense of the same creator created it all. That is why modern science was born.

Yes, but all ypur observations are valid within the Universe. I wonder how you can warrant extrapolations to whole universes.

In basic Physics a law states that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction. There is NO law that for no action or reason at all there is a reaction.

Yes, the problem is to decide which is which, since the same basic laws of nature are perfectly simmetric.

That is a relative label. There is a view on the theory called classical, and a view that is called modern relativity. In fact type in Classic relativity versus..... and you will get 943,000 sites where relativity is contested. MY point was not that it is wrong juts that the average forum poster is incapable of meaningfully understanding it fully because very few in the field do. It does have areas where great agreement exists but the most controversial areas are where you are, concluding some implication from complex theory.

Yes, it is relative. When people say that Vilenkin therem is classical, they mean that it is only relativistic, not quantistic. When people talks of classical mechanics, they mean Neither relativistic nor quantistic.

Normally I would think that but that theory was designed by people who understand on some level the impact of the Quantum. It was designed to be extremely robust and to be true regardless of what could have conceivably occurred in the singularity. It could need tweaking someday but I do not think it is premature nor weak on any level. They set it up so it did not matter what the variables turned out to be within reason.

Could be, but I don't think it is robust at all. It is simple, but that is its main drawback, since it does not survive scrutiny that goes slightly beyond human intuition. After all, poor Craig must adapt to the knowledge level of his average audience

Since even if macroevolution was true no one person will ever see it occur I doubt it. I am in the shoes of someone who is frustrated by claims that have no evidence nor good reasons to believe there ever would be any even if they were true. There are many grey areas but your not in them. Your in areas which have very wide spread agreement and no known exception. Appealing to things who's only merit is they are not impossible, and using theories for radical conclusions and suggesting rejecting the conclusions means I don't accept physics is exasperating.

Hold on. Now you don't believe in (macro)evolution? You believe in supremely unobservable things like the mechanisms which might underly the creation of universes and you don't accept what is before your nose?

But of course. Science is ok when it confirms my bias, and it is highly speculative when it doesn't. Like the interpretations of the Bible, I guess.

What? Who did you marry, your past husband? My brain for some reason I can't figure out assigns genders to posters. I rarely know if I am correct but I run about 80% concerning those I do find out about. I thought you were female from your first post, have no idea why, but I did. We are not in causal relationships will 99.9999999999999999% of the universe so I don't know what to make of that. I don't think it does not exist.

You don't understand. My present is completely inaccessible to me. When I see my husband, I am actually see him in the past, because that is the time the light reflected by him takes to reach my retina. To access my present, Interactions should travel at infinite speed, which is impossible.

I have also told you until my fingers bled I am primarily interested in each of those subjects as they apply to theology. Virtually no one on either side ever proposes tens less time (though I have heard it) that I would have never heard much about it's explanation. When I have heard it, it is usually posited simply as a brute fact or another non-impossibility which is torn to shreds by Craig or Lennox and foundations are not mentioned in detail.
I studied math and military history most of my life not philosophy. So my philosophical knowledge is deep but narrow because it comes primarily from professional debates and a lot of them. You did notice they were only giving an argument not an accepted law or principle. I can say that despite the fact it rarely is used in professional debate you did use it as correctly as that argument eventually turns out to be. But you might have said the same for arguments that showed a flat earth or the steady state. Stating an argument does not validate it. I believe the argument wrong as things do exist simultaneously. If my car did not exist simultaneously with me I would not have made it to work. I choose option number two in that arguments defeaters.

Well, the problem is obvious. You artificially select the things that confirm your theology and dismiss the ones which do not.

And no. Things do not exist simultaneosly, at least objectively. What is simultaneous for me, might have a time difference of 1,000 years for an equally valid observer.

There is not such a thing like simultaneity. Which entails that there is not such a thing as an objective present shared by everybody, if present is defined as the set of all things that are simultaneous.

Sorry. But this is really relativity 101.


Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

No evidence less fantasy never explains things as good as evidenced hypothesis. It is almost impossible for me to give credibility to an idea simply because it isn't impossible but even if I did that credibility factor would be dwarfed entirely by evidenced theories like the Gospels. They don't find a body and a guy standing over it with a gun that matches the bullet who had a grudge and let him go because an alien could have used a similar firearm and killed the guy in a cosmic hunting expedition. Your response has so little merit or evidence as to easily be considered negligible.

