The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

philologos

It's a waste of my time if you are not willing to hear answers. If you have not read the Bible, and if we are going to discuss the Bible, there is no point unless you read it first hand for yourself and at least give God a chance as being a true possibility. Otherwise your mind is firmly closed and you will have no interest in what I say. It's demonstrably clear from your point about the Resurrection that you aren't acquainted with the Biblical text.

You need to read it all for yourself first, and think about the possibility that this could be the holy revelation of God Himself. I am quite happy to answer any questions you have while you are doing so, but this discussion isn't going to bear much fruit.

Do people review books they haven't read?

Why do I think reading the whole Bible is so important? - Simply, because I didn't have conviction in God, or in Jesus Christ before I read it.

munsterdevil

Jakkass wrote: »

It's a waste of my time if you are not willing to hear answers. If you have not read the Bible, and if we are going to discuss the Bible, there is no point unless you read it first hand for yourself and at least give God a chance as being a true possibility. Otherwise your mind is firmly closed and you will have no interest in what I say. It's demonstrably clear from your point about the Resurrection that you aren't acquainted with the Biblical text.

I have read bits of the Bible, as a youngfella in school (you know yourself), what you're saying is a copout because I would wager anything the vast majority of christians in this country have not read the bible, let alone me.

I just believe the Bible is a massive fraud, they picked and choosed what they wanted in it, and if they were prepared to make up something like the assumption of Mary then they could have added whay they wanted.

Do people review books they haven't read?

No, but book reviewers don't believe in outlandish claims like the Bible holds.

Zombrex

Jakkass wrote: »

Although these are really arguments against evolution, rather than arguments for young earth creationism, I'd like to hear some rebuttals to these.

Ask and ye shall receive

1. Galaxies wind themselves up too fast.

The don't. Galaxies don't "wind up", fast or otherwise. Stars are constantly being lost and gained by the galaxy as it rotates.

That was a claim made by Russ Humphreys (a physicist and Creationist author) that has been refuted many many times.

http://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/creationist-claim-spiral-galaxies-wind-up-too-fast-for-an-old-universe/
http://www.dasmirnov.net/blog/creationists_and_cosmology_bad_combinati

4. Not enough mud on the sea floor.

Another claim from Humphreys.

Of course that process is not the only known process that removes mud from the sea floor. There are lots of other known processes that do this as well.

It is classic Creationist misdirection to imply that if theory A doesn't explain it then nothing does, as if scientists were that stupid. :rolleyes:

5. Not enough sodium in the sea.

Humphrey's measurements of the sodium that is lost were way way off. If you look at the actual levels of salt in the sea it matches pretty closely to what you expect with a old Earth model.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD221_1.html

I hope you are starting to see a pattern here. Dodgey analysis from a single source (Humphry's research) combined with misdirection and flat out dishonesty, trying to paint a particularly picture.

13. Agriculture is too recent.

Lots of reasons why this is nonsense

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG041.html

but the easiest to understand is that the ice age only ended 10,000 years ago and the idea that our intelligence has been the same for the last 200,000 years is totally unsupported.

14. History is too short

Same as above

(history is long enough though to make the Creationist dating of the Earth invalid. The Chinese were functioning just fine when they were all supposed to have been wiped out by a global flood)


So there you have it. And I imagine now that JC will stop quoting this as evidence of a young Earth

Yeah right! :pac::pac::P;):p:pac::):rolleyes::D

philologos

munsterdevil wrote: »

I have read bits of the Bible, as a youngfella in school (you know yourself), what you're saying is a copout because I would wager anything the vast majority of christians in this country have not read the bible, let alone me.

It isn't. Who reviews a book before reading it?

As for reading bits of the Bible as a young un' in school, I think that's the case for most of us. However, it is not really until one reads, learns and understands the way of God that one can truly know what God stands for and who God is.

I realised, as I was reading the Bible, that I never knew God before. I thought as a child that there was this big thing in the sky that my parents told me to pray to. However, I didn't know who this God was, and what this God had done for mankind.

My point is if you don't know who God is, one cannot effectively criticise Him.

As for the vast majority of Christians in this country not having read the Bible, that's part of the problem I think rather than the

munsterdevil wrote: »

I just believe the Bible is a massive fraud, they picked and choosed what they wanted in it, and if they were prepared to make up something like the assumption of Mary then they could have added whay they wanted.

Do you not understand how ridiculous it is to claim that a book is a fraud without knowing what it says?

As for the Assumption of Mary, this isn't recorded in the Bible at all hence why I do not believe in it. I believe God revealed Himself through the Bible and that the Bible is the accurate description of how God has revealed Himself to us. (I'm a member of the Church of Ireland).

PDN

munsterdevil wrote: »

It's the crucifixion part I meant to say, yes they all mention it, but John is the only one that goes into it in detail, why didn't the rest for such an important event. (I'm not trying to antagonise you with this statement, just curious).

Actually both Matthew and Luke each devote 23 verses to the crucifixion (as opposed to John's 21 verses).

PDN

munsterdevil wrote: »

Total Cop Out, I also haven't read Little red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk, and why? because I know they are nothing more than fairy tales, you expect me to read thousands of pages of the Bible to go into a conversation with you! Most people on this thread haven't it read either I'll wager, and believe me I've read my fair share of the bible.

Careful, if you go down the road of equating the bible with fairy tales then you will be departing this forum sharpish.

lugha

Jakkass wrote: »

It depends on the literary structure. Legalistic passages generally are to be regarded as legalistic. Explanations of Covenant are to be regarded as such. Passages such as the nature of man, and the nature of humanity, and the nature of the world are to be discussed and reasoned together. In the Bible we are told that if something is unclear in the Bible, to pray about it and God will offer us assurance (Philippians 3:15-16)

Off topic (which was I think, in turn off topic!) but are these different types of passages of the bible (legalistic passages, explanations of covenant etc.) self evident from just reading the bible or would novice readers be encouraged to use some sort of reading guides? Also, how different are the different versions of the bible and is there any desire or willingness amongst various Christian groups to move towards a standardized version?

robindch

Jakkass wrote: »

Do people review books they haven't read?

Happens all the time.

There's a well-known review here of The God Delusion by an elderly bloke named Terry Eagleton who, to judge from the content of the "review", didn't get past the front cover.

Eagleton's bizarre text set the tone for subsequent negative reviewers, most of whom appear to have felt it likewise excessively burdensome to crack open the book and reading a bit, before dipping their quills into their little pots of green ink and delivering their thoughts on what they felt it might contain.

munsterdevil

PDN wrote: »

Careful, if you go down the road of equating the bible with fairy tales then you will be departing this forum sharpish.

