Religion The God Question (continued in Part 2 - link in last post)

[bombermick]

Before we even look at the question, please answer me one question.

Are, in your opinion, miracles at all possible in our world?

1. God has to break the laws of physics. Not only to have miracles, but so we could see the billions of stars.
2. More importantly, why are there no miracles since the days just after Jesus? Convieient they don't occur when they could be tested. No proof of God and eternal damnation if you believe in no/the wrong god.

 

[Bennett.]

1. God has to break the laws of physics. Not only to have miracles, but so we could see the billions of stars.
2. More importantly, why are there no miracles since the days just after Jesus? Convieient they don't occur when they could be tested. No proof of God and eternal damnation if you believe in no/the wrong god.

How hard is it to answer a yes/no question?

 

[skilts]

That is not an answer at all.

I want the question answered.

You will always be left wanting.

 

[bombermick]

It's obvious it's a yes, but so what? It's not falsifiable and so a pointless question.

 

[Malifice]

That is not an answer at all.

I want the question answered.

I'll bite.

I believe in Miracles. (You sexy thing.)

They're maybe caused by my subconsious mind. Or maybe Ganesha, Odin and Xenu make them happen working in tandem. Or maybe as yet undiscovered physical properties of a soulless and directionless universe. Or maybe random fluke chance. Or maybe something else entirely.

 

[evo]

Nothing which the bible or Christianity claims of their god is even remotely impressive and points to a god of little worth even if he existed.
A "clints" god.

Good book but.

 

[Roylion]

Before we even look at the question, please answer me one question.

Are, in your opinion, miracles at all possible in our world?

Under the definition that a miracle is:

"A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is considered to be divine."

No.

 

[Malifice]

Under the definition that a miracle is:

"A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is considered to be divine."

No.

Where did the universe come from then?

Or has 'something' always been 'here'?

 

[Roylion]

Where did the universe come from then?

No idea. But in my view there will be some natural or scientific law that will explain it one day. Looking forward to the evidence that alternatively the universe was created by an omnipotent, omniscient divine being.

Or has 'something' always been 'here'?

Possibly.

 

[Malifice]

No idea. But in my view there will be some natural or scientific law that will explain it one day.

Creation ex nihilo cant be ever explained via natural or scientific laws.

The definition of 'nothing' precludes any natural or scientific law to create the universe. In nothing there literally cannot be any laws (or any space or time for those laws to function in).

By logical definition it requires a 'supernatural' force to happen.

Possibly.

Intresting theory. Ive always assumed the universe (in some form or shape) wasnt always here.

Im trying to decide if the universes perpetual infinite existence is logically valid.

Current laws of the universe suggest otherwise (entropy and so forth), but I guess they could be wrong.

 

[Malifice]

I suppose (logically) creatio ex nihilo involves a contradiction in that something cannot arise from nothing; therefore something must always have existed. But it is scientifically impossible (entropy) for matter to always have existed.

Ive reached an impasse.

Although proposition 1 (the contradiction) is logically valid on its own.

Proposition 2 is based on a scientific theory (and therefore not based on logic) and may therefore be wrong.

Leaves me with only two possible (logical) options:

1) Something has always existed in some form, or

2) Somthing arose from nothing - so the supernatural (logically) must exist.

 

[bombermick]

Malfice, the problem is how did God/s get there? If he/she always existed, why can't a universe? I believe there has to be a supernatural cause, but we can never know what that is.
Quantum mechanics allows for particles to pop in and out of existence, and scientists have created particles with nothing but a magnetic field in a vacuum.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-mirrors-Quantum-scientists-make-nothing.html

 

[Malifice]

Malfice, the problem is how did God/s get there? If he/she always existed, why can't a universe?

Because logically 'God' (Allah/ Yahweh/ Thor/ Odin) is supernatural. For what its worth this supernatural force doesnt have to be a 'God' per se. Beyond the logical requirement that it be supernatural it could be anything (and by definition as 'supernatural' it avoids any attempts to further define it anyway).

A supernatural force is the only thing (logically) that can exist 'in' nothing and in no time at all. Should anything else exist in nothing; its not nothing. Furthermore a supernatural force is required to create something from nothing.

No natural thing (be it a law, rule, object or whathave you) can exist in nothing, and something cannot arise from nothing and in no time at all.

Either something was always here (and time was always ticking), or we have irrefutable logical evidence for the existence of the supernatural.

I believe there has to be a supernatural cause, but we can never know what that is.
Quantum mechanics allows for particles to pop in and out of existence, and scientists have created particles with nothing but a magnetic field in a vacuum.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2000483/Sparks-mirrors-Quantum-scientists-make-nothing.html

QM (as weird as it is) relies on a series of natural laws. Natural laws are 'something'.