As much evidence or merit as yours, I am afraid. And I have been generous.

It is stronger for thousands of reasons (which you would conveniently find thousands of reasons to claim them wrong without sufficient justification) which would it's self be evidence of at least a bias. No matter how weak even you consider the bible it is far stronger that a fantasy.

Is it?

I need no convincing to believe in the power of cognitive dissonance. I am a believer in it and do not require conversion. I spend as much time questioning every aspect of my faith as reading the bible. That is why I like debates even better than preaching most times. I want someone there who can say the theist is wrong if he is. The inability to do so by atheists in a convincing manner has only deepened my faith.

Well, there is very simple way to rid all those dissonances.

Since when. Two wars that cost more lives than maybe all other combined occurred less than a hundred years ago. Most people know little about the Cuban missile crisis by almost no one knows about the closest we came. In the 80's (maybe 83) Reagan was conducted practice exercises in eastern Europe with huge assets. The Russians had false intelligence that we would use this for a sneak attack. At the height of confusion a Russian bunker picked up a signal that was coded as an ICBM launch. I think it was Gorbechev that warmed his missiles up and targeted cities around the world. He called the bunker and was talking to the guy. The guy was uncertain but the world's existence hung on his guessing science had failed. As the launch window was closing he was asked to decide. He said possible sun flare. No launch and we all are alive for one and possibly two more reasons.

Yes, and God intervened, right? Maybe Reagan did not want to be turned into a shadow on a wall, either. Far more plausible.

Indeterminate systems use modal logic. I work with them and employ all the systems developed by Kripke and others in electronic theory. Craig uses and mentions more than Kalam. Both he and I like Leibniz as well and most would do in there core claims. He uses Kalam because it is well known and semi-universal. I have read his work when replying to very sophisticated arguments in his written sources and he argues almost the same way as always. I am sure he could get very technical if he wanted but I do not see any need here and neither does he apparently. If applicable simple is always better. That is a scientific and philosophic principle as well. Do not multiply causes beyond necessity, Occam's razor, etc......

I think we can forget about modal logic. OK?

Since I am not a fairie-ist I cannot comment except to say that like science bad theology tends to be rooted out over time and only the more evidenced survive and flourish.

The more evidenced theology? What on earth is that?

NO that proves fairies are just as valid as multi-verses. They have no parallel with the bible or even the dreadful Quran and Vedas.

Oh ok. They have no parallel with the Bible, ergo wrong

Are you suggesting that if I find a glass of water that is not gaining or loosing heat that suggests time is not moving?

Nope. Because you are still observing from a vantage point in which entropy increases.

No it would not because you have exactly zero of these things to observe. This sounds like the tree falling in the forest sort of canard to me. Thermodynamics does not dictate which way time goes. Entropy seems to increase as time goes but has nothing to do with times existence or direction. The same way a sign indicates the flow of traffic but does not mean I can't go the other way or that cars don't exist. And your particular sign does not exist in the universe we know of nor will it ever anyway. You know, the universe we look at to make conclusions from.

What has the tree in the forest anything to do with that? To say that entropy incrases with time is tautological. It is like saying that entropy increases in the direction of time in which it increases.

And this is obvious aince the laws of the microscopic world are symmetric with time direction. So, the polarization comes from the macroscopic, or statistical world.

Maybe you might want to check out the origins of the arrow of time, at this moment.

Here, a good introduction:http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/reality_arrow_of_time.asp

Yes there would be because our universe will always be increasing in entropy. No matter how small the particles they will always be moving.

Continued below:

Therefore the number of microstates our universe can have is infinite, correct?

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

So, you have to make up your mind. Do, or do they not, assume God when they do science (independently from their private metaphysical beliefs)?

Depends on the century. Before the enlightenment God was present in western science to a degree that caused it to be inaccurate at times. This was the God of the gaps era. After the enlightenment God was where he belonged (he was the ultimate explanation of why science can be done, the first cause, the mind behind the rationality, etc..) this is science's zenith and these men are the giants that todays scientists stand upon. In modern times secularization and political correctness have stripped God from science and they no longer care to include him in any form. This has mixed results. It means that many lines of reasoning have no terminus any longer and so fantasy fills the gap, science can still be done, but why science can be done no longer has an explanation. The context is lost and fiction fills the void. We have arrived at the age of the science of the gaps. So your question depends on what era is discussed.

