Streak Atheist
In the A guide for theists on how to debate atheists post I explained what atheism is, I used me as an example, the example I gave was
for instance me; when it comes to the gods of the bible, the god of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the gods of pagan religions, Hinduism, Shintoism and all other gods that people believe or have believed in
But how can I say this? Isn’t it very difficult to imposable to prove a negative? Well yes but if you can create testable and falsifiable predictions based on an idea than you can test that idea and it can be falsified. In exception to deistic ideas of god(s). Most if not all the god(s) concepts you can make testable and falsifiable predictions based on. For insistence if you think God answers prayer, thats a testable and falsifiable prediction, if you say God makes miracle, thats a testable falsifiable prediction, when dealing with ancient gods its even easer, gods do not cause thunder, earthquakes storms and so on.
Prayer has been tested, no miracle has ever been found.
Plus look at the universe. Weather is caused by heat from the Sun and is determined by its position on the earth and the geography of the area it is and has passed over, thunder is an electrical discharge caused by a difference in the charges between the earth and the clouds, earth quakes are cause by plate tectonics, diseases are caused by bacteria, viruses and genetics, all of these are cause by natural causes not caused by gods. The galaxy, Sun, soler system, earth and diversity of life was caused by natural processes not any God or gods. The vast majority of things that have been attributed to a God or gods have been explained by natural processes that we now understand.
And then there the concept of a God that wonts us to believe in it (yes I’m talking about your God Christens Muslims and Jews) There is simply no evidence for the existence of any God or gods, if a God wonted us to believe in it it would have left evidence of its existence, none exists thus (if a God or gods exist) God(s) ether do not wont us to believe or do not care if we believe. By saying that God wonts us to believe in him you’ve made a testable prediction, looking for evidence of that God would be testing it and finding no evidence would falsify that God concept.
Now I don’t expect every one to agree with me and I don’t expect every atheist to agree with me. But most god concepts can be falsified and thats why I can say with a high level of certainty that many gods do not exist, I can not say that I know (in the strict sense of the word) these gods do not exist but I also cant say that I know (in the strict sense of the word) gravity exists.
I think that’s really cool that you trust a logical flow of thought and reason. Maybe you could help me out with my problem. You see,
except for epistemic, experiential, logical, coherent and reasonable evidence FOR the existence of God, I could be an atheist just like you.
The problem is, my belief in God begins with the following observation:
. Whatever begins to exist has a cause
. The universe began to exist
. Therefore the universe has a cause.
. Matter and energy cannot precede themselves or preexist themselves either physically or chronologically.
. Matter and energy do not have the ability to create themselves or bring themselves into existence from nothing or ex nihilo.
. As we’ll see below, matter and energy cannot exist from infinity past.
. Whatever brought matter, energy, space and time into existence had to have existed outside of these entities.
. Anything that exists has an explanation of it’s existence, either in the necessity of its own nature (like numbers) or in an external cause.
. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. That is because: Existing outside of time, the Cause is infinite or eternal, Existing outside of matter, the Cause is immaterial or Spiritual, Existing as the Cause of time and energy, space and matter the Cause is immeasurably more powerful than the mathematically precise universe and its exquisitely Finely Tuned constants and quantities. This renders the Cause as omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. That Cause, at least in the West is described as God.
. The universe exists.
. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence.
Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion must also be true: The explanation of the existence of the universe is God
. If atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation of its existence. This in fact is what atheists would have us believe as literally over a dozen theories have come and gone in the last 10 years in a vain attempt to rule out God as cause of the universe.
. If there IS an explanation of the universe’s existence, then atheism is not true.
. Most atheists would admit that the universe does indeed have a beginning.
. Hence, most atheists are implicitly committed to God being the explanation of why the universe exists.
Some may deny that the universe began to exist, but in reality the universe cannot be infinite. That is because: The Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out the possibility of the universe existing from infinity past. As well -
. It is physically impossible to have an Actual Infinite Number of Things or Events preceding our today.
. A beginningless Series of events in time entails an actual infinite number of things.
. Therefore, a beginningless Series of events in time that leads to the beginning of our universe cannot exist.
. Neither can we get to our point in time by forming an actual infinite Collection of things by adding one member after another.
