• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Where do Proponents Of Intelligent Design Propose the Designer Came From?

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
I don't know what you mean by ''nothing'', but sure, that works as a description.

If God did not reuse pre-existing parts to create the Universe, including parts of Himself, then He must have created the Universe from absolute nothing. Not only a description, but a logical fact.

Don't you agree?

Ciao

- viole
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
If God did not reuse pre-existing parts to create the Universe, including parts of Himself, then He must have created the Universe from absolute nothing. Not only a description, but a logical fact.

Don't you agree?

Ciao

- viole
Eh? No I don't agree. Define your terms first.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
Obviously, this doesn't lend any credence to claims of design, or god, or whatever. I just wish to point out that theology isn't the only academic field in which anything and everything seems to be posited.

The major difference being that any nonsense posited in science will be subject to review. I.E. Not even a multiverse is posited as something that is without the bounds of logic. I'm not aware of anyone positing that a multiverse does something like, create itself.

God on the other hand, any exception can be applied to him, including "ah well human reasoning can't speculate on the nature of God because it works in some unknowable and unattainable realm of the brain."

Could be wrong though. I don't know much about multiverse things, but my understanding is that all claims about the multiverse cannot be falsified, so falsification appears to be a pretty important component to making a hypothesis.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
I have no idea. The three main possibilities are.

1. It was a local flood. The bible speaks of the ANE as "the world" many times. I have heard many arguments for this particular interpretation.
2. There was no actual flood at all, but the story serves as an allegory.
3. That there was actually a world wide flood. This one gets the most attention because the Roman Catholic churches take dogmatic stances on interpretations and basically force everyone to adopt their position or be branded heretical, since Protestantism grew out of Catholicism some of these old interpretations were so imbedded as to become a cultural tradition.

Because issues like the flood, the status of the Israelites in Egypt, and what God meant by the Hebrew word "yom" have no relevance to the core principles my faith is based upon I try and not have any firm position. I would take a firm position if I found there to be one but these prehistoric events come with so little opportunity for validation and good arguments exist on all sides I choose to remain above the fray with these ancient claims.

I think I liked it in spite of it's being complete unrelated to the actual biblical stories because the watchers are mentioned in Mesopotamian, Persian, and all other religions of the ANE and their part gives an ominousness to the story that portrays the gravity of events. I found Noah's character so far from the actual biblical stories however I would never recommend a Christian use it as a example of what may have occurred.

Given that one is the case, I don't particularly see anything disagreeable with your sentiments expressed in this one point. Early agricultural societies had to deal with floods, and people often died in droves. So the idea that a large local flood influenced the religious writings and sentiments of the time, and that such stories gain traction and became "world-wide" is not unreasonable to me. "World-wide" was a pretty limited concept at the time.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
Certainly the multiverse does not figure, it is outside logic.

I know you are use to making certain claims about what does or does not fall into the boundaries of logic regarding the ontological nature of existence, but I am use to not taking claims such as this at face value.

I have no idea about multiverses. From my well I can tell, it rings as illegitimate science. But I have no where the required amount of education in astrophysics or mathematics to be challenging such claims. It seems intuitive to me that we will never garner information about any other universe or even outside the bounds of what is visible in our own universe.

The furthest seen object at this time is this guy:

farthest-galaxy-egs-zs8-1.jpg


A galaxy far, far away — farther, in fact, than any other known galaxy — has been measured by astronomers.

The galaxy EGS-zs8-1 lies 13.1 billion light-years from Earth, the largest distance ever measured between Earth and another galaxy.

The universe is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old, so galaxy EGS-zs8-1 is also one of the earliest galaxies to form in the cosmos.

http://www.space.com/29319-farthest-galaxy-ever-found.html


I really have no means of speculating on things that are older than that, or further away than that. I can only really look at claims that involves stuff between the furthest known objects on either side of us.
 

Shad

Veteran Member
I'm sorry but that is completely wrong. Go back and look how that conversation began. It was not even in the context of a claim to fact. In 12000 posts you cannot quote me ever saying that numbers who believe equals truth.

Irrelevant. You inability to understand your own argument and the ad populum support you state is still a claim. You are just oblivious to it.



What? Your going to be waiting along time because I never even hinted that all claims are fallacious. Where on earth did you get that from what I said. What I actually said was that fallacies usually apply to truth claims, which I was not even hinting at. And I pointed out that people overuse claims to a fallacy because they do not understand this.