You can watch the ESB with google earth or on TV. Can you do the same with God? Is He also on fifth Av.?

No I can see an image on a computer screen, what it actually is, is a matter of faith. Your taking my analogy and applying it ways it was not intended. Analogy's are not equalities and only apply where intended.

The only embarrassment left would be indulgence of slavery and acts of racial cleansing. Or is that metaphorical, out of context, or derived by applying the wrong hermeneutics?

You are very much mistaken. Slavery is an English word that has 19th century baggage. The word that slavery translated was not chattel slavery but actually a form of welfare. There is no known example of involuntary slavery in any Jewish records. It was almost always voluntary. They had unrivaled rights. They could own property, they were supplied with housing and food even though in most cases the "owner" had paid of their debts to their creditors. They could escape at any time and no one was allowed to report them, they could settle in any of the 12 tribes land, which not even a citizen could do. They had to be released after 6 years whether he had worked off his debt or not. The other case was what to do with prisoners. You could let them wonder the country pillaging, kill them, and force them to work and take care of them in very benevolent ways. I have gone into Biblical slavery exhaustively in the thread on is God evil if you want more info. As for race wars they did not exist. God sent his people to attack tribe because of what they had done and not who they were. The bible said to kill the Canaanites because their cup of iniquity was full by practicing human sacrifice etc..... not because they were Canaanites. There is no problem with symbolism and no embarrassment just ignorance.

A metaphor of the garbage heap outside Jerusalem? Will atheists spend all eternity there?

In my view Hell is eventual annihilation. You were given a life and you used it to deny the maker so he takes it back. So I believe you will spend an eternity not existing, yes. There may be a temporary physical Hell but even it is thrown into the lake of fire in the end and annihilated with Satan and demons. The bible uses metaphors about burning to indicate the deplorable choice. The valley of Gehenna was a trash dump where refuse was burned day and night and eradicated. God said Hell is worse than that.

By the way: why does the word of God requires experts, exegesis and hermeneutics? If I read an average book I don't need much to understand it. Are human authors better communicators than God?

Depends. What is required to get to heaven and commune with Christ is so simple a child could understand it but it contains unbelievable complexity on deeper levels. There was a genius behind those words far beyond human comprehension. Rabbis say there are 50 levels of understanding to every passage. I think that hyperbole but I do think here are surface level necessities a child can grasp and far more complex meanings and structure behind much of it. Just look at the Passover and compare it to the crucifixion hundreds of years later. Perfect symmetry.

And do you think that the statement of his opponent is a fact?

In Hitchens case yes. I believe Hitchens hated the concept of God. It is easy to see when analogies are more bitter than necessity requires and too frequent to be accidental. However each person must be taken individually.

We love the believer, but hate the belief. And we don't hate which does not exist. I don't hate Santa for not bringing me presents either.

To quote a movie anyone who judges by the group is a Pee Wit. I would not use we because your side has very bitter people in it and very neutral people as well. I take them one at a time. You don't seem all that bitter.

And we hate the belief because it interferes with our life. I am lucky to come from a country where belief in God is as relevant as the belief in Mother Goose, but not everyone is so lucky.

That statement is completely dependent on the reality of the truth of the belief. Everything you said was wrong if it is true.

Why crap? It is my point. Isn't the timespace location of your youth not an accident of birth? What if your youth had taken place in India?

There are tens of thousands of Christian sin India. Even though the Protégées were practiced forceful conversion Indians flocked to them in droves because the Hindu caste system was so deplorable. I mentioned Rome, etc... I expect faith to be regional because God judges corporately as well as individually but he has reached into the darkest of pits in every nation to save. This is a classic genetic fallacy to begin with. In my case it is even worse because I hated the popular faith more than those who are ignorant of it.

Well, I have to trust you here. I am not a historian. But what are you historical qualifications? - kidding. lol

That is very common and accessible knowledge and does not require an Einstein. I have no degrees in history but my capacity for it is many times that of math. Don't take my word for it, look up the councils like Nicaea.

I doubt anyone has a firm position about the trinity.

They most certainly do. Whether they are wrong or right most have set beliefs. Not me.