Well then I guess there is no point staying if I can't speak the truth, adios...

PDN

munsterdevil wrote: »

Well then I guess there is no point staying if I can't speak the truth, adios...

Not if you can't abide by the Charter.

Bye bye. As they say in Tennessee, 'Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.'

Soul Winner

Wicknight wrote: »

It really doesn't matter how many times we tell you that isn't true does it?

Sorry, wanted to that for ages

Ever postulate the idea that you might not be making any sense at times?

Wicknight wrote: »

You guys aren't really flying the flag for the Christianity is perfectly rational cause here.

We were discussing the Big Bang not Christianity. We fly that flag very well in other threads thank you very much.

Wicknight wrote: »

We know that nothing can come from nothing.

Exactly, nothing does in fact come from nothing. Now lets try everything coming from nothing and by nothing now? Any takers?

Wicknight wrote: »

We know that causality doesn't hold in this universe, let alone anywhere else.

Causality doesn't hold in this universe let alone anywhere else? Please explain more.

Wicknight wrote: »

We know that events in the future can cause events in the past.

Example please.

Wicknight wrote: »

We know that time probably began at the moment of the Big Bang so the "cause" of the Big Bang may itself be a nonsensical concept.

Now who's been lazy? Contrast that with what you say here: "Wicknight: Saying God did it is lazy and self servicing."

Wicknight wrote: »

I don't really care that you guys have trouble with that, that is a consequence of the way your brains process the world and very little to do with the way the universe actually works.

That is an ad homiun remark, please remember the charter. :pac:

Wicknight wrote: »

It does baffle me though that when we go to the trouble of trying to explain this to you (often at great length) you just flatly ignore it and continue repeating your "rational" reasons for believing God made the universe.

Well then maybe if you come out with something that actually makes sense I might start paying more attention. Not everyone sees the logic of your arguments the way you do, so stop getting upset and angry and try to discern how your audience thinks and relate to them in ways they might understand. It’s a bad teacher who puts his/her class down for not understanding his/her teaching.

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes, as has been explained to you many many many many times already.

<Stands up>: Ehem, may I refer the right honorable gentleman to the remark I made before. <Sits down>

Wicknight wrote: »

Ask yourself the question of what God made the universe out of and then tell me nothing come from nothing.

Now we are getting to the juicy stuff. OK the universe exists right? That much we do know. Now at some point it was as small as an electron, practically nothing that much we know too. Ok let us make it the size of a golf ball. Now what could have turned that golf ball size thing where the laws of physics don’t exist into the universe we see today with all it laws and constants? Where did all that power come from? And how did it get set off? Science doesn't know OK? And theists believe it was God. Now what's the problem? The fact that the universe has order and complexity speaks more for the explanation that it was created than that nothing did it or that the golf ball did it.

Wicknight wrote: »

Either God made the universe out of something that already existed, in which case you have to ask where that came from, or he made the universe out of nothing

God creating everything from nothing makes more sense than everything just came from nothing by nothing.

Wicknight wrote: »

The argument that you can't make nothing out of nothing except if you are God is an oxymoron.

Eh huh? I never said that. Strawman time again.

Wicknight wrote: »

If God can make something out of nothing then it is possible to make something out of nothing, and the argument that a Creator is a more plausible alternative goes out the window.

Like I said earlier, atheism has no rational basis anymore, especially if this is the best you can come up. Just read what you said there again will you? God has to exist in order to be able to make something out of nothing and if He exists then atheism is false. What I want to know is how can everything come from nothing and by nothing? Think of it for second. There is absolutely nothing and from that comes everything. How can that happen by nothing? That's why the God hypothesis is the more plausible position. Now at some point you might prove that hypothesis wrong but until you do it is a reasonable and rational position given the alternative(s).

Wicknight wrote: »

Considering atheists say that none of us have any clue what, if anything, caused the Big Bang, and theists say they not only know what caused it but can describe this thing in detail because it occasionally talks to us, I'm really not following how you think atheism is the irrational one there.

OK so we haven't got a clue what started it, but it was started, that much we do know. Now surely it is an amazing enough place to be able to postulate a creator and planner? As a Christian I don't need all this science to convince me that God exists, I'm convince of that already because of Jesus. Why can't the hypothesis that it was created be allowed in the science lab considering that we don't or can't know scientifically yet?

Wicknight wrote: »

Say for a minute that we assume that the universe was created by something. What possible evidence do you have that that something was an intelligence? Proper evidence, not The Bible says so evidence.

OK, the fact that we are intelligent is one proof. We are part of this universe, because we are made up of the same elements as the universe, so whatever it was that created the universe, created us too, which means that it created intelligent beings so therefore it too must also be intelligent. How's that? Or can non intelligence create intelligence?

Wicknight wrote: »

Most religions attributed lightening to an act of a god(s). Some still do.

That doesn't make lightening itself have human characteristics though, and that was what I was asking about. Sam said that lightening itself was given human characteristics, and I just asked who gave lightening human characteristics and he said Thor. Strange I know.

Wicknight wrote: »

Saying God did it is lazy and self servicing. It is not the most rational position, it is the most pleasing position.

It's not. Just saying we don't know is lazy. Until we know for sure we as beings who make things all the time are being very consistent with our own natures by postulating a maker of the universe even with no proof whatsoever. That is the scientific method. Postulate a hypothesis, test it, if it fails throw it out or refine it, if it passes then do more tests and start again.

Wicknight wrote: »

Which is fine, believe away. But stop throwing out the baby with the bath water. Stop pretending it is rational or supported by science or the "most plausible explanation"

Not pretending, it IS the better of the two aforementioned options and it IS supported by the evidence. If you have other hypotheses then please postulate them.

kiffer

Jakkass wrote: »

Although these are really arguments against evolution, rather than arguments for young earth creationism, I'd like to hear some rebuttals to these.

I said one... deal's off!
but seriously ...

14. History is too short.
According to evolutionists, Stone Age Homo sapiens existed for 190,000 years before beginning to make written records about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Prehistoric man built megalithic monuments, made beautiful cave paintings, and kept records of lunar phases. Why would he wait two thousand centuries before using the same skills to record history? The Biblical time scale is much more likely.

right... first off I don't think we claim that homo sapiens sapiens made megalithic monuments any earlier than 10,000 BC...
For the majority of the time between the appearance of homo sapiens and the invention of agriculture and later writing we were hunter-gatherer types (pretty much)... with out writing how would they record history in the way we have done since the invention (several different times) of writing?
Do tribes men, such as our friends the Pirahã, in the Amazon record thousands of years worth of history? History which we know there forefathers must have gone through? No, they don't. They tell stories that are important to them and help them survive... and so I think it would have been for our own hunter-gatherer forefathers, before the written word made long histories more permanent.