. A series of events in time is a collection formed by adding one member after another
. A collection formed by adding one member after another cannot be an actual infinite.
Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion must also be true: A collection of events in time cannot be actually infinite – therefore the universe cannot be infinite.
I believe in God because His existence answers not just, Why did the universe come into being, but Why is it so finely tuned that we can exist? Note: Fine tuning is a neutral term in that it refers to constants and quantities (atomic weight, gravitational constant etc) being just right for the existence of intelligent life in comparison with the virtually infinite range of possible values. So:
. The fine tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design.
. It is not due to physical necessity (there is no reason whatsoever that any given universe would be so finely tuned) nor is this fine tuning due to chance (the fine tuning of our universe is so exquisite that an infinitesimal change in any one of necessary constants and quantities would mean that neither we nor any life would happen).
. True claim: If observers who have evolved within a universe observe its constants and quantities, it is highly PROBABLE that they will observe them to be fine-tuned for their existence.
. True claim: It is highly and extraordinarily IMPROBABLE that a universe exists which is finely tuned for the evolution of observers within it.
Some might think that if the constants and quantities of our universe were different, then other life forms would have evolved. This is simply not true. “Life” means the ability to take in food and use its energy, to grow and adapt and reproduce. Without the fine tuning that we observe, not even atomic matter would exist, not to mention planets where life might evolve. Among other things the universe would have either recollapsed or expanded beyond any ability to congeal. Again, there is no reason to expect that a universe as finely tuned for life as is our universe should exist by chance, nor is there any need or physical necessity for such a universe to exist anywhere except for the sole purpose of life. Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion must also be true: The fine tuning of the universe is due to design.
I also believe in the existence of God because:
. If God does not exist, objective morals, values and duties do not exist
. But objective morals, values and duties DO exist.
Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion must also be true: God exists.
Fact: Moral Goodness and Duty are based on God’s character. Objective moral order is as real and independent of our recognition as is the natural order of things. Physical laws are fully realised in the physical world. Objective moral laws are fully realised in Jesus and Father God. Our perceptions of natural and moral laws are givens of our experience.
. Mercy is required of me if and only if a just and loving God commands me to be merciful. Meanness is forbidden of me if and only if a just and loving God commands me to not be mean. Mercy or meanness are permitted or denied for me if and only if a just and loving God commands me to / not to commit acts of mercy or meanness. God is merciful therefore He commands us to be merciful. God is not mean therefore He commands us to not be mean. God is just therefore He commands us to act justly. What God commands or permits is good and what He forbids is wrong, bad, evil, self-destructive. This is what it means for morality to be objective vs. subjective or relative to the situation or to the individual’s character or personality or level of empathy, likes or dislikes, sanity or insanity.
I believe in God because of the following philosophical and metaphysical evidence.
We can ask ourselves, “What is the greatest conceivable being?” Our answer goes past me and you and the Dali Lama and any other “great” human being we can think of and we come to an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being that we commonly call “God” We can call it a Mind or something else but it amounts to the same thing ie.
The Greatest Conceivable Being That Can Possibly Exist.
Therefore we can know that God exists because:
. It is in fact metaphysically possible that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists.
. Because it’s possible that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists, a Greatest Conceivable Being does exist in some possible reality.
. Because of the very nature of a Greatest Conceivable Being, if a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in SOME possible reality, it exists in EVERY possible reality.
. If a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in every possible reality, then it exists in actual reality.
. If a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in the actual reality, then a Greatest Conceivable Being exists in our reality.
Because the above premises are true and coherent, it stands to reason that the conclusion is also true: A Greatest Conceivable Being or God exists.
I also believe a Greatest Conceivable Being – God – exists because:
. Abstract objects, such as numbers and propositions, are either independently existing realities or else they are concepts that find their grounding in and from some Mind.
. Abstract objects are not independently existing realities. Yet we intuitively know that they exist. Our problem is that when we become aware of the sheer volume of potential abstract objects we know for certain that the mind which causes them to exist and find their being and grounding could never be any human mind.
. If abstract objects are concepts in some Mind, then an omniscient, metaphysically necessary being exists. That is, only in an omniscient intelligence or mind can we find the grounding or cause for abstract objects.