Continued below:

 

[1robin]

I wonder why you did not mention Hitler

I have actually been accused of using him too much. Sometimes I do not because he courted the church and so ignorant people blame his actions on faith but it isn't the case. When they did not grant their influence he turned on them with a vengeance. Just read his diaries. He was motivated by social Darwinism, Nietzsche, and racial superiority myths based on Tibetan cultism.

I condemn the ideology they used to kill those people. I even suspect that some of the greatest Christian criminals did not believe in God. But nobody kills in the name of the absence of God, they kill in an ideology (e.g. Communism) which is atheistic, among other things.

I condemn it as well. Not one verse in the NT authorizes violence for any reason. However if you annihilate God you annihilate the sanctity of life, the inherent worth of each person, the dignity of man, the equality of man. It is far easier to kill a million biological anomalies of no more value that a germ than a creation of God endowed with the above. It is symptomatic of atheism.

So, when someone kills in the name of X, I condemn X. And X has been "God" several times in history.

That is very flawed reasoning. If I killed someone in the name of multiverses would you hate them. What if someone killed in the name of reality? You judge a teacher by the students who practice the lessons not those that disobey them.

By the way, you forgot to count the genocides ordered by God in the Bible. In this case, I am confident that the main perp believes in God.

No I did not because there are none. God never ordered an attack based on race or culture. He ordered it because of sin and it's effects on his people.

And we are drifting off-topic.

I like drafting better.

Which raises qustions about their sanity. How do you stay secular if you are convinced that the apostles were sincere and not deluded?

There is nothing incoherent about a few people being sincerely wrong. It is extremely unwise but not non-rational.

Fun, but off-topic.

What was the topic?

Oh. So now "cutting edge" is OK.

That is the opposite of what I said and there is a world of difference between cutting edge and fanciful guesses.

Well no. Because I could appeal to tenseless theory and defuse causality leaving the theorem intact. The beginning of the Universe would require an explanation as much as the north pole of the earth requires one.

The North pole has an explanation and we have spent a lot of money arriving at what it is.

The irony is that several "tensed" thinkers, like B. Monton for instance, defend presentism by postulating that relativity is not the end of the story, and they might very well be right, even though it is not clear if the next big theory will recover absolute and independent time.

Get back to me when there is a proof.

But if you want to defuse tenseless time (and recover the tensed version of beginning of the universe) you need to appeal to cutting edge physics, which is still in its infancy. Physics, under which regime, the premises of the theorem are not valid anymore.

Tensed time is the prevalent model so it's your burden to adequately justify doing away with it not the reverse.

I believe there is an email of Vilenkin running around that says that the theorem is not valid if you introduce QM, for instance (google Vilenkin/email/Craig/Krauss).

You would have to link to it before it became relevant.

If you think that God is more evidenced than the Multiuniverse, then well, I think you are dreaming. Incidentally, the inflationary regime wich is used in the abovementioned theorem expects Multiverses and that is why Vilenkin is also a strong supporters of the Multiverse.

Did the multiverse write 750,000 of the most scrutinized words in history? Doe sit have hundreds of millions of claims to experiencing it? Did it come to earth in human form and interact with us?

Yeah, well, using the Multiverse is too easy, so it is fun to think of alternatives. So let's see. I can think of two strategies:

Yeah it is a science of the gaps argument. Science did it is easy.

- the entropic argument

What, entropy causes all kinds of problems for science? The universe appeared already wound up, who wound it. Also evolution seems to be the only dynamic in the universe that can defy it? Why is that? The universe is a closed system.

- the question begging argument

Don't see it. I am not assuming tuning requires a tuner I am deducing it from every observation. Also symbiotic structure has only mind as a source. Yet when we find the longest word ever discovered atheists say it is mindless. DNA is 3.2 billions bits of information precisely arranged and it just so happens to have a tuned decoder. How is a mind not required. If we found a mere 200 worded message or just some symbols on the dark side of the moon every human who ever lived would think mind intelligence immediately.

Which one do you prefer?

Question begging is out and entropy is hopeless but I wish you would expand on entropy I guess.

For instance, you mentioned that life never comes from non-life. What do you mean?

Not exactly, I am only saying that nature did not create it. That make God more probably not a known reality.

That life has been created by God in a pre-existing Universe?

What? No he created in this one a finite time ago.

If that is the case, what do you need fine tuning for, if the physical conditions require supernatural intervention, anyway?