Before writing there are no records... no records, no history, there may be some oral story telling, but these can easily build up slight changes with each new generation and quickly just end up as myths...
and there are plenty of those...


Your Friend Augustine of Hippo...
[quote=Augustin, Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past, The City of God, Book 12: Chapt. 10 AD 419
]
They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed.
...
[/quote]

Are there documents out there which completely screw up the biblical time line? Perhaps some have been hanging around but may not have survived... they may have been destroyed by "well meaning" people believing they were troublesome much as the Conquistadors did with the Quipu in South America.
But that is of course a baseless hypothesis, and I wouldn't dare suggest real Christians would burn books/scrolls that didn't agree with their world view.


Long waffle post wrapped up? of course not! ... before agriculture allowed people to settle, and allowed for a larger number of people to skive off the real work of surviving and argue about things like tax and philosophy, no one made a huge effort to make detailed records.

Orloa, Hunter-Gatherer, Sometime in the Late Upper Palaeolithic wrote:

Dear Diary,
Today the group found some pretty pebbles in a stream, I think I might carve a little figure of my mother... I miss her ever since last year when she died... at night the camp still seems kind of sad... her voice is missed when we sing...
When my little one is older I will give her the figurine, tell her about my mother... she will not be forgotten. I'll tell her about the time mother saved me when I fell in that lake, mom swam out to me with a log.... we passed by it last season when the herd we were following lead us there... I always remember it as the great lake but it was just a little watering hole... the others laughed because when I tell the story at night I always make the lake bigger.
I miss you mom, at least while my child and then my children's children carry the little figure and tell those stories you'll never be forgotten.

But sadly hunter-gatherer tribes don't have much need for writing... and time passes, Orloa is forgotten, the figurine lost and remade a dozen times, but the stories remain... after a fashion. Orloa's mother becomes some Mother Goddess... the lake becomes a great ocean, the log a boat and some group of now settled leaders claim ancestry to a god, unite with the people from the next valley and then are wiped out by a plague... still leaving no writing, no history... just some artifacts buried in the dirt...
History is short? No, records are fragile... especially those that are only written in our memories.



*Dramatization, may not have happened. posting late at night is bad for you health.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Exactly, nothing does in fact come from nothing. Now lets try everything coming from nothing and by nothing now? Any takers?

I hate English. Words like "nothing" are not every helpful.

Anyway, it should have been obvious what I mean was something can come from nothing. It should have been obvious to you because we have already had that discussion a number of times :pac:

Soul Winner wrote: »

Causality doesn't hold in this universe let alone anywhere else? Please explain more.

We know that it is possible for something to happen that is not caused by something that happened before it. An example of this is the way probability wave functions collapse in quantum physics.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Example please.

I though that would be pretty obvious. Events in the future can trigger events in the passed.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Now who's been lazy? Contrast that with what you say here: "Wicknight: Saying God did it is lazy and self servicing."

How is it lazy?

It requires thinking about things without the classical view of time, which is very very difficult. Have you not heard that theories such as general relativity break down at the moment of the big bang? That is because in these classical models things, such as time, end up being infinity. Which means you can't work anything out.

It is the exact opposite of lazy. What would actually be lazy is assuming that time just continues on backwards before the Big Bang, so we can say that something that happened "before" the Big Bang caused it to happen.

But that isn't how it works. So scientists have had to come up with totally new and very confusing and hard to relate to ideas, such as M-theory, to try and explain what the heck was going on at the moment of the Big Bang.

Soul Winner wrote: »

That is an ad homiun remark, please remember the charter. :pac:

It is not an insult. Our brains process the universe in a certain way for a host of evolutionary reasons. But there is absolutely no reason to suspect that the universe actually holds to the way our brains process the universe. Quantum theory has destroyed that notion.

Which is why it doesn't make any sense for people to say that certain theories about the Big Bang make more sense to them. Given how weird the Big Bang is as an event, how totally unrelatable it is to our ever day lives, if a theory about the big bang makes intuitive sense to you it is probably wrong.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well then maybe if you come out with something that actually makes sense I might start paying more attention.

It making sense to you is not a requirement. I don't mean this as an insult, but I would be worried if it made sense to you (or me or any one).

Look at something like quantum uncertainty. That certainly does not make sense. Yet it is real.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Not everyone sees the logic of your arguments the way you do, so stop getting upset and angry and try to discern how your audience thinks and relate to them in ways they might understand.

Ok, it might help if you stop asking questions and then ignoring the answers though. Can you see how that may be frustrating for someone.

I can only give you the benefit of the doubt so many times that you are genuinely interested in this stuff and not just looking for arguments in support of your religious beliefs. If you just ignore what I'm saying to you I'm just going to get annoyed.

If you don't understand something ask a question, ask for clarification.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Ok let us make it the size of a golf ball. Now what could have turned that golf ball size thing where the laws of physics don’t exist into the universe we see today with all it laws and constants? Where did all that power come from? And how did it get set off? Science doesn't know OK? And theists believe it was God. Now what's the problem? The fact that the universe has order and complexity speaks more for the explanation that it was created than that nothing did it or that the golf ball did it.

But that doesn't answer the question. In the standard big bang model at the point of the big bang the universe was at a point of infinite smallness that was infinitely hot (energy) and infinitely dense. We don't know what happened "before" that.

But in the theological view God is supposed to have made that point of infinite heat and density. What did he make it out of? Or did it just always exist. And if it always existed why supposed we need God at all?

Soul Winner wrote: »

God creating everything from nothing makes more sense than everything just came from nothing by nothing.

Yes but what did he make it out of?

If I'm following correct the theistic argument is that if you have nothing you can't make something out of it. You have nothing and all you are going to have is nothing.

But does that not hold with God as well? That if God has nothing he can't make something because he doesn't have anything to make it out of.

If that doesn't hold, if God can make something out of nothing, if that is logically possible, then why can't something else do that. Why do you need God. Or why can't something just appear out of nothing randomly. The logic is that if you have nothing you can't then have something. But isn't God doing exactly that?

Soul Winner wrote: »

Like I said earlier, atheism has no rational basis anymore, especially if this is the best you can come up.

Atheism is "we don't know". Considering we don't know, that seems to be the most rational explanation imaginable.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Just read what you said there again will you? God has to exist in order to be able to make something out of nothing and if He exists then atheism is false. What I want to know is how can everything come from nothing and by nothing? Think of it for second. There is absolutely nothing and from that comes everything. How can that happen by nothing? That's why the God hypothesis is the more plausible position.

Yes but you are not explaining how God does it either.

