Present Evidence Here II

[SGOS]

I think there was a force or thing that created the universe.  You say a god created the universe.  So we both say a thing made the universe.  You have no idea how God did it.  I have no idea how my thing did it.  You give your thing a name.  You assign it sentient powers.  My thing doesn't have a name, at least not yet, and there is no indication that it has sentient powers.  But certainly a thing made the universe.  Why is your thing better than my thing?  Because you give it a name?  Because you believe it has certain specified characteristics?  I'm going with my thing.  In both our cases a deep understanding of our thing is not necessary.  It just made the universe.  We don't have to know how.  We don't have to know why.  It does what it does.

For as much each of us are attached to our "theories", unfortunately, it may not be either of those two things.  It could be something entirely different.  Maybe it's not even a thing.  That's because neither of us really know.  We just attached ourselves to our theories, because, let's face it, we don't really have verifiable knowledge of it, and aren't clever enough to come up with something else.  And that's an important bit of the process.  Whatever made the universe, did it, whether we understand it, know what it is, or have a name for it.  It just does it.  I guess we could worship that thing if the mood hit us, but whether we do or not, doesn't seem to keep it from doing what it does.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Given that God is timeless, spaceless and immaterial comparing physical proof of the Eiffel Tower to something like physical proof of God isn't quite the same thing.  Having said that, the physical effects of a creator can be seen, but typically there is always a rationalization to close the eyes.  Without getting into that for the time being though, what is your problem with the KCA?  Just curious...

Thing is, you can read that the exact opposite and come to a much more valid and evidenced conclusion.

You have nothing aside an assertion that "the physical effects of a creator can be seen". You have nothing aside belief that that is true, especially considering Occam's razor does an amazing job of eliminating it.

Rationalization does quite the opposite of closing one's eyes. It actually has the effect of opening them. Everything which has always been presumed in the past to be magic has turned out to be not magic (thanks Tim Minchin) once we've attained the ability to actually analyse and quantify them. Now that's not saying that will always be true, but the historic precedent has laid down a 100% success rate. I don't see anything to convince me yet that in the future this will change.

As to the KCA, it is rendered false under its own premise of special pleading. Nothing created the universe except the cosmological constant. Ok, so what created that? The only two answers to that are 1) special pleading (nothing, it is the exception to the rule which nobody has either established or evidenced), or 2). another cosmological constant. And so the process is reduced to absurdity (which could be completely accurate. Hardly compelling evidence though).

Evidenced by:

Well, I'd have to start by asking you the very same question.  My understanding is that the Universe and everything in it is essentially finite in nature, in they've all come into being at some point in the finite past.  As such, I see the universe and everything in it as an effect.  If effects come from causes, then the Universe and everything in it must have had a cause.  I would personally identify that cause with God.  The question may then arise, who or what caused God?  My answer would be, nothing caused God, as He never came into being but has always existed.

aka, special pleading.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I understand what you're saying, though I obviously wouldn't agree.  These are the kinds of dismissals that Christians run into all of the time.  I do think that there is a need to provide good arguments and evidence, but that is not the only thing required.  My suspicion is that often, people are so hostile to the very idea of God, the supernatural, etc... that the other requirements simply aren't there in sufficient measure to make any evidence, even good evidence, sufficient.  Sometimes, that's not true, but it's a rare individual who would put themselves firmly into the atheist camp and also possess that which is necessary to make any evidence meaningful.

You are very much correct that there is hostility towards the supernatural, mainly because the concept is nonsensical. It's never been evidenced, never been proven, never had a single piece of verifiable evidence to even suggest there might be something to it.

When someone invokes anything supernatural in a debate or argument I immediately lose interest unless there's something in there which might make me reassess my position. There is no 'meaningful' evidence, and there never was. Maybe there might be at some point, but to date, at the time of writing this post, there is the same as there was 10000+ years ago - nothing aside belief and the desire for the belief to be true. Beliefs, especially religious beliefs, are a powerful thing, but rarely are they rational, and rarely are they correct.

[aitm]

 

He never came into being but has always existed.

This has always made me laugh. The utter nonsensical saying without even considering what it means.

Something has always existed, it has always had all the knowledge of everything ever since the very day it didn't come into existence.
Think about that. It is a statement so fundamentally flawed that it defies any logic, even retarded logic.