The universe is tuned for the flourishing of intelligent life. God knew the fall would occur and he no longer would perfectly sustain nature but instead allow it to operate on it's on much of the time. This means it needed to capable of permitting life to flourish. I do not know if life could have arisen on it's own, I am saying there is no evidence it did. I think it probably was impossible but I do not claim to know that.

The Universe does not require an explanation, morality is natural, existing things do not necessarily require pre-existing things, and my statement was, indeed, superflous.

No social Darwinian ethics are natural (or could be). Morality assumes an objective foundation which nature doe snot contain. Why do you think even the agnostic Jefferson said the only foundation for rights was natures God? Both the Romans and Greeks considered morals acts against sovereign objective moral truths.

What?

I was assuming the next two predictable parts of the conversation had already taken place to save time.

Ciao

- viole

Bye

 

[viole]

I have actually been accused of using him too much. Sometimes I do not because he courted the church and so ignorant people blame his actions on faith but it isn't the case. When they did not grant their influence he turned on them with a vengeance. Just read his diaries. He was motivated by social Darwinism, Nietzsche, and racial superiority myths based on Tibetan cultism.

Well, it was wise not to mention him.

I condemn it as well. Not one verse in the NT authorizes violence for any reason. However if you annihilate God you annihilate the sanctity of life, the inherent worth of each person, the dignity of man, the equality of man. It is far easier to kill a million biological anomalies of no more value that a germ than a creation of God endowed with the above. It is symptomatic of atheism.

The NT does not justify it? Why didn't you incude the whole Bible?

So, what is more important: belief in God or the actual existence of God?

If you could choose only between the following two alternatives:

1) God does not exist but everybody believes in Him
2) God exists but nobody believes in Him

What would you choose?

That is very flawed reasoning. If I killed someone in the name of multiverses would you hate them. What if someone killed in the name of reality? You judge a teacher by the students who practice the lessons not those that disobey them.

Maybe, but someone might argue that things like Socialism also started from a premise of justice. That is mainly why Marx is not considered a criminal, at least here.

No I did not because there are none. God never ordered an attack based on race or culture. He ordered it because of sin and it's effects on his people.

And he wiped out everybody, inclusing women, children and pets? Where was Jesus, was He sleeping?

But of course God had nothing to do with it. An ancient tribe just invented a God that chose them and justifies their quest for additional Lebensraum. Isn't that obvious?

I like drafting better.

Sure, you are or were in the Army. Err, sorry, Navy.

There is nothing incoherent about a few people being sincerely wrong. It is extremely unwise but not non-rational.

Lol, I think they are nuts. They accept the objectivity of the claims of the apostles and still do not believe? I would take with a grain of salt whatever they say.

That is the opposite of what I said and there is a world of difference between cutting edge and fanciful guesses.

And what is fancifully guessed? Relativity (again) or the Multiverse fancifully guessed by Vilenkin himself?

The North pole has an explanation and we have spent a lot of money arriving at what it is.

And what is its explanation?

Get back to me when there is a proof.

Proof of what?

Tensed time is the prevalent model so it's your burden to adequately justify doing away with it not the reverse.

I aleady told you. Simultaneity does not exist, and therefore a shared present does not exist either. Unless, you have a defeater of special reltivity.

You would have to link to it before it became relevant.

William Lane Craig posts full Vilenkin e-mail misrepresented by Krauss in their debate | Wintery Knight

Did the multiverse write 750,000 of the most scrutinized words in history? Doe sit have hundreds of millions of claims to experiencing it? Did it come to earth in human form and interact with us?

If you had so convincing evidence that God came on earth in human form, why do you feel the need to mess around with cosmology? Are ypu trying to convince us, or yourself?

Yeah it is a science of the gaps argument. Science did it is easy.

What, entropy causes all kinds of problems for science? The universe appeared already wound up, who wound it. Also evolution seems to be the only dynamic in the universe that can defy it? Why is that? The universe is a closed system.
Don't see it. I am not assuming tuning requires a tuner I am deducing it from every observation. Also symbiotic structure has only mind as a source. Yet when we find the longest word ever discovered atheists say it is mindless. DNA is 3.2 billions bits of information precisely arranged and it just so happens to have a tuned decoder. How is a mind not required. If we found a mere 200 worded message or just some symbols on the dark side of the moon every human who ever lived would think mind intelligence immediately.

Are you serious? Are you implying that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics?