. Because some of these concepts exist necessarily they cannot find their grounding in contingent beings, namely us.
Because the above premises are true and coherent, the conclusion must also be true: An omniscient, metaphysically necessary being exists. That being is what we call God.
. Because the cosmological argument shows that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists who is the cause or grounding of reality as we know it, and
. Because the moral argument shows that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists who is the cause or grounding of all objective morals, values, duties and Truth, and
. Because the conceptualist argument shows that a Greatest Conceivable Being exists who is the necessary intelligence for the grounding of abstract objects,
I believe that Creator God exists.
While any or all the above may or may not give you pause for thought, The most important basis for my belief in God has nothing to do with any of the above. Instead, His palpable presence in my life. His counsel, His comfort, His correction and guidance, His love and mercy and grace. All of these things are so very real in my innermost being that they compel me to acknowledge the truth of His existence. I am so very grateful that I have been granted the gift of “Wide-Band Awareness.” This is an experience that is shared and immediately recognised by people from around the world regardless of race, social stature, gender or intellectual ability. For some reason atheists seem denied this perceptive ability.
Secondly, I believe in God because of the historicity of Jesus. His life, death and resurrection cannot be adequately explained away. Something totally other took place when Jesus appeared on earth.
Third, I believe in God because the heavens and the earth declare His handiwork. There is simply no sufficient explanation for why we are here, why the universe exists and how it came into being other than a “Creator God.” While it’s true that atheists have proposed other theories for the “Creation” of the universe, it was not because of any inadequacy in or lack of evidence for the idea of God as Creator. The presentation of alternative theories is only because God as Creator is philosophically unacceptable to atheists.
The type of belief in God that I’m talking about is sometimes called “faith.” But faith is often misunderstood as being separate from reason or evidence. That could not be more inaccurate. For one thing, we are told to love the Lord our God with, among other things, “all our mind.” Second the Bible describes Faith as being “The substance (base / accumulation) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.” While one’s faith does not find its origin in evidence (the origin is purely from God – John 6:44), faith is clearly supported by evidence, reason and logic.
In other words, Faith is anything but blind or uninformed. In my opinion agnostics are the only ones who ‘go as far as the evidence will let them.’ Atheists, as I’ve stated, take the next step because of a philosophically unacceptable conclusion to where the evidence points: Creator God exists. Christians take the next step because of the reality of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Lord of lords and King of kings lives within their very being.
Nevertheless, my epistemic and experiential belief in God is grounded in logic and reason and that is why I’m not an atheist.
There have been all kinds of criticisms of the above premises. What’s important to note however is that a criticism or an objection is not a refutation. When an intelligent person willfully abandons reason and begins to posit finite infinities, causeless beginnings and beginningless beginnings, I know that I’m dealing with someone involved in a desperate attempt to avoid a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists. When an intelligent person willfully abandons classical historical scholarship and begins to deny known and knowable facts of history, but only as they apply to the person of Jesus, I know that I’m dealing with someone who is confronted with a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists. When an intelligent person willfully and falsely claims to follow whatever ethical standard is currently in vogue and calls that a reasonable way to live, I know that I’m dealing with someone involved in a desperate, fearful attempt to avoid a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists. When someone goes in search of ever more complicated solutions, abandoning one after another, after another, after another, not because of new evidence but because of a need to avoid current evidence, and when that person never returns to a simple solution that coincides with current knowledge and common sense, I know that I’ve encountered an individual who has been confronted with a philosophically unacceptable conclusion: Creator God exists.
That is sad and that is why I’m not an atheist.
I look forward to your thoughts on this.
That is way too long, It’ll take me a while to reply.
It seems to me that you might be putting your school work ahead of replying to my post. I think you’d better get your priorities straight sonny
I’m out of school. I was putting this post ahead of it. The antivax people keep pumping out there lies and now children are dieing cause of it and there just isn’t enough people talking about what the real science says.
I’ll have at least a partial reply by the morning.
This is basically the cosmological argument.
It is true that if something has beginning it has a cause however we don’t know if the universe ever had a beginning. And don’t confuse the big bang theory with a theory of the beginning of the universe, the big bang theory is a model of the development of the universe, not its origin. Wikipedia – Big Bang
Not nessicerally. See virtual particles
First: What do you mean by “outside of time”? I see this term thrown around allot but few have ever given any meaning to it.