So instead of one unknown process of nothing coming from nothing, you now have an unknown process that also drops in an infinite intelligent being that just exists.

God making something from nothing is no more rational than something just appearing randomly from nothing. Both involve the conversion of nothing into something. In neither scenario do we have any clue how you actually convert nothing into something, yet in your one we also have explain and justify what the heck God is doing there.

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK so we haven't got a clue what started it, but it was started, that much we do know. Now surely it is an amazing enough place to be able to postulate a creator and planner?

"Amazing" is in the eye of the beholder. The argument that the universe "looks" like God made it is a fallacy since you have no idea what a universe that wasn't made by a god should look like.

It is like believing that your child is the cutest baby of the pre-school. It is not a rational conclusion.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Why can't the hypothesis that it was created be allowed in the science lab considering that we don't or can't know scientifically yet?

It can be allowed in the science lab as soon as you have an actual hypothesis.

Or to put it another way, what did God actually do?

If I wanted to write a computer simulation of what God is supposed to have done what would I write?

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK, the fact that we are intelligent is one proof.

How? We are intelligent because our brains evolved. What does that have to do with demonstrating that the force that may have created the universe was intelligent?

Soul Winner wrote: »

We are part of this universe, because we are made up of the same elements as the universe, so whatever it was that created the universe, created us too, which means that it created intelligent beings so therefore it too must also be intelligent. How's that? Or can non intelligence create intelligence?

Yes, of course it can. You are not made of intelligent atoms.

Soul Winner wrote: »

It's not. Just saying we don't know is lazy.

It is lazy. It is assuming a human like agent made the universe for human like reasons that allow us to easily understand and comprehend why the universe exists in terms of human interaction, something our brains have little trouble with and find easy to process.

It then also introduces a deity that then looks after us and provides us with comfort and love.

Its strange no one believes the universe was created by a strange insect like alien for unknown reasons and then he is going to eventually destroy us all for his own amusement. It is always God created the universe, he created us, he loves us, we is going to look after us etc etc .

Soul Winner wrote: »

Until we know for sure we as beings who make things all the time are being very consistent with our own natures by postulating a maker of the universe even with no proof whatsoever.

Yes that is the point. "Our own natures" are very bad a postulating how the universe works. We assume the universe works in ways that are easy for us to understand and relate too, and that never turns out to be the case

Soul Winner wrote: »

That is the scientific method. Postulate a hypothesis, test it, if it fails throw it out or refine it, if it passes then do more tests and start again.

Come again? How are you testing the God hypothesis?

Morbert

Soul Winner, I briefly outlined the problems with the Kalam Cosmological argument and your objections to atheism regarding the big bang, though you might have missed it. Here it is:

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61581269&postcount=17069

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Exactly, nothing does in fact come from nothing. Now lets try everything coming from nothing and by nothing now? Any takers?

Is there any point in me saying that no one is claiming that the universe came from nothing or are you going to ignore it again?

Soul Winner wrote: »

The fact that the universe has order and complexity speaks more for the explanation that it was created than that nothing did it or that the golf ball did it.

No it doesn't. The complexity of nature is completely explained through evolution

Soul Winner wrote: »

That doesn't make lightening itself have human characteristics though, and that was what I was asking about.Sam said that lightening itself was given human characteristics, and I just asked who gave lightening human characteristics and he said Thor. Strange I know.

People thought that lightning had to have a human like causer the way you think the universe did. They called this causer thor, you call yours god. You're both anthropomorphising

Soul Winner wrote: »

It's not. Just saying we don't know is lazy. Until we know for sure we as beings who make things all the time are being very consistent with our own natures by postulating a maker of the universe even with no proof whatsoever. That is the scientific method. Postulate a hypothesis, test it, if it fails throw it out or refine it, if it passes then do more tests and start again.

You can't test the hypothesis of god because he apparently exists outside the universe. In fact the christian god appears to be cleverly designed so it can never be falsified. They were too clever to do something like put their God on top of Mount Olympus meaning someone could just climb the mountain to prove he wasn't there. And they're even more clever because the claims made about him change as each one is falsified and he becomes less and less defined until we're left with an unfalsifiable concept just as believers like it

Soul winner, was the universe created by a) nothing or b) the flying spaghetti monster? Those are the only two options, you must pick one and any attempt by yourself to explain that those are not the only two options will be categorically ignored. It is irrational to think the universe came from nothing so you MUST believe in the flying spaghetti monster

toiletduck

Jakkass wrote: »

Wouldn't it be more useful to refute some of the stuff that J C has brought up instead of constantly laughing it off?

Constantly laughing it off? All of those points have been refuted time and again to that poster in this exact thread, most likely a good few times by wicki himself! Only to be answered with another link to some creationist clap trap site, detailing X amount of problems with Evolution! but neglecting to give even any points on why their lot works. It's like you've never read this thread before!

robindch wrote:

Happens all the time.

There's a well-known review here of The God Delusion by an elderly bloke named Terry Eagleton who, to judge from the content of the "review", didn't get past the front cover.

Eagleton's bizarre text set the tone for subsequent negative reviewers, most of whom appear to have felt it likewise excessively burdensome to crack open the book and reading a bit, before dipping their quills into their little pots of green ink and delivering their thoughts on what they felt it might contain.

Heh, like a review of the book in one of the local rags here in Galway. He opened with the usual "latest offering from the fundamentalist Atheist Dawkins..." and then spent the rest of the review saying that the book didn't even deal with why religion is about, surely evolution would have done away with it if there was no advantage. Heh.

Sam Vimes

toiletduck wrote: »

Heh, like a review of the book in one of the local rags here in Galway. He opened with the usual "latest offering from the fundamentalist Atheist Dawkins..." and then spent the rest of the review saying that the book didn't even deal with why religion is about, surely evolution would have done away with it if there was no advantage. Heh.

The second half of the book begins by exploring the roots of religion and seeking an explanation for its ubiquity across human cultures. Dawkins advocates the "theory of religion as an accidental by-product – a misfiring of something useful"[23] as for example the mind's employment of intentional stance. Dawkins suggests that the theory of memes, and human susceptibility to religious memes in particular, can explain how religions might spread like "mind viruses" across societies.[24]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion

It seems he read at most the first half :P

Soul Winner

Wicknight wrote: »

I hate English. Words like "nothing" are not every helpful.

Anyway, it should have been obvious what I mean was something can come from nothing. It should have been obvious to you because we have already had that discussion a number of times

Always make it a point to quote your fellow poster verbatim. It might solve the strawman problem which can run riot at times. :rolleyes:

Wicknight wrote: »

We know that it is possible for something to happen that is not caused by something that happened before it. An example of this is the way probability wave functions collapse in quantum physics.