If nothing existed prior to god how could the concept of jealousy be understood ? How could a god possibly understand hunger, or fear, or death without anything capable of that existing? To suggest that something can be aware of things not even existing and cannot exist prior to the existence of other things not yet existent but dependent upon the existence of the second part before the first part can be understood is complete bullshittery.

It is the sure sign of feeble minded thinking that just wishes things to be true and must go through years of gyrations and near infinitesimal denials of truth to obtain that level of deniability.

And yet there is more.

It possess infinite power......

had the chinese available who already had established math and higher education to enlighten, but decided to show himself to uneducated goat herders instead...
couldn't make the stupid uneducated goat herders obey him even after showing them himself so he killed them all and started over ( a sure sign of omniscience)...
couldn't beat any army the first two times...
couldn't beat an army with iron wheels on their chariots....chariots! Ha!
professes to make humans after his image but chastises them for displaying the same behaviors he exhibits with abandon...
gives men nipples for no apparent reason...fickleness perhaps....
riddles the earth with fake bones of what would be considered previous animals that would give pause to millions to accept his presence...
hasn't had a good miracle since science became a field of study other than an occasional grilled cheese or piece of old potato with the likeness of his so-called son..
and oh yea...has his son crucified in a city with thousands of people as witnesses, and has dead people walking around the streets and...nobody there thinks this is incredible enough to bother to mention it to anyone else.

and people come here thinking they can post verses of their ignorant goat herder bullshit and we would be impressed....woooo.

[Savior2006]

Well, I'd have to start by asking you the very same question.  My understanding is that the Universe and everything in it is essentially finite in nature, in they've all come into being at some point in the finite past.  As such, I see the universe and everything in it as an effect.  If effects come from causes, then the Universe and everything in it must have had a cause.  I would personally identify that cause with God.  The question may then arise, who or what caused God?  My answer would be, nothing caused God, as He never came into being but has always existed.

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

Whoops Fidel beat me too it. Oh well.

[1liesalot]

But...But... The flowers... And the mountains... And the clouds... They are beautiful... Musta been God that did it, right?

Yes, because the bible says so and it is the word of the Lord.

[Baruch]

The division into natural and supernatural came about because of ancient Greek hippies.  They had drugs back then too, and the Platonic academy and the Lyceum of Aristotle and the Garden of Epicurus ... were urban communes.  The much later Oxford and Univ of Paris were the same.  But Pythagoras invented the college frat house ;-)  He banned beans in his fraternity ... probably because you know what that is like if you have lived in a dorm or a frat house.  Groovy, man ;-)

OK, it is a matter of metaphysics ... and materialist/rationalist epistemology, is opposed to most of metaphysics.  So if one is of that persuasion, then one has ruled out most of this cause/effect business even before you start.  Rationality is supposed to exist in the Platonic region of the eternal Forms ... and atomistic matter is supposed to be the underlying reality that is also eternal.  And except for the Big Bang, it pretty much is.  More complicated nuclei have been cooked up since then, but pretty much it follows the same plan (matter gotta be neutral, not prejudiced).  Also supposedly rationality is neutral ... but only if you ignore the axioms.  Logic was originally invented by Parmenides ... as reductio ad absurdum.  That is why the slightly later Zeno of Elea ... had those paradoxes ... which are still only approximately solved.  For example the original tortoise and the hare was Achilles and the tortoise.  After Achilles got killed by an arrow to the foot ... that is probably why we developed a lucky rabbit's foot, as sympathetic magic.  Anyway, without Calculus ... Achilles can't even catch up to the tortoise, let alone pass him.  From this Zeno of Elea deduced that physics (aka phuses aka naturalism) is an illusion.  Logic must win out over the senses ... but materialist responded, but that is senseless! ;-)  The ultimate in logical skepticism was Pyrrho of Elis ... whose students had to pull from in front of a moving ox cart, because he refused to believe that they existed, without logical proof.  A materialist doesn't need a logical argument ... they follow the modern philosopher ... Mike Tyson, who has said "everyone has a plan 'till I they get punched in the mouth".  Tyson is obviously descended from that Bronze Age civilization, the Hittites ;-)

[peacewithoutgod]

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” - C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry? -

The sun, for it's true role in our existence is a god of sorts, but it is absolutely no evidence for validating the delusions of Christians.

[peacewithoutgod]

Arguments are evidence.  They simply aren't physical evidence. 

You can construct an argument based on empirical evidence, or you can mash one up from a mountain of bullshit, on this there is nothing in between.