Well where ever this god exists there has to be time in some shape or form cause with out time you can not have actions. Just as you can not get from point A to point B unless you have at least 1 dimension, if there are no dimensions you can not move in any direction cause directions do not exist. With out time there is no future past or present, nothing moves nothing changes, nothing happens.
That whole part is an argument from ignorance. You basically stating the universe has a cause thus God was that cause. If the universe had a cause we have no idea what that cause was, we don’t even know what went on a few seconds after the big bang (yet) (we need a theory of quantum gravity before we can have a better understanding the moment seconds after the big bang) but that lack of knowledge in no way shape or form means some god did it, it means we don’t know. There are explanations for the beginning of the universe other than ones that say some intelligence did it. But I’ve already discussed that here.
1. Atheism is not a single thing, it is a spectrum of beliefs with lack any belief that a god or gods exist. This is the first thing I cover in my guide for theists on how to debate atheists
2. Your generalising, atheists have a wide verity of beliefs and depending on how you define the word “god” some people can be ether theist or atheist.
3. Atheists don’t believe in a God or gods and thus are not “implicitly committed to God being the explanation of why the universe exists.”
laws of thermodynamics Nothing in the laws of thermodynamics say the universe can not have always existed.
How you perceive time is not what time is. The problem is how you think of time. You think of it as a series of events with a beginning and an end, time does not work that way, it does not work how we perceive it nor how we think of it.
Thanks for your effort. I’ll try to make this shorter.
“And don’t confuse the big bang theory with a theory of the beginning of the universe, the big bang theory is a model of the development of the universe, not its origin.”
And the reason atheist scientists put themselves through such contortions trying to avoid the Big Bang theory is because??? Right, because the Big Bang IS the beginning of the universe and a beginning implies a Beginner. Before the Big Bang there was nothing -nothing except whatever caused the Big Bang! For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As physicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler emphasize, “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.” Anyone who posits that the beginning of the universe is an exception to the Principle of Sufficient Reason is forced into the very awkward position of maintaining, not merely that the universe exists eternally without explanation, but rather that for no reason at all it magically popped into being out of nothing, a position which makes theism look like a welcome alternative. To suggest that things could just pop into being uncaused out of nothing is to quit doing serious metaphysics and to resort to magic.
Let me quote some prominent atheist scientists:
[The concept of the Big Bang] is preposterous, incredible, repugnant.” Astronomer Arthur Eddington.
“I find it hard to accept the big bang theory. I would like to reject it.” Physicist Philip Morrison.
“The Big Bang forces us to such a strange conclusion that it cannot really be true.” Carnegie Laboratories head Allan Sandage.
The laws of physics cannot be used to explain the Big Bang because they did not exist prior to the singularity. In fact the terms “prior” or “before” have no meaning pre Big Bang since time itself did not exist “prior to” the singularity.
Again, Arthur Eddington, “The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look at it as frankly supernatural.” Eddington is an atheist so he isn’t saying “God.” He’s just acknowledging the reality that the cause of nature was beyond and before nature.
Astronomer Robert Jastrow, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.”
For decades, atheist scientists denied that the universe had a beginning, hence there was no need for God. Because scientists can no longer deny that the universe began, they are now forced to deny that the universe had a cause. Turning on their predecessor, David Hume, who stated, “I have never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without cause,” and because of the clear implications of a universe with a beginning, today’s atheist scientists are forced to do exactly that, assert the absurd proposition that we can have causeless beginnings.
Victor Stenger, “The universe may be uncaused and may have emerged from nothing.”
I’m not sure that you want to hitch you wagon to that star.
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>. Matter and energy cannot precede themselves or preexist themselves either physically or chronologically.
. Matter and energy do not have the ability to create themselves or bring themselves into existence from nothing or ex nihilo.. As we’ll see below, matter and energy cannot exist from infinity past.
. Whatever brought matter, energy, space and time into existence had to have existed outside of these entities.
. Anything that exists has an explanation of it’s existence, either in the necessity of its own nature (like numbers) or in an external cause.
. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God. That is because: Existing outside of time, the Cause is infinite or eternal, Existing outside of matter, the Cause is immaterial or Spiritual, Existing as the Cause of time and energy, space and matter the Cause is immeasurably more powerful than the mathematically precise universe and its exquisitely Finely Tuned constants and quantities. This renders the Cause as omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. That Cause, at least in the West is described as God.
. The universe exists.
. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence.
Because the above premises are true and coherent, the following conclusion must also be true: The explanation of the existence of the universe is God. If atheism is true, then the universe has no explanation of its existence. This in fact is what atheists would have us believe as literally over a dozen theories have come and gone in the last 10 years in a vain attempt to rule out God as cause of the universe.
. If there IS an explanation of the universe’s existence, then atheism is not true.
. Most atheists would admit that the universe does indeed have a beginning.
. Hence, most atheists are implicitly committed to God being the explanation of why the universe exists.<
“Atheists don’t believe in a God or gods and thus are not “implicitly committed to God being the explanation of why the universe exists.”
That’s what implicit means. God is the explanation whether you agree with that or not. Again, I call the cause God, but you can give It a different name if you want. What you can’t do is say you are holding to scientific observations or theories and at the same time deny that the universe has a metaphysical beginning. The evidence, at least for now, points only in that direction.
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“Nothing in the laws of thermodynamics say the universe can not have always existed.”
So the stars have been burning forever have they? Do the books you read point to a young universe (15 billion years) or an infinitely old universe? Why is the expansion of the universe speeding up? If it was infinitely old, based on its density the universe should now be slowing down. The fact of entropy shows that the universe had a beginning; it is not infinite.
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“How you perceive time is not what time is. The problem is how you think of time. You think of it as a series of events with a beginning and an end, time does not work that way, it does not work how we perceive it nor how we think of it.”
If I’m hearing you correctly, you seem to be “arguing” according to B Theory of time, but naturally living according to A Theory. Very, very few people (unless they are stuck in a 1980’s time warp), hold to B Theory simply because it does not match our observations nor with the reality of how we live.
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“So far I see nothing new, only old arguments that have been debunked countless times. The fine tuned argument, the universe in in no way shape or form fine tuned for life and especially not intelligent life. First of all, if you change the strength of the fundamental interactions (strong, week, electromagnetism and gravity) the universe would not be all that much changed, life could still form and possibly be more probable, the fundamental interactions would have to be drastically altered to make life imposable. And as for this fine tuned for intelligent life life on earth has been around for about 3 billion years and intelligent life has only been around for a few million and on any of the steps that lead to intelligent, in something would have happened differently, intelligent would not have evolved. And even if the universe seemed fine tuned, if there is a multiverse with potencially infinite number universes”
Hmm, I guess we have very different definitions of “drastically,” as in the constants and quantities could be “drastically” changed and nothing of importance would happen. Again, I’m not sure that you’re listening to science. Me thinks that you’ve been paying to much attention to the hyperbole of that goof Richard Dawkins. His early writings were pretty good but his rage against Christianity has made his more recent works more like tabloid junk than anything you would want to base your life on. For example, for life to work the vast size and great age of our universe are not coincidental. They are indispensable conditions for the existence of life on earth. Again, for what it’s worth, I’m taking this from scientific observations and interpretations made by secular scientists. The gravitational force has to be precisely what it is. It can’t be infinitesimally different let alone drastically different. As physicist Paul Davies puts it, “We have been written into the laws of nature and it seems as though it is in a meaningful way.” “Just Six Numbers,” is a book by Martin Rees that describes the six fundamental physical properties of the universe that have to be EXACTLY as they are for us to be here. The mass of protons cannot be ANY different. The charge of electrons can’t be ANY different and so on. What are the probabilities of this all happening by accident? I’m sure that you’ve heard of Astronomer Lee Smolin. He’s one of yours, so to speak. He puts the odds at 10 to the power of 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 00000000000, 000000000. There should be 229 zeros in there. Stephen Hawking says that if the expansion rate had been off by a difference of a hundred thousand million, million, we wouldn’t be here and neither would the universe. Again, what you call “drastic” room for change, I see as astronomical odds against there being any room for change. And that by definition, a scientific definition, is what’s known as Fine Tuning.