Sounds very mathematically theoretical. Can you give a more tangible example? Something we can observe in nature perhaps? Preferably with the naked eye or even a microscope.

Wicknight wrote: »

I though that would be pretty obvious. Events in the future can trigger events in the passed.

Is that an example? What events in the future trigger events in the past? Again something tangible would be nice. If a massive star goes supernova tomorrow and from its debris millions of years later other stars form, smaller ones like our sun, isn't the cause of our sun related to the supernova of that massive star which happened before the sun formed? Or did our sun effect the supernova before it was even formed? Our sun effecting the supernova is an example of something future affecting something in the past. Likewise with the subsequent formation of our solar system, - which formed after the formation of the sun - is this another example of a future event influencing in the formation of the sun? Of course not. So the same is true for any subsequent future events in that solar system having any effect on events which happened prior. But if you can provide an example I'd love to hear it.

Wicknight wrote: »

How is it lazy?

It requires thinking about things without the classical view of time, which is very very difficult. Have you not heard that theories such as general relativity break down at the moment of the big bang? That is because in these classical models things, such as time, end up being infinity. Which means you can't work anything out.

That's my point. We are incapable of working anything out at the moment of the big bang so what is so wrong with postulating that it was miraculously created seeing that there is no other way to describe it? I can't find anything more miraculous than the creation of everything ex nihilo.

Wicknight wrote: »

It is the exact opposite of lazy. What would actually be lazy is assuming that time just continues on backwards before the Big Bang, so we can say that something that happened "before" the Big Bang caused it to happen.

Nobody is assuming that time continues on backwards before the big bang. Time begins at the big bang. So what ever caused it must be eternal. Now if time did not exist, and then just began to exist, it either had a causer or it didn't. But how could it come into being without a causal agent at the point of absolute zero anything?

Wicknight wrote: »

But that isn't how it works. So scientists have had to come up with totally new and very confusing and hard to relate to ideas, such as M-theory, to try and explain what the heck was going on at the moment of the Big Bang.

Yes and it is all theoretical gobbledygook.

Wicknight wrote: »

It is not an insult. Our brains process the universe in a certain way for a host of evolutionary reasons. But there is absolutely no reason to suspect that the universe actually holds to the way our brains process the universe. Quantum theory has destroyed that notion.

That might be true but we have no other tools other than our brains, logic, common sense, to try and work it out and have it make sense to us as we view it. What is the point in being accurate in terms that nobody understands? I'm not saying that the way we perceive the universe to be is the way the universe actually is but in order for us to make any sense out it we have to use terms that our brains can process and make sense out of. For all we know my next sentence could explain everything we need to know about the universe:

"Tjnoidrn lkxdfpwwp ikfi9 0-9389? gflgj0a09gr )(&^f;J G ROPA/.G MAN p0ON"

But it doesn't mean anything to us. We must somehow have it make sense to us. Translate it into terms we can understand. As inquisitive beings we owe it to ourselves to do that much. If we at this stage of our technological development cannot work out mathematically or otherwise how the universe came into being then what is so wrong with postulating that it must have been created by an unimaginably powerful being? It would be like micro organisms living in a bubble trying to understand from within the bubble how the bubble came into being. Once they exahaust all efforts to find an interanl causal egent thye would have to postulate an external causal agent, and when they do this they are released from their limited possible natural explanations which continually fail.

Wicknight wrote: »

Which is why it doesn't make any sense for people to say that certain theories about the Big Bang make more sense to them. Given how weird the Big Bang is as an event, how totally unrelatable it is to our ever day lives, if a theory about the big bang makes intuitive sense to you it is probably wrong.

I just found it. An example of something which happened in the future (my last response above) which affected something which happened in the past (the part of your post I'm now replying to). In other words you've just answered my last post with a post you posted before I posted it. :cool:

I have no difficulty whatsoever in the hypothesis that the explanation of how this universe came into being was that it was created by an inconceivably powerful being who is timeless, space-less and immaterial and who works outside of nature i.e. supernatural to bring things in nature into being from nothing. A being with these characteristics is the best explanation for the facts until we find a better one and as you have adequately pointed out, we are a far cry from doing that in our current understanding.

Wicknight wrote: »

It making sense to you is not a requirement. I don't mean this as an insult, but I would be worried if it made sense to you (or me or any one).

Then why the hell bother with science in the first place if it is not to make sense out of of things? I thought that's what it was all about.

Wicknight wrote: »

Look at something like quantum uncertainty. That certainly does not make sense. Yet it is real.

So the further we delve into reality the stranger things get and the more random and unpredictable events seem to be. If the micro matrix from which the universe is held together is so random and unpredictable and yet the universe seems to work like clock work, how does one explain this in natural terms? You say we can't, or we can but just not in terms that make sense. Which means that we must be either swimming around in a freak cosmic accident of which no sense can ever be made, or it always was and always will be supernaturally controlled. I prefer to go with the latter if for no other reason than it makes me feel better about it. I know that is not science but so what, science it seems appears to be at somewhat of a dead end anyway when it comes to these questions.

Wicknight wrote: »

Ok, it might help if you stop asking questions and then ignoring the answers though. Can you see how that may be frustrating for someone.

No wonder I couldn't understand your answers, they don't make sense by your own admission earlier :pac:

Wicknight wrote: »

I can only give you the benefit of the doubt so many times that you are genuinely interested in this stuff and not just looking for arguments in support of your religious beliefs. If you just ignore what I'm saying to you I'm just going to get annoyed.

Like I said, I don't need science to have faith in God. I have that already from personal experience, reading scripture and studying the resurrection. I do love science though, I think it is a fascinating subject and it has done wonders for the world. But as you have pointed out it cannot make sense of all things. That is the realm of religion, whatever religion that may be. I happened to believe that the Christian religion is on the right track in pursuit of the knowledge of God and that knowledge can only be gained through the indwelt working of His spirit activated by faith in His Word.

Wicknight wrote: »

If you don't understand something ask a question, ask for clarification.

Surely you cannot accuse me of not asking you enough questions Wicknight

Wicknight wrote: »

But that doesn't answer the question. In the standard big bang model at the point of the big bang the universe was at a point of infinite smallness that was infinitely hot (energy) and infinitely dense.

That my friend is what is commonalty called in the business as: "Nothing". Sam disagrees but listen to what Tipler and Barrow have to say about it:

‘At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo’ (Barrow, Tipler 1986: 442)."

Wicknight wrote: »

But in the theological view God is supposed to have made that point of infinite heat and density. What did he make it out of?

Nothing at all.

Wicknight wrote: »

Or did it just always exist. And if it always existed why supposed we need God at all?