[peacewithoutgod]

This used to be fun for me, before it became too predictable. Every once in awhile the apologists may amuse you when you see them go spelunking into new troughs of outrageous nonsense, but there's never any challenge - it's like playing endlessly the game which you've already reached the top level of consistently. But then I know it's understood that arguing with a believer would be completely pointless if it weren't for the benefit of those who are waking up from the spell which the wolves who shepherd them have had them under, and come here seeking answers to their questions.

Here's how I know for sure, more than any other evidence, that the Christian god cannot exist: it's the idiots who proclaim him - every single one of them! Even those who otherwise display impressive intelligence are reduced to babbling like toddlers when  attempting to make sense out of their beliefs, and with all the maturity of children they reject the reality that there is no good sense to be found in them through the maintenance of fantastical mental constructs.

[drunkenshoe]

OK, it is a matter of metaphysics ... and materialist/rationalist epistemology, is opposed to most of metaphysics.  So if one is of that persuasion, then one has ruled out most of this cause/effect business even before you start. 

Oh what fucking bullshit.

How is that anyone rules out cause and effect because they do not accept magic as the ultimate answer?

Your answer to 'last question' as a religious theist is

-there is a creator out there and he is omnipotent...etc. Why? Because you are told that it is.

And you are talking about 'ruling out' cause and effect vs rational epistomolgy and materialism.

Just say that you believe in god because you want to or choose to or brainwashed into or it is beneficial and profitable for you. Stop using words and names of concepts you don't understand. They do not mean another thing when you use them as how you'd like to see.

If you really knew about half the bullshit you keep pretending to quote, you'd have a better awareness of what you are actually saying.

[JBCuzISaidSo]

This used to be fun for me, before it became too predictable. Every once in awhile the apologists may amuse you when you see them go spelunking into new troughs of outrageous nonsense, but there's never any challenge - it's like playing endlessly the game which you've already reached the top level of consistently. But then I know it's understood that arguing with a believer would be completely pointless if it weren't for the benefit of those who are waking up from the spell which the wolves who shepherd them have had them under, and come here seeking answers to their questions.

Here's how I know for sure, more than any other evidence, that the Christian god cannot exist: it's the idiots who proclaim him - every single one of them! Even those who otherwise display impressive intelligence are reduced to babbling like toddlers when  attempting to make sense out of their beliefs, and with all the maturity of children they reject the reality that there is no good sense to be found in them through the maintenance of fantastical mental constructs.

Think of it like this; belief in an interactive deity takes an extraordinary amount of egotistic behavior. Some god has to exist on another plane of existence AND, also, give a flying fuck about humans, who are no more than another species. It's all ego, down to it's very core, religion. You are not some special little snowflake. 

[peacewithoutgod]

I think there was a force or thing that created the universe.  You say a god created the universe.  So we both say a thing made the universe.  You have no idea how God did it.  I have no idea how my thing did it.  You give your thing a name.  You assign it sentient powers.  My thing doesn't have a name, at least not yet, and there is no indication that it has sentient powers.  But certainly a thing made the universe.  Why is your thing better than my thing?  Because you give it a name?  Because you believe it has certain specified characteristics?  I'm going with my thing.  In both our cases a deep understanding of our thing is not necessary.  It just made the universe.  We don't have to know how.  We don't have to know why.  It does what it does.

I've got that "thing" for you - it's called gravity. Even if Lawrence Krauss is right on the universe beginning with nothing, it took gravity to form stars and planets once something began expanding.

God is just the falling of an apple, and Newton is his prophet!

[Mike Cl]

I've got that "thing" for you - it's called gravity. Even if Lawrence Krauss is right on the universe beginning with nothing, it took gravity to form stars and planets once something began expanding.

God is just the falling of an apple, and Newton is his prophet!

Could it be that that 'thing' is also part of a process?  For example, if black holes store energy until a certain point and that energy breaks off, which is called a big bang, and our universe also has black holes that store energy, until a critical point, and then the energy breaks off..................and so on.  A process.  Not a 'thing' at all.

[peacewithoutgod]

Could it be that that 'thing' is also part of a process?  For example, if black holes store energy until a certain point and that energy breaks off, which is called a big bang, and our universe also has black holes that store energy, until a critical point, and then the energy breaks off..................and so on.  A process.  Not a 'thing' at all.

Yup - it's a universe from nothing, just a process. To add more would be an assertion without evidence, which can therefore be dismissed without the same.