So my question is, who or what supernatural, metaphysical power is responsible for this? I think that science would be much farther ahead if it / they would try to figure that out instead of trying to deny that it exists.
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“Not this bullshit again. Okay question: If God says something is good, is it good cause God has some special knowledge about good and evil we dont or cause he seed its good? If its good cause God has some knowledge we don’t than them morality is does not come from him but another souse that he is aware of, if its good cause God said its good, then that not objective morality, morality is at the im of God if God decided that impaling babies on spikes and drinking there blood was good than that would be good. Ether this objective”morality is separate from God (which by your logic would mean it would have to come from higher god) or its not morality, its authoritarianism and appeal to authority.”
Hmm, there are so many typos in that paragraph I’m going to have to guess at what you were tying to say. If you had read what I said instead of just skimming, you would have seen that it is definitely not that same old bullshit again. First of all:
The question is NOT: Must we believe in God in order to live moral lives? Obviously not.
The question is NOT: Can we recognise the existence of objective moral values without reference to God. Obviously we can and in fact the Bible says that these values are imprinted on our hearts.
The point is this. God is necessary that there might be objective moral goods and duties, NOT that we might discern the moral goods and duties that there are.
If we are to hold to the natural selection continuum then we are forced into say that rape is wrong in humans, even though the physical activity that counts as rape among human beings goes on all the time in the animal kingdom. The same acts that count as murder and theft when done by one human animal to another occur constantly between members of other animal species – without any moral significance whatsoever. This is surely strange and cries out for explanation.
Now, if I understand the atheist or evolutionary stance correctly, the claim is made that since our moral beliefs have been instilled through socio-biological pressures, objective moral values and duties do not exist. Such reasoning is fallacious, since a belief could be true regardless of how it came to be held. In particular, if God exists, then objective moral values and duties exist regardless of how conditioned we may be by the evolutionary process. Now in your paragraph above, I believe you are referring Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro – Either something is good because God wills it or else God wills something because it is good. If it is good just because God wills it, then what is good becomes arbitrary. God could have willed that hatred and jealousy be good, and then we should have been obligated to hate and envy one another. But that seems implausible; at least some moral goods seem to be necessary. But if we say instead that God wills something because it is good, then whether something is good or bad is independent of God. In that case, it seems that moral value exists independently of God, which undermines premise (1) of the moral argument. If God were not to exist, then objective moral values and duties would exist anyway.
The Euthyphro Dilemma can thus be construed as an argument for Atheistic Moral Platonism. That is why I phrased the moral argument within the context of what a just and loving God commands or condemns.
Since our moral duties are grounded in the divine commands, they are not independent of God.
Neither are God’s commands arbitrary, for they are the necessary expression of His just and loving nature.
God is essentially compassionate, fair, kind, impartial and so forth, and His commandments are reflections of His own character. God’s character is definitive of moral goodness; it serves as the paradigm of moral goodness. Thus, the morally good/bad is determined by reference to God’s nature; the morally right/wrong is determined by reference to his will. The divine will or commands come into play as a source of moral obligation, not moral value. As necessary expressions of his nature, God’s commands are not arbitrary, and so we need not trouble ourselves about counterfactuals with impossible antecedents like “If God were to command child abuse . . .” On the customary understanding, counterfactuals with impossible antecedents have no non-vacuous truth value. Even if we reject the customary semantics and allow that some counterfactuals with impossible antecedents may be non-vacuously true or false, how are we to assess the truth value of a statement with an antecedent like this? It’s like wondering whether, if there were a round square, its area would equal the square of one of its sides. And what would it matter how one answered, since what is imagined is logically incoherent? I don’t see that the divine command theorist is committed to the non-vacuous truth of the counterfactual in question or that anything of significance hangs on his thinking it to be non-vacuously true of false.
If you should ask, “Why pick God’s nature as definitive of the Good?” the answer is that God, by definition, is the greatest conceivable being, and a being which is the paradigm of goodness is greater than one which merely exemplifies goodness. Unless we are nihilists, we have to recognize some ultimate standard of value, and God is the least arbitrary stopping point.
I’m not sure, but it seems as though you don’t understand that to propose and alternate theory, or posit another explanation is not the same as debunking or repudiating a given premise or conclusion. Those alternates have to be coherent and logical. Because the alternates that you referred me to are nothing of the kind, I am compelled to maintain my position that Creator God exists.