Are you sure you did not spend more than five minutes in Answers from Genesis?

Question begging is out and entropy is hopeless but I wish you would expand on entropy I guess.

Well, ask yourself this question: why do we need to fine tune things? Why do I have to sweat to make a car instead of throwing its components in the air so that they all fall in the right place to make that car?

Not exactly, I am only saying that nature did not create it. That make God more probably not a known reality.

And you are certain about that?

What? No he created in this one a finite time ago.

Yes, but the universe already existed, didn't it?

The universe is tuned for the flourishing of intelligent life. God knew the fall would occur and he no longer would perfectly sustain nature but instead allow it to operate on it's on much of the time. This means it needed to capable of permitting life to flourish. I do not know if life could have arisen on it's own, I am saying there is no evidence it did. I think it probably was impossible but I do not claim to know that.

Wait. God sustained nature for about 14 billions years until someone disobeyed Him and because of that the Universe has been left alone since? So that His previous fine tuning got out of sync, so to speak?
I am sorry, but I find it unbelievable that you believe that. I am aware that it is important for you to somehow justify Scriptures, but this is really too much.

So, the fine tuning did not take place at the big bang, but was a sort of tinkering all the way until the fall?

I seriously hope I misundertood you, since I am drafting a lot. If that is the case, please expand a bit on this.

No social Darwinian ethics are natural (or could be). Morality assumes an objective foundation which nature doe snot contain. Why do you think even the agnostic Jefferson said the only foundation for rights was natures God? Both the Romans and Greeks considered morals acts against sovereign objective moral truths.

Social darwinism is perfectly natural. We have evidence of its existence. It suffers from the naturalistic fallacy, but that does not entail that it is not part of nature. You suffer from the naturalistic fallacy too, when you separate things between being according to nature and not.

Ciao

- viole

 

[1robin]

Well, it was wise not to mention him.

If by wise you mean it catered to my laziness then I agree. I can show exactly what motivated him but it takes a lot of typing.

The NT does not justify it? Why didn't you incude the whole Bible?

I took it for granted that you knew Christianity does not believe we are subject to OT laws. Plus the fact that the OT verses authorizing violence were conditional and limited in time neither of which apply today. Again I am lazy. I had hoped you were aware of those basic facts and hoped not to have to spell them out. The Net Testament is a new covenant relationship built on grace not law. The old covenant obviously no longer applies but it takes a while to build hat case.

So, what is more important: belief in God or the actual existence of God?

Well by far the existence of God but that is an interesting question because I would argue that faith in God even if wrong is of value in that it grounds morality objectively instead of it being untethered to anything beyond our opinion which is inherently dangerous but it would be far less important that his actual existence. However I have no need to make that choice.

If you could choose only between the following two alternatives:

1) God does not exist but everybody believes in Him
2) God exists but nobody believes in Him

What would you choose?

Your bizarre (Will Farrell). I think they are equally bleak but I would go with 2 because it would mean there was justice available but we just failed to believe and maybe some mercy would be extended. 1 was a hopeless scenario from the start.

Maybe, but someone might argue that things like Socialism also started from a premise of justice. That is mainly why Marx is not considered a criminal, at least here.

I agree. I think most governmental systems would work if man was not so flawed. The reason they all eventually fail is they all include man and his imperfections. You cannot systematize our sin away. The US constitution was specifically designed with that in mind and we had a good run but greed adapts and ruins everything man touches. It is not pure socialism I object to it is it's so frequent denial of God. Atheism does not entail communism but communism does entail atheism.

And he wiped out everybody, including women, children and pets? Where was Jesus, was He sleeping?

Forget what you do not like about what I am going to say and tell me what is the philosophical, logical, or theological fault in it. God was bringing his people back to the land they had formerly occupied. Others had moved onto and near it and something had to be done because God knew for fact their human sacrificing, raiding at harvest times, idols, and false God's would infest Israel and he had a job for them that required they be a unique moral and theological culture, one that attracted attention. Now proof of both of those exists.

1. Israel did not wipe them out and they were plagued by them for generations and were punished severely when some intermarried and adopted their God's and sacrifices. They literally imported Satan into God's house.
2. Despite their being influenced God beat it out of them and it required a steep price. However since a single man who existed in a Roman backwater became the most influential individual in human history you can see the ultimately God got his way but Israel took the hard road by being disobedient.