Even a particle like an electron cant pop up into no space, and in no time at all.

And it certainly cant do it sans observation. QM needs 'something' to exist in, and time (and an observer) to exist.

 

[holy diver]

Last several pages have been a great read. Keep it up, peeps.

 

[bombermick]

I can't dispute your logic, but it's not particularly helpful. It still leaves us with the problem as to who this deity is.
Besides, our scientific understanding allows for the existence of everything without supernatural causes, except for space itself. As you say particles can't appear if there's nowhere to appear in. Even if we were to see the big bang, it would still leave us without knowing who created space.

 

[Malifice]

I can't dispute your logic, but it's not particularly helpful. It still leaves us with the problem as to who this deity is.

It doesnt have to be a deity.

Simply something supernatural.

Besides, our scientific understanding allows for the existence of everything without supernatural causes, except for space itself.

Nothing isnt everything. Quite the opposite.

Science doesnt work (or even exist) in nothing, and on nothing, and in no time at all.

As you say particles can't appear if there's nowhere to appear in.

Or time for them to appear in.

No time or space in nothing mate.

Remember 'time' is a dimension of the Universe (cf: space-time).

Even if we were to see the big bang

Physically (and logically) impossible to do.

We would have no space to 'be' in to observe it, and we would have no time to watch it unfold.

'Pre' Big Bang there was no time or space (beyond some nebulously unexplained 'singularity').

 

[Smokin]

Intresting theory. Ive always assumed the universe (in some form or shape) wasnt always here.

Our Universe, or all of em? Do universes operate within universes? What laws/physics/science are they subject to?

we can only assume the observable universe is in some way 'the end' or the last chapter/limit of our knowledge. What if it is just the beginning?

 

[Malifice]

Our Universe, or all of em? Do universes operate within universes? What laws/physics/science are they subject to?

we can only assume the observable universe is in some way 'the end' or the last chapter/limit of our knowledge. What if it is just the beginning?

Good point.

How about instead of universe, we apply the same logic to multiverse? Or simply 'existence'.

Did existence always exist?

If not, we (logically) prove the supernatural.

 

[bombermick]

Malifice, if there is a being powerful enough to create time/space, then logically that is a deity. The Big Bang still requires something, that I don't understand.

 

[Smokin]

supernatural simply refers to the limitations of humans at this point in time.

Everything may be perfectly logical and rational, but our human brains simply cant process that.

existence always existing may be a basic concept to those that have a real brain, and not the mish-mash we earthlings have been given!

 

[Malifice]

Malifice, if there is a being powerful enough to create time/space, then logically that is a deity.

No that's its not logical say something so powerful must have been a deity.

Firstly 'power' is relative. Secondly, why couldnt it have been 'the Force' or 'Karma' or 'Mana' or 'JuJu' or something similar (and non godlike)?

 

[holy diver]

http://neophilosophical.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/the-method-of-wlcs-madness.html

Further to the current discussion, I found a blog discussing the foremost christian apologist William Lane Craig's methodology for asserting the resurrection (thereby confirming the historicity of jesus h christ). Most here would be familiar with the kalam cosmological argument that he champions and asserts proves god created the universe.

And his Argument from Resurrection:

1.There are three established facts about Jesus: his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection.

2.The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” is the best explanation of these facts.

3.The hypothesis “God raised Jesus from the dead” entails that God exists.

4.Therefore, God exists.

I did touch on this before, in Explaining Evidence, but I stumbled on a useful page on Wikipedia which expands on thehistorical method. This is where Craig gets his “explanatory principle” from.

This methodology works, to a limited extent for the resurrection argument and only the resurrection argument, merely because some people claim that the Bible is history. None of his other arguments are related to history, they are more in the domain of science (or rather of pseudoscience the way he handles them). Scientific discussions should heed the scientific method, not the historical method. Nobody was around at the time of the Big Bang, so there was no history to synthesise!

The reason why the methodology doesn’t work (not even for the resurrection argument) is that within the historical method, when done by real historians rather than theologians, a hypothesis is supposed to answer more questions than it raises – it is supposed to be less ad hoc than other explanations.

The major problem with a god solution is that the god solution raises questions that are more difficult than those it answers.That’s negative explanatory power.