Anyhow, like you say, we’re never going to come to a meeting of the minds on this – right? So good luck on your journey. Enjoy life as best you can cause for you, this life is going to be as good as it gets.
I have made a post dealing with the fines tuned arhumint
The majority of scientists believe in God, the majority in the west are Christan and many are Muslim, Hindu, Deist and and some even fallow new age pseudo-religious, pseudo-spiritual new age crap. And the vast majority of them accept evolution, big bang and so on.
I did a google search for your quotes and I kept coming up on the name William Lane Craig (a christan apologest) and the book What’s So Great About Christianity nether of which are good sources for scientific information on the origen of the universe.
But none of that matters. The big band theory is not an explanation of the origen of the universe, the big bang theory does not explain where space tine comes from, where the energy of the big bang came from or what happened before the big bang, it is an explanation of the development of the universe.
The Big Bang Theory. Click it!
1. Learn what atheism is!
2. Saying “X is true” foes not make it true and you haven’t [resented any descent argument for the existence of any god and you’ve given no evidence. All you’ve given is the same old crap arguments arguments that have been debunked over and over again.
Have you noticed, that I have never said “this is how it happened” but you have. I’ve said “it could have been ‘this’, it could have been ‘that’ but I don’t know” but you’ve said “God is the explanation whether you agree with that or not”
Your use of a red herring makes you look bad.
You said “The Second Law of Thermodynamics rules out the possibility of the universe existing from infinity past.” it does not. “The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.” It does mean that the universe can not be infinite espeshily when you consider the possibility of a multiverse or the possibility the the madder and energy of the known universe is the result of a quantum fluctuation or the possibility that the laws of physics as we know them may not have always been the way they are, for all we know the natural state of the universe is chaotic, more like quantum physics and the orderly physics we have now are the result of an excess of energy that make sup the known universe, maybe in a googol (1 with a 100″0″ behind it) years from now when the energy of the universe is so spread out that the energy state is effectively 0 the physics of the universe will become chaotic again leading to multiple big bangs each one with random laws of physics and after while (relatively speaking) a cosmos will come into existence that can form and support life. There’s no evidence for that but no evidence against it but its a much simpler explanation that God and and thus more probable.
Note: when I say more probable, I mean more likely, the universe could have been made by an alien scientist for all I know.
How you perceive time is not what time is. The problem is how you think of time. You think of it as a series of events with a beginning and an end, time does not work that way, it does not work how we perceive it nor how we think of it.
If I’m hearing you correctly, you seem to be “arguing” according to B Theory of time, but naturally living according to A Theory. Very, very few people (unless they are stuck in a 1980’s time warp), hold to B Theory simply because it does not match our observations nor with the reality of how we live.
I’m not talking about any theory of time, I’m saying how we perceive time is not the what time is. For instance we perceive the sun as moving across the sky when in reality it is the earth that is moving (relative to the sun). You perceive as a series of events when thats not what it is, a series of events happens cause of time.
Any future disgution of the the fine tuned argument should be here.
Not every one (and not every Christian) agrees that there an objective morality. I my self don’t know and think it may be an answerable. And if there is one you don;t need a god to explain it.
The rest is just too long to quote. (by the way you can use <blackquote> quote here </blockquote>)
Fist: nature dose not tell us what is right or wrong. Second: Social need is all that is needed to explain where morality comes from. Third: If something is morally right only cause God said so then that is not morality thats theistic authoritarianism and its not objective, its at the will of God, if God changes his mind about murder, than murder is then right. Forth: If a God exists you can not know what it wants, what it likes or what it thinks is good and bad, there are so many concepts of God, ideas of what it wants, what it likes or what it thinks is good and bad, even if your ideas of what it wants, what it likes or what it thinks is good and bad are right than the vast majority of people are wrong and your just as human and just as fallible as they are which should throw doubt on your ideas of what it wants, what it likes or what it thinks is good and bad and at the most you could say this objective morality is “don’t steal unless absolutely nesisary, don’t murder and don’t rape” which every would agree with even satanist (LaVayan satanists not the myth of the devil warshier) and you don’t need a God to have such an objective morality.