"People far overuse the fallacy crutch. Almost all fallacies apply to truth claims. My claim was not a truth claim . It was a claim to invalidate a reason for dismissal."

You made the claim. Nice try at backpedaling. A claim to invalidate a reason is a truth claim. Again obvious to the words you are using and the meaning of sentences.





Again WHAT? Nothing you said can rationally be extrapolated from anything you responded to. BTW claiming there are true Christians is not even a Scotsman's fallacy anyway. We have specific and emphatic criteria in the bible stating what true Christians are. So you left with 2 choices (neither being a Scotsman's fallacy).

Actually it was easy to conclude this since you hedged your arguments in true believers beliefs = truth to a claim of reality. By using the term "true" Christian you are automatically hedging your bets by discounting those that leave Christianity as not "true" Christians

1. The ultimate source for what criteria makes a true Christian actually knew what he was about and there are true Christians and what I will refer to as superficial Christians.
or
2. The ultimate source for what criteria create a true Christian was mad. Something Lewis famously said was the only position left if you deny #1. And therefore there are no Christians true or superficial at all.

And then your produce support for your fallacy. Hilarious

IOW if you deny #1 discussing a person being a Christian at all is incoherent.

Denying a no true scottsman is not incoherent. It is a valid point to show the failure of your thoughts and arguments. Try again.


No I think every point you made was a false claim to the crutch of fallacy.
Do you have any actual arguments other that simply dismissing faith by a machine gun clip of false claims to a fallacy? I never said anything I said was not an argument. I said they were not the arguments you transformed them into so you could use your reliance upon a false crutch to dismiss it.

That must e it. It is not that your argument are ridden with fallacies and poor arguments. It is my fault for pointing out your flawed reasoning. Hilarious.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
I'm not sure what your trying to prove. Your ideas about ''nothing'' and such are biased because of your beliefs. I already stated, created from nothing, /as a descriptor./

I am not trying to prove anything, I just asked a honest question. I think it follows logically that if God did not reuse parts of Himself, nor (uncreated) pre-existing material, then He must have created the Universe out of nothing.

Don't you think?

If you do not agree, what did He use?

Ciao

- viole
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Given that one is the case, I don't particularly see anything disagreeable with your sentiments expressed in this one point. Early agricultural societies had to deal with floods, and people often died in droves. So the idea that a large local flood influenced the religious writings and sentiments of the time, and that such stories gain traction and became "world-wide" is not unreasonable to me. "World-wide" was a pretty limited concept at the time.
I agree, you can find the Hebrews referring to the ANE as the world in the bible. However let me state these are just competing theories, I have been able to satisfactorily resolve which if any are true. Since me faith is centered in the much better established biography of Jesus I no longer have much of a taste for things so old that no conclusive evidence to establish what (if anything) occurred. BTW I am pleased we found a point of agreement.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Irrelevant. You inability to understand your own argument and the ad populum support you state is still a claim. You are just oblivious to it.
Good Lord man, to save you drowning argument you have to assume you now better than I as to my own motivation, content, and intent, Now that is truly desperate

An epistemological claim was made that we cannot use books to discover truth, I was showing that dismissal for that reason was unjustifiable.. With that attitude we should burn down all libraries and confiscate all text books.

"People far overuse the fallacy crutch. Almost all fallacies apply to truth claims. My claim was not a truth claim . It was a claim to invalidate a reason for dismissal."

You made the claim. Nice try at backpedaling. A claim to invalidate a reason is a truth claim. Again obvious to the words you are using and the meaning of sentences.
Yeah I used it a different context than your evaluating it in,so your the one that needs to recalibrate.

Actually it was easy to conclude this since you hedged your arguments in true believers beliefs = truth to a claim of reality. By using the term "true" Christian you are automatically hedging your bets by discounting those that leave Christianity as not "true" Christians
I will just give one example of how wrong what you said is. I do not think a true Christians can "leave Christianity" Jesus said he saved us from all our sins when we are born again. All means all and would include someone dropping out Church.



And then your produce support for your fallacy. Hilarious
I have no idea what your talking about and I don't think you do either.



Denying a no true scottsman is not incoherent. It is a valid point to show the failure of your thoughts and arguments. Try again.
I did not say the true Scotsmen fallacy was incoherent, I said if you deny Christ existed and died to save us from our sins then discussing who is a real Christian is incorrect.




That must e it. It is not that your argument are ridden with fallacies and poor arguments. It is my fault for pointing out your flawed reasoning. Hilarious.
Yes I think every contention you had was the misplaced use of a fallacy. I don't think you rely understand how to use fallacy claims, even after you twist my words around, place them in a different context, you fallacies still do not work.