Well for one if God exists and He is defined as the source of all life then yes we do need Him in order to live, move and have our being. Which is why its good that we praise Him and give thanks to Him daily for everything.

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes but what did he make it out of?

Again, nothing. Before science discovered that the universe had a beginning and that that beginning was from nothing at all, the Bible had stated it over and over again.

Wicknight wrote: »

If I'm following correct the theistic argument is that if you have nothing you can't make something out of it. You have nothing and all you are going to have is nothing.

With God all things are possible including creating universes from nothing. This is not possible with nothing though. Nothing - or not a thing - can't do anything. But yet we know that everything came from nothing. Something supernatural happened!!!

Wicknight wrote: »

But does that not hold with God as well? That if God has nothing he can't make something because he doesn't have anything to make it out of.

"For God to be God He has no needs" CS Lewis. In other words He doesn't need creation in order to create it.

Wicknight wrote: »

If that doesn't hold, if God can make something out of nothing, if that is logically possible, then why can't something else do that.

Like what?

Wicknight wrote: »

Why do you need God. Or why can't something just appear out of nothing randomly. The logic is that if you have nothing you can't then have something. But isn't God doing exactly that?

Yes but what are you offering in the place of an all powerful being? What else could have created such an immensely vast system such as our universe from the innumerable micro subatomic particles up to the hundreds of billions of gargantuan sized galaxies? If a supernatural all powerfull being is not a good explanantion then complicated scientific formulae are not good explanations either.

Wicknight wrote: »

Atheism is "we don't know". Considering we don't know, that seems to be the most rational explanation imaginable.

No, atheism is not 'we don't know', atheism in its strongest expression, is positively proclaiming that there is no such thing as an all powerful being called God, or at its weakest the lack of belief that there is such a being. It has nothing to do with knowing or not knowing anything about the universe. The reason I call it irrational now is because the scientific evidence which most atheists seem to pride themselves on adhering to is pointing to the creation of the universe ex nihilo and there are only two positions on the question of how it could have happened. Either it just popped into existence from nothing and by nothing or a supernatural causal agent of unimaginable power brought it into being. You can believe that being to be the flying spaghetti monster or the swimming salad monster or whatever and Christians will believe it is their God.

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes but you are not explaining how God does it either.

Not being able to explain how God did it is not a good reason to say that the hypothesis God did it is a not a good or valid hypothesis.

Wicknight wrote: »

So instead of one unknown process of nothing coming from nothing, you now have an unknown process that also drops in an infinite intelligent being that just exists.

If in the name of science you are going to rule out even the possibility that such a being was involved then you must do so with good science. You must show conclusively that it is an absolute impossibility that such an entity could have been involved in the creation process, even in theory. As long as science cannot do this then what is so wrong about postulating such an entity to be just included in the list of other possibilities?

Wicknight wrote: »

God making something from nothing is no more rational than something just appearing randomly from nothing. Both involve the conversion of nothing into something.

Yes and assuming even the possibility that God exists, which of two options would be the more plausible? An all powerful being or nothing?

Wicknight wrote: »

In neither scenario do we have any clue how you actually convert nothing into something,

But that doesn't stop you from postulating formulas as to how it might have come into being in the first place. If all formulas dissolve away into nothingness as they approach the nothingness from which everything came then we must start looking outside of natural explanations. Until we do that we can never then ask the question: "How did the supernatural do this?"

Wicknight wrote: »

yet in your one we also have explain and justify what the heck God is doing there.

And? Thought you didn't like being lazy

Wicknight wrote: »

"Amazing" is in the eye of the beholder. The argument that the universe "looks" like God made it is a fallacy since you have no idea what a universe that wasn't made by a god should look like.

OK then tell me what a universe which wasn't made by God would look like?

Wicknight wrote: »

It is like believing that your child is the cutest baby of the pre-school. It is not a rational conclusion.

That would be a subjective conclusion drawn from a personal viewpoint and not by actually being shaped by the facts. In order to conclude that one's child is the cutest baby in the pre-school, criteria must first be established which outlines the strongest characteristics of cuteness in babies, once that is established then measuring the children by this criteria will yield the objective result of the cutest baby. So the baby with the most characterisitcs wins. That doesn't mean that everyone looking on this baby will agree with the results of the study but the previously agreed upon criteria has been met and therefore stands. Not sure how this relates to the universe but that's this mega thread for you.

Wicknight wrote: »

It can be allowed in the science lab as soon as you have an actual hypothesis.

The hypothesis is this: "An immaterial, timeless and space-less entity of unimaginable power created the universe."

Our discoveries have shown that the most reliable model is the standard big bang model and that this model posits to a creation ex nihilo and we are stumped to show that anything other than a supernatural (outside nature) force of unimaginable power could have brought it into being from nothing.

Wicknight wrote: »

Or to put it another way, what did God actually do?

That is evidenced by the mere fact that something rather than nothing exists.

Wicknight wrote: »

If I wanted to write a computer simulation of what God is supposed to have done what would I write?

You might have to word that another way as I'm not sure what you mean.

Wicknight wrote: »

How? We are intelligent because our brains evolved. What does that have to do with demonstrating that the force that may have created the universe was intelligent?

Did intelligence exists before we evolved it?

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes, of course it can. You are not made of intelligent atoms.

Which means that atoms are not intelligent which means that they do not KNOW how to behave and yet they still behave in a way that is necessary to support our existence and indeed the universe's existence and all these behavioral patterns were present in the initial conditions of the big bang where no evolution took place whatsoever, and they still work the same way today. Blind chance or deliberate design? Again the more plausible option is deliberate design, but heck you're free to choose the other one if you like.

Wicknight wrote: »

It is lazy. It is assuming a human like agent made the universe for human like reasons that allow us to easily understand and comprehend why the universe exists in terms of human interaction, something our brains have little trouble with and find easy to process.

Well no, not human like at all. I already described this entity as immaterial, space less and timeless with unimaginable power who operates wholly separate from nature, how on earth ire those human like traits?

Wicknight wrote: »

It then also introduces a deity that then looks after us and provides us with comfort and love.

And that's a bad thing because?

Wicknight wrote: »

Its strange no one believes the universe was created by a strange insect like alien for unknown reasons and then he is going to eventually destroy us all for his own amusement. It is always God created the universe, he created us, he loves us, we is going to look after us etc etc .

I'm sure there are some who believe that but it wouldn't be mainstream obviously. What we are discussing though is how our universe could have come into being from nothing. To postulate that it was the act of an unimaginably powerful entity does not stretch the mind that much. OK it involves a degree of anthropomorphizing on our part but what's wrong with that. It might be the case that the traits we possess are derived from His in the first place, hence the way we intuitively perceive the universe to be. If not then I fail to see what other way to understand the universe except in terms we understand.