Now we are left with only the "innocent children" you mention.

1. You and I know perfectly well virtually all these children would have grown up to be just as corrupt as their parents. There was no internet, things changed very very slowly at that time.
2. These children would have be at least as evil as their parents and overcome Israel instead of just polluting them as the survivors did for generations.
3. If you examine my God you MUST bring in the entire context he comes with. You stick him in a human context and judge him. He created those lives, he knew their hearts, he knew their future. Instead of letting them become so corrupt they would have wound up in Hell according to our doctrines he placed them in heaven without all the suffering and trials most of us have to bear. God does not have to do as we demand he only requires that he have morally justifiable reasons for his actions. I can't see that his actions in the context they come with could possibly be unjustifiable, We make not like the necessity that required the act be we have no reasons to suggest it was unjustifiable.

You ask where Jesus was. Jesus is the avenger in revelations as well as the savior in John. People love the fuzzy Lamb of God but forget he is the Lion of Judah as well. God is perfect love and perfect justice. You either accept the truth or get crushed by it. The Canaanites could no longer even see the truth from where they were. Despite God holding his own people in the desert while he attempted to get the Canaanites to repent they abjectly refused. Only after their sins had long before merited judgment did he act. I cringe at his judgments just as you but I know to separate my emotional response from my intellectual study of the events. If right and wrong exist at all God was justified.

I need to break this up as it is too long.

 

[1robin]

But of course God had nothing to do with it. An ancient tribe just invented a God that chose them and justifies their quest for additional Lebensraum. Isn't that obvious?

This wish fulfillment excuse is ridiculous. The same people that recorded God's vengeance against their enemies faithfully recorded his vengeance against themselves. They recorded their own faults (and they are faults of the highest possible degree) and recorded God's rightful judgment against themselves. The same people who wrote about heaven said they themselves did not deserve to go there. In fact most of the failures and judgments in the OT were by and against the Jews.

Sure, you are or were in the Army. Err, sorry, Navy.

I enlisted in the Navy, then worked for the Army and now the Air force but I was not drafted. I am too old these days thank goodness. A forced march would force me to the grave.

Lol, I think they are nuts. They accept the objectivity of the claims of the apostles and still do not believe? I would take with a grain of salt whatever they say.

The objective part of their claims does not posit a God necessarily. A person could believe he was resuscitated, there was a mass delusion, that an imposter was in league with him. IOW if cognitive dissonance can justify just about anything. Look at 9/11 conspiracy or ancient alien people.

And what is fancifully guessed? Relativity (again) or the Multiverse fancifully guessed by Vilenkin himself?

Not the more reliable parts of relativity but maybe some of the conclusions based on it. I see no link between tens-less time even if time can be slowed or sped up. Mainly multiverses, I do not think Vilenkin would ever officially buy into multiverse but even if he did he would be guessing.

And what is its explanation?

Oh come on, you know about geodesics but not about magnetic poles, our iron core, and our rotation.

Proof of what?

Proof of the existence of what you said that I responded to. BTW not proof but a proof.

I aleady told you. Simultaneity does not exist, and therefore a shared present does not exist either. Unless, you have a defeater of special reltivity.

If you have time but it I is not tensed then in what dimension is it so that it is not now. Though I have no idea why you said any of this. The current model is tensed time, a chronological sequence. You must show why I need to do away with it.

William Lane Craig posts full Vilenkin e-mail misrepresented by Krauss in their debate | Wintery Knight

Oh, this follows a similar pattern to what I have noticed ever since the theorem's God suggestive conclusions have been under attack. Vilenkin always seems to honestly allow for some possible new theory to come along and challenge his. This is not to say there is even a hint that one potentially will, just that as a good scientists he always leaves what ifs on the table. I think you come sum this up best by him being asked emphatically if his theory proved the universe had a beginning. The said the short answer is yes but the long answer is no. I read up on what he meant. It was that according to what we can reliably detect the universe has a beginning but there is always a chance that some present theory or future one could change it. In short a single finite universe is the best science can show currently but who knows what the future holds. But in theological contexts we only have a lifespan to make up our minds. You do not hold off proposing until certainty exists or they will marry another. You act on the best information you have and so we must concerning God.

If you had so convincing evidence that God came on earth in human form, why do you feel the need to mess around with cosmology? Are ypu trying to convince us, or yourself?