Now do you actually have an argument or are you going to keep yelling fallacy and dismissing anything that does not agree with your world view, this is getting boring.
 

leibowde84

Veteran Member
Historical claims are never concluded to a certainty. I am not trying to prove anything to anyone. It is quite ironic to saddle the guy with faith to prove to a certainty.

1. Theological, and historical claims are resolved to best explanation.
2. There was no bible when these documents were collected.
3. True historians treat them as 4 quasi-independent accounts and one purely independent account.
4. Whether 400 years later someone collected them into a volume with other books has no relevance.
5. Jesus has more textual attestation than any historical personage. More that any Caesar, and philosopher, and tyrant king.

Ok what meant by Quasi independent is that either they worked from central events, a set or oral traditions, a single or multiple source document, and they also include massive amounts of unique information. They are exactly what you would expect of 5 writers writing about one man's series of events to different audiences and for different purposes. In fact they are vastly better than anyone should expect. Lets take another well (taught as established) series of events. Caesar's Gallic wars is taught as reliable history in universities around the world. However the earliest extant sources are separated 900 years from the events and there are only two of them, plus even the Romans of the day viewed Caesar's writings while on campaign as well established propaganda. The bible has by far the best textual integrity of any work of any kind in ancient history. There is not even a close second.

I think there are a few Gnostic Gospels, but how many do you need? Universities teach what Caesar did in Gaul as blow by blow fact based on two sources written 900 years later. Yet you can't have faith in even the core events of Christ's life given 5 sources dated to probably less than a century later. Some of Paul's writing are based on well known formulas and hymns that date to a few years or even months of Christ's death.

What you should be asking is where are the 10,000 pages of documents proving Rome found the body. You already have an abundance of information from those who were in very good positions to know. What you also have is the complete absence of the negative documents countering the claim. Rome had a massive interest in that tomb not being empty, or a body being found. In fact there has probably never been an empire more skilled and devoted to disproving any claim that would spark revolt. Yes not one scrap of anything from either the Jewish nation who had the same motive or the most powerful empire on earth to disprove the claim. Not even a good lie. You have more positive information about the event than you could reasonably demand from the period and none of what should have been easily produced counter claims. That is why I have lists of histories greatest legal minds claiming the evidence produced in the Gospels would not fail in any courtroom on earth not predisposed to deny it. One even wrote a paper proving the bible could be presented in modern courts as evidence. The same lawyer that founded Harvard law. I have no idea what your criteria are but they seem to be whatever we have )no matter how much) plus something else.
I don't think they are. I think they are merely asking for evidence not based on circular reasoning (using the Bible to prove that the Bible is true) and is verifiable (aren't just taking some historical figures word for something).
 

leibowde84

Veteran Member
The gospels were not written by eye witnesses. With the possible exception of the one attributed to Paul, they were written considerably after the supposed resurrection. You can easily verify this with a google. There is also no reason to think the names assigned to them are the names of the actual authors.
Paul never met Jesus, so he doesn't really qualify either.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
I don't think they are. I think they are merely asking for evidence not based on circular reasoning (using the Bible to prove that the Bible is true) and is verifiable (aren't just taking some historical figures word for something).
I did not use the bible alone to attempt to prove anything. There must be a hundred catastrophic flood tails from that area. BTW in colleges all over the world ancient history is taught as fact even though the textual tradition of the works they are getting these facts from can't hold a candle to the bible.
 

leibowde84

Veteran Member
I did not use the bible alone to attempt to prove anything. There must be a hundred catastrophic flood tails from that area. BTW in colleges all over the world ancient history is taught as fact even though the textual tradition of the works they are getting these facts from can't hold a candle to the bible.
That might be an issue, but it doesn't mean that you should be OK with being guilty if the same. Two wrongs don't make a right, so to speak.

But, all in all, I was just trying to clarify what they were asking for. If you provided verifiable extrabiblical evidence, that's great.
 

Parsimony

Well-Known Member
I do not think a true Christians can "leave Christianity"
Then you can never know who is a true Christian and who is not while they are still alive, not even yourself. Since it is always possible for a living Christian to defect in the future, they cannot know that they are saved until they finally die. Even people who were emphatic that they would never leave the faith have done it. There are examples of such people on this very website. So no matter how convinced you are that you are saved and will always serve God, you cannot know that if you think that a person who leaves God was never a true Christian.
 
Top