Wicknight wrote: »

Yes that is the point. "Our own natures" are very bad a postulating how the universe works. We assume the universe works in ways that are easy for us to understand and relate too, and that never turns out to be the case.

I understand that but it doesn't stop us proceeding on the same lines even when do find out that it wasn't what we expected it to be.

Wicknight wrote: »

Come again? How are you testing the God hypothesis?

By simply observing the universe. If we can observe phenomena which rules out the hypothesis that it was all created by an unimaginably powerful being or force or whatever then we can throw it out. Until then it is at least a plausible hypothesis given that using physics yields very little.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner, why do you keep arguing that the universe came from nothing? It makes no sense! The flying spaghetti monster makes far more sense, a being with those characteristics is the best explanation for the facts until we find a better one so why do you keep insisting that it came from nothing?


Could we meet in the middle and say that until we know all the facts and can actually give an explanation with any level of confidence, that neither of us will proclaim that we know how the universe came into being and the best we can do is hypothesise?

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Our discoveries have shown that the most reliable model is the standard big bang model and that this model posits to a creation ex nihilo

I think if you say this maybe three more times it might become true, possibly four

Morbert

Soul Winner, are you deliberately trying to be frustrating? The Big Bang theory is N O T a theory of creation ex nihilo.

I have corrected you twice on this issue. This will be the third time.

Sam Vimes

And even if it was, if that was what the evidence was pointing to then that would be what happened, whether it seems intuitive or not. If the evidence actually did suggest that something came from nothing then the idea that nothing comes from nothing would be completely invalidated. Far from supporting religious belief, it would annihilate it.

Lucky for Soul Winner the theory doesn't say that

Mark Hamill

Sounds very mathematically theoretical. Can you give a more tangible example? Something we can observe in nature perhaps? Preferably with the naked eye or even a microscope.

The big bang is also quite mathematically theoretical, are you under the impression that the Big Bang is something that you can observe with the naked eye or under a microscope.

Soul Winner wrote: »

That's my point. We are incapable of working anything out at the moment of the big bang so what is so wrong with postulating that it was miraculously created seeing that there is no other way to describe it?

I covered this is a post a few pages back which you must have missed. I'll repeat: "God did it" is an unfalsifiable position. "We dont know yet" is not. One will lead you to searching out new evidence to try and find out what we dont know yet, the other kills all further enquiry (whether its right or wrong). Dont forget that humans have attributed many things to be caused by god that we now know aren't, if it wasn't for that first person who stood up and said "god did it" isn't good enough for me, we would still probably be living in caves. We have accomplished so much by not attributing things to god simply because we dont know the answers yet and searching might take more than five minutes, that I don't know why we should ever do so again.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nobody is assuming that time continues on backwards before the big bang. Time begins at the big bang. So what ever caused it must be eternal. Now if time did not exist, and then just began to exist, it either had a causer or it didn't. But how could it come into being without a causal agent at the point of absolute zero anything?

Actually this seems to be your biggest problem. Causality, as you understand is restricted by time: ie there is a cause, then there is a effect. However if time was only created by the big bang, then there was no time "around" for the normal rules of causality to apply to how the big bang happened, meaning there does not necessarily have to have been a causer as, without time, you dont actually have a cause/effect sytem.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes and it is all theoretical gobbledygook.

But does that make it wrong?

Soul Winner wrote: »

That might be true but we have no other tools other than our brains, logic, common sense, to try and work it out and have it make sense to us as we view it. What is the point in being accurate in terms that nobody understands?

How else do you expect to become accurate in those terms if you don't start using them?

Soul Winner wrote: »

I'm not saying that the way we perceive the universe to be is the way the universe actually is but in order for us to make any sense out it we have to use terms that our brains can process and make sense out of. For all we know my next sentence could explain everything we need to know about the universe:

"Tjnoidrn lkxdfpwwp ikfi9 0-9389? gflgj0a09gr )(&^f;J G ROPA/.G MAN p0ON"

But it doesn't mean anything to us. We must somehow have it make sense to us. Translate it into terms we can understand.

But much like your bible, the translation is only right if it still has the original intended meaning. Just randomly translating your above sentence into something like "welcome to boards.ie" might make it easier to understand the sentence, but it does nothing to actually help us understand the original concept.

Soul Winner wrote: »

It would be like micro organisms living in a bubble trying to understand from within the bubble how the bubble came into being. Once they exahaust all efforts to find an interanl causal egent thye would have to postulate an external causal agent, and when they do this they are released from their limited possible natural explanations which continually fail.

Do you actually think that we have actually exhausted all efforts to find an internal explanation?

Soul Winner wrote: »

I have no difficulty whatsoever in the hypothesis that the explanation of how this universe came into being was that it was created by an inconceivably powerful being who is timeless, space-less and immaterial and who works outside of nature i.e. supernatural to bring things in nature into being from nothing.

This is probably why you have problems with the big bang model, as it most certainly does not say that the universe comes from nothing.

Soul Winner wrote: »

A being with these characteristics is the best explanation for the facts until we find a better one and as you have adequately pointed out, we are a far cry from doing that in our current understanding.

Can you give the source for these "facts" you think you have. (eg where did you read that the universe came from nothing?)

Soul Winner wrote: »

I prefer to go with the latter if for no other reason than it makes me feel better about it. I know that is not science but so what, science it seems appears to be at somewhat of a dead end anyway when it comes to these questions.

Science is not at a dead end. It is still trying to answer these questions, its just people like you who wont take the time to try to understand the basics and realise these things take time but who want a quick answer because of their neurotic fear of not mattering in the universe

Soul Winner wrote: »

Like I said, I don't need science to have faith in God. I have that already from personal experience, reading scripture and studying the resurrection. I do love science though, I think it is a fascinating subject and it has done wonders for the world. But as you have pointed out it cannot make sense of all things.

Personally, I think science can make sense of all things in this universe, its just a case of having to wait for it to get the answers or being able to understand it when it does presents them that depicts wether I can make sense of things

Soul Winner wrote: »

That is the realm of religion, whatever religion that may be.

Religion makes sense of nothing. It has no way and offers no way to verify if its right or wrong. Sure people say it makes sense to them, but cutting out peoples hearts used to make sense to the aztecs, doesn't mean it actually makes sense universally.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Surely you cannot accuse me of not asking you enough questions Wicknight

Only of ignoring the answers.

Soul Winner wrote: »

That my friend is what is commonalty called in the business as: "Nothing". Sam disagrees but listen to what Tipler and Barrow have to say about it:

‘At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo’ (Barrow, Tipler 1986: 442)."