What I have resolved personally is not necessarily the common ground on which a debate with a non-theist can take place. You guys have crowned science king of all knowledge (even though you do not act accordingly, you act on faith constantly but suspend it for religion) so I use science in order to have common ground on which to debate. My faith is 100% different than a nonbelievers. I look at the event where I met a risen Christ and then use it as a lens to view reality through. You look at science and use it as a lens. You can't come where I am as a nonbeliever so I must meet you where you are.

Are you serious? Are you implying that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics?

I am hardly the first to suggest it seems very contrary to it. In a debate (I think it was Dawkins) who was asked if he could think of anything that gains complexity over time by non-intentional means besides evolution. It was crickets for about 30 seconds and then laughter. It is a complex issue but something weird is going on.

Are you sure you did not spend more than five minutes in Answers from Genesis?

Yes, 90% of what I know comes from professional debates. Who runs answers in Genesis and why do you consider it equal with bad info? I know nothing about it one way or the other.

Well, ask yourself this question: why do we need to fine tune things? Why do I have to sweat to make a car instead of throwing its components in the air so that they all fall in the right place to make that car?

I have and can tell you exactly why. There are far more incorrect places an object can go than correct ones. It takes intent to create specified complexity. There are an infinite number of ways parts can not function correctly when randomly combined. There are infinitely fewer arrangements that will work. So I need to remove the tendency of random actions and do something that will make them go in certain orders. That requires mind and intent. I have no idea why you asked though.

And you are certain about that?

Why do you continue to associate reasoned faith with the burden of certainty you do not live as if that is true and we do not even do science as if that is true. We make the best conclusion given the best evidence we have. That is what I do. My experience is the only certainty I have theological wise outside of a few philosophic principles but you have no access to that so I mainly deal in best conclusions. Did you know faiths only burden is the absence of a defeater but that is not persuasive?

Yes, but the universe already existed, didn't it?

Yes the universe existed before he deposited biological life in it. Or it is possible he only arranged it so that it would create life it's self but the evidence is against the latter.

Wait. God sustained nature for about 14 billions years until someone disobeyed Him and because of that the Universe has been left alone since? So that His previous fine tuning got out of sync, so to speak?
I am sorry, but I find it unbelievable that you believe that. I am aware that it is important for you to somehow justify Scriptures, but this is really too much.

I am not responsible for what you arbitrarily decide is unbelievable. In reality long time spans are only contradictory to a being with limited time. This universe has been described the work of an artist not an assembly line. God may have enjoyed creating and had no restriction on time so he had some fun. It is completely arbitrary to be ok with 5 minutes but not with a trillion years. What went into that equation? The only context is God's purpose. Does it fill it, yep.

So, the fine tuning did not take place at the big bang, but was a sort of tinkering all the way until the fall?

No the fine tuning existed in the initial conditions. That only guarantees that intelligent life can exist God also optimized it or supervised it for flourishing. Most cultures record an initial perfection and then an abrupt disaster in their past. The garden of Eden (was optimal) when it went wrong the optimality ceased and we had to scratch in the ground and fight each other for food while dodging tornados.

I seriously hope I misundertood you, since I am drafting a lot. If that is the case, please expand a bit on this.

It is hard to expand on this because it concerns the least reliable of biblical doctrines. I only use generalities. God is the source of life, things were good but then went terribly wrong, now they are just adequate. If I get posit to much detail I over step what I can reliably extract from Genesis. I strongly recommend "The science of God" I have never seen a harmony as great between reality and an interpretation of Genesis as that book contains.

Social darwinism is perfectly natural. We have evidence of its existence. It suffers from the naturalistic fallacy, but that does not entail that it is not part of nature. You suffer from the naturalistic fallacy too, when you separate things between being according to nature and not.

It is perfectly awful and it is so arbitrary it can justify anything. Even if natural it is about the worst possible moral guide I can think of. I would like to concentrate on this issue alone if you also do. This is one of the few theological issues that is glaringly obvious. Evolution is a pathetic moral foundation. Natural fallacy? That's a new one, what does it entail? I thought I had heard them all by now.

Ciao

- viole

I have all the time I had to day on you. You can either be very flattered or horribly depressed by that. Most of my day involved fixing the mistakes of scientific/engineering folks. They keep me hoping being this wrong. Their failures are my job security.