A great summary of the resurrection theory can be found on iron chariots wiki;

Historical vs. Biblical Jesus

When debating the question of whether Jesus really existed, it is necessary to distinguish between several questions: "Was there a preacher named Jesus in Judea around 1-33 CE, who was crucified by the Romans?" and "Was there really a person who performed the miracles attributed to Jesus in the Bible?" The former is an ordinary and plausible claim; the latter is an extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinaryevidence. This is like asking "Did George Washington exist?" vs. "Is it true that George Washington threw a silver dollar across the Potomac river?"
If Jesus was an ordinary human who did not perform any miracles, it would not be surprising that there are no contemporary accounts of his existence, since most people from that era have gone unrecorded.
However, if he had performed miracles, or if his life had been accompanied by extraordinary events, we would expect many people to have written about them. For example, Matthew 27:51-53 says that when Jesus died,
"And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."
The fact that there is no contemporary extra-Biblical evidence of such an extraordinary event strongly suggests that it never happened. Likewise, the star of Bethlehem, which allegedly marked Jesus' birth, would presumably have been seen all over the world, and been recorded by other literate societies, such as China.

 

[tb_fanboy]

Err; yes he did. He must have. We are His creation remember.

God knew we would sin before he even thought about making us. (He's omniscient). Also (as he is omnipotent) he could quite simply have fixed that little bug and created us not to sin should He have so chosen.

He was well aware (before even he began making us) that we would sin, why we would sin, where it would happen, and exactly how often. He was also precisely aware of how to make us so we wouldn't (He knows everything, and can do anything).

God, in his infinite wisdom choose not to make us like that. He instead choose to make us so we could Sin (and knowing we would).

He also knew (before making us so we could go around doing all this Sinning he doesn't apparently like) that he would also 'have' to kill a whole lot of us in vengeance for a few thousand years as punishment for what we he created us to do, and that he would have to send his own Son down to earth to get tortured, and that we would go on sinning anyways.

You look at it any other way and either God didn't know we were going to Sin when he made us (hes not omniscient) or he lacked the ability to create us with the ability not to sin (he's not omnipotent).

Next time you Sin remember - God knew you were going to do it before you did it, and he made you that way.

Really, there was nothing you could have done about it at all.

I think you have a problem with understanding this
ianity. But in fact the Christian solution to this problem is better than any atheist solution could be. Atheists say that the human will is subject to the fate of environmental determinism, which is law without any sense of free will, or a product of randomness, which is freedom without law. A few atheists, like B.F. Skinner, have been courageous enough to embrace determinism; but most claim that the human will is spontaneously free. This is inconsistent with their commitment to naturalistic evolution. But whichever view the atheist holds, the human will is a product of the impersonal and amoral. There is no more moral significance to randomness than there is to materialistic determinism. Either way, the atheist view excludes the possibility of the existence of moral laws that humans have the moral freedom to obey or disobey. At least in the Christian worldview, morally responsible humans are a creation of an absolutely moral personality. There is a distinction between God’s being and man’s being, whereas the atheist denies that humans have a distinct nature from the impersonal, amoral sources

William Lane Craig answers the argument of allowance of human evil by explains that if God made us so we cannot sin and live perfectly it is 'free will rape'. I mean let's take it into perspective. If you had an undying love for let's say another human, would you like that person to love you back for who you are out of his/her own free will? Surely you would, because then the
Love wouldn't be genuine. The God you're talking about wants us to love him GENUINELY, not forcefully. According to the bible we show our love for him by repenting of sin that yes he knows we are going to commit, but also knows we are going to repent, or at least this is want he wants, isn't it?

You're also looking at this one sidedly, because God know that we CAN ignore sinful temptations just as much as we can commit sins, and knows that at times we will be good and when and where we will be good.

 

[Malifice]

You're also looking at this one sidedly, because God know that we CAN ignore sinful temptations just as much as we can commit sins, and knows that at times we will be good and when and where we will be good.

No you're looking at it one lopsidedly and conveniently forgetting that God already knows we WONT ignore sinful temptations. And he knows this before he even creates us.

He's omniscient remember. He knows exactly what his creations will do before even his creations do. He knew you were going to Sin before he made you in the first place.

He then made you anyway.

He also knew that he would have to torture and sacrifice Jesus, knew what Lucifer was up to, knew he would have to kill a whole crap load of people 'in vengeance' - and all before he even began the process of creating anyone or anything.

Suffering and Sin is all part of Gods plan.

Whatever the **** it is.

Also there is no 'Free Will' if you believe in God. Just an illusion of free will.

God could write down exactly what you are gonna think and do for every second of your life in a book.

He can write this book before you are even born. And it would be 100% correct. He then creates you. You now have no choice but to do exactly what this book says (without ever reading it yourself) or you prove God 'wrong'... which pf course is impossible.

Think about this.

 

[holy diver]

Seems legit...