But by literally nothing, they also mean time, and without time there is no cause and effect and no cause and effect means no causer.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nothing at all.

So you are a pantheist then? If there was nothing at all, then we must have been made of the only thing there, which you say is god.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Well for one if God exists and He is defined as the source of all life then yes we do need Him in order to live, move and have our being. Which is why its good that we praise Him and give thanks to Him daily for everything.

And if FGHJKHFR exists and is defined as the source of all life then yes we do need Him in order to live, move and have our being. Which is why its good that we eat chisels in His name and give rap music to Him daily for everything.
We can claim that anything exists and is defined as the source of all life and that we should do arbitrary things to sate its strangely human pride, but if these are just things we make up because actually finding out is too hard, then they are meaningless.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Again, nothing. Before science discovered that the universe had a beginning and that that beginning was from nothing at all, the Bible had stated it over and over again.

Where does the bible say there was nothing?

Soul Winner wrote: »

With God all things are possible including creating universes from nothing. This is not possible with nothing though. Nothing - or not a thing - can't do anything. But yet we know that everything came from nothing. Something supernatural happened!!!

Really? The way I see it, is with nothing, there is not a thing it cant do, meaning it can do anything at all. Of course this is meaningless word play, much like what you are doing. With god all things may be possible, but thats meaningless if god doesn't actually exist.

Soul Winner wrote: »

"For God to be God He has no needs" CS Lewis. In other words He doesn't need creation in order to create it.

And C.S. Lewis knows exactly the true nature of god?

Soul Winner wrote: »

Like what?

Like anything. Like nothing.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes but what are you offering in the place of an all powerful being? What else could have created such an immensely vast system such as our universe from the innumerable micro subatomic particles up to the hundreds of billions of gargantuan sized galaxies? If a supernatural all powerfull being is not a good explanantion then complicated scientific formulae are not good explanations either.

Why? Surely the definition of a good explanations is simply the one that is right, rather than the one that makes me feel good. If god didn't do it, why is sciences offering also wrong?

Soul Winner wrote: »

The reason I call it irrational now is because the scientific evidence which most atheists seem to pride themselves on adhering to is pointing to the creation of the universe ex nihilo

Source?

Soul Winner wrote: »

and there are only two positions on the question of how it could have happened. Either it just popped into existence from nothing and by nothing or a supernatural causal agent of unimaginable power brought it into being.

Lets say you are right and "before" the universe ther was nothing. Why does this leave us with you dichtomy? Isn't there some other explanations. Why couldn't this universe be caused by seomthing that happened at the end of the universe? If There is no time before, then there is no time after. For all you know we could be an experiment created by some parallel existence, that is meaningless in terms of space and time.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Not being able to explain how God did it is not a good reason to say that the hypothesis God did it is a not a good or valid hypothesis.

"God did it" isn't a hypothesis. "How God did it" would be the hypothesis. And if nothing creating the universe from nothing is a bad hypothesis, then god doing the same is an equally bad hypothesis.

The rest of your post seem to be just repeating claims you've already made, so I'm going to leave them for now.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote:

It would be like micro organisms living in a bubble trying to understand from within the bubble how the bubble came into being. Once they exahaust all efforts to find an interanl causal egent thye would have to postulate an external causal agent

I don't have any logical objections to an external causal agent but external causal agent =/= God

Mark Hamill wrote:

Religion makes sense of nothing. It has no way and offers no way to verify if its right or wrong. Sure people say it makes sense to them, but cutting out peoples hearts used to make sense to the aztecs, doesn't mean it actually makes sense universally.

True. Religion doesn't actually give any answers, it simply proclaims that anything that we currently don't know about the universe can never be known because it's "beyond our comprehension". Luckily not everyone thinks that way

postcynical

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I don't have any logical objections to an external causal agent but external causal agent =/= God

Do you have any logical objection to God? If so, why not to other external causal agents? If not, what adjective would you use to describe your objections?

True. Religion doesn't actually give any answers, it simply proclaims that anything that we currently don't know about the universe can never be known because it's "beyond our comprehension". Luckily not everyone thinks that way

Or perhaps "religion" is a bit more subtle than that. Maybe thinkers recognise the limits of certain methodologies. While it might be rational to say that the story of mankind consists of lots of atoms being rearranged over time, it would be foolish to apply Chemistry rather than History to try and understand mankind's story.

PDN

Mark Hamill wrote: »

And C.S. Lewis knows exactly the true nature of god?

He didn't at the time he wrote that - but I'm pretty sure he does now!

AtomicHorror

Evening.

Did J C ever answer those 13 Awkward Questions in the end? Or address our rebuttals of his rather weak replies to them? Or address the answers to his own 21 Dumb Questions? I've had a quick scan through the last few months of stuff I've missed and it seems like he's continued his odd habit of claiming that the evidence is on his side whilst choosing exclusively to quote scripture instead...

postcynical wrote: »

Or perhaps "religion" is a bit more subtle than that. Maybe thinkers recognise the limits of certain methodologies. While it might be rational to say that the story of mankind consists of lots of atoms being rearranged over time, it would be foolish to apply Chemistry rather than History to try and understand mankind's story.

Nonsense. History and chemistry use the same methodology. Science. The boundaries between these parts of science are just there to make the whole easier to study. They overlap heavily. Religion is not comparable.

philologos

C.S Lewis although not knowing exactly God's nature at the time of writing, offers simple explanation of the Christian faith for those who are only beginning along this path.

postcynical

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Nonsense. History and chemistry use the same methodology. Science. The boundaries between these parts of science are just there to make the whole easier to study. They overlap heavily. Religion is not comparable.

This is correct that they are two distinct branches of science. Each branch has its reasonable limit and the methodology as a whole has its limits. The Human person is not restricted to scientific methodology to discern truth.

Sam Vimes

postcynical wrote: »

Do you have any logical objection to God? If so, why not to other external causal agents? If not, what adjective would you use to describe your objections?

It might be possible to for something to exist outside what we would consider the universe but I have no idea what form it would take. To call it a god is to put human characteristics on something that is far more likely to be a 'natural' force of some kind. It's no different to saying Thor causes lightning

postcynical wrote: »

Or perhaps "religion" is a bit more subtle than that. Maybe thinkers recognise the limits of certain methodologies. While it might be rational to say that the story of mankind consists of lots of atoms being rearranged over time, it would be foolish to apply Chemistry rather than History to try and understand mankind's story.

Yes it would be foolish to apply chemistry to history but that's not the same thing. You're assuming that where science cannot answer a question the correct course of action is to use religion to answer it. If science cannot answer a question that does not entitle a religious person to make one up and declare it to be true