halfast wrote:
God these threads are stupid.
Wow, good thing that the thread title told you exactly what the thread would be about, so you didn't waste any time clicking on it...right?
halfast wrote:
God these threads are stupid.
Wow, good thing that the thread title told you exactly what the thread would be about, so you didn't waste any time clicking on it...right?
Deus Ex Vending Machine wrote:
thejeff wrote:[quote]An unexplained Higher Power. wrote:
This. Very well said. I will be stealing this. If only you had used a registered name, I could have given you credit ;-)
I understand why everyone may not be CHRISTIAN (shoot, folks MET Jesus back in the day and still didn't believe), but I simply cannot fathom why and how people do not understand that God exists.
We're telling you why and how we don't BELIEVE (not understand) this. Belief in a God is based on unprovable assumptions, so while I can understand why people believe, I don't find any of the arguments very compelling.
For instance, why do we have to accept that something had to have created the universe? Maybe instead, the universe just exists because of the physical laws governing the area in which it exists, the same way an incredible river can travel thousands of miles due to simple geography. Why are the laws the way they are? Maybe they just are, and there is no reason, no cause. Humans are very good at seeing patterns, but this ability causes us to invent narratives and causation out of randomness. We are naturally inclined to see cause and effect even when none exists
Interesting point.
Your post illustrates a common human shortcoming: our inability to comprehend infinity. Your river analogy, if you make it big enough, will be just like "infinity", right?
No. There is virtually no comparison between "a really long time ago" and "has always existed". We simply cannot comprehend "forever".
More to the point: I do not understand why many atheists readily accept that the "universe has always existed", but they scoff at the idea that "God has always existed".
thejeff wrote:
An unexplained Higher Power. wrote:A common argument from atheists and skeptics is that if all things need a cause, then God must also need a cause. The conclusion is that if God needed a cause, then God is not God (and if God is not God, then of course there is no God). This is a slightly more sophisticated form of the basic question “Who made God?†Everyone knows that something does not come from nothing. So, if God is a “something,†then He must have a cause, right?
The question is tricky because it sneaks in the false assumption that God came from somewhere and then asks where that might be. The answer is that the question does not even make sense. It is like asking, “What does blue smell like?†Blue is not in the category of things that have a smell, so the question itself is flawed. In the same way, God is not in the category of things that are created or caused. God is uncaused and uncreated—He simply exists.
How do we know this? We know that from nothing, nothing comes. So, if there were ever a time when there was absolutely nothing in existence, then nothing would have ever come into existence. But things do exist. Therefore, since there could never have been absolutely nothing, something had to have always been in existence. That ever-existing thing is what we call God. God is the uncaused Being that caused everything else to come into existence. God is the uncreated Creator who created the universe and everything in it.
This. Very well said. I will be stealing this. If only you had used a registered name, I could have given you credit ;-)
I understand why everyone may not be CHRISTIAN (shoot, folks MET Jesus back in the day and still didn't believe), but I simply cannot fathom why and how people do not understand that God exists.
That's because your a moran, jeff.
Lyndon LaRouche wrote:
An unexplained Higher Power. wrote:We know that from nothing, nothing comes. So, if there were ever a time when there was absolutely nothing in existence, then nothing would have ever come into existence. But things do exist. Therefore, since there could never have been absolutely nothing, something had to have always been in existence.
You need to read up on quantum mechanics. Particles occur from nothing all the time. The Casimir effect for one.
"Nothing" and "empty space" are two very different "things".
You might want to read up on your quantum mechanics.
Because... wrote:
Stagger Lee wrote:How do you know that the universe hasn't simply just always existed in one form or another?
That would contradict the big bang theory.
Not really.
You really should brush up on your physics.
Green Table Mountain wrote:
Well I do have advanced degrees in biology, can I talk about evolution? Or is that left for guys like Disco Gary and Rojo?
Of course you can...but I still think that's a distraction from the fundamental (so to speak!) question: not whether there was a "god" when everything got started, but whether there is one, with the potential to affect us, NOW.
Even the creationists think that stuff got started back in the day, thousands of years ago, so getting sidetracked in discussions of the past doesn't advance the discussion, IMHO. Instead, ask them to give you any good reason to think that there's a "deity" operating in the universe now.
What I'm really trying to do is to get both believers and non- away from the assumption that if A) there was a supernatural "creator" some thousands or millions or billions of years ago, then B) there must be a supernatural being (oh, and the same one) that can affect us NOW. There's no logical step from A to B; it's pure assumption.
Why are you wrote:
I feel sorry for his students wrote:So? Plenty of well-educated and smart people believe in god. It doesn't mean that god exists.
still feeling sorry for my students? The courtesy of a reply would be appreciated!
As to your post, it also doesn't mean God doesn't exists either, does it?
No, it doesn't. Which kind of leaves us with it doesn't really mean much of anything relevant to the conversation.
thejeff wrote:
More to the point: I do not understand why many atheists readily accept that the "universe has always existed", but they scoff at the idea that "God has always existed".
Maybe because one can see trees and shit - you know, stuff that comprises the observable universe.
Ana Theist wrote:
Green Table Mountain wrote:Well I do have advanced degrees in biology, can I talk about evolution? Or is that left for guys like Disco Gary and Rojo?
Of course you can...but I still think that's a distraction from the fundamental (so to speak!) question: not whether there was a "god" when everything got started, but whether there is one, with the potential to affect us, NOW.
Even the creationists think that stuff got started back in the day, thousands of years ago, so getting sidetracked in discussions of the past doesn't advance the discussion, IMHO. Instead, ask them to give you any good reason to think that there's a "deity" operating in the universe now.
What I'm really trying to do is to get both believers and non- away from the assumption that if A) there was a supernatural "creator" some thousands or millions or billions of years ago, then B) there must be a supernatural being (oh, and the same one) that can affect us NOW. There's no logical step from A to B; it's pure assumption.
There was a double blind study (that, of course, I cannot find, lol) that showed that medical patients being prayed for had significantly better recoveries than patients who were not prayed for. (Patients did not know they were part of an experiment or that they were being prayed for). No idea the sample size.
I DID stumble across this:
http://www.newsmax.com/Health/Headline/prayer-health-faith-medicine/2015/03/31/id/635623/Far from proof, obviously, but nothing to sneeze at, either.
Probably the most interesting factoid I found was that as a species, we spend only about $5 million a year researching the effects of prayer. That is about 1/10th the amount that we spend researching the causes and effects of food fights, lol
Joe or Something Else wrote:
thejeff wrote:More to the point: I do not understand why many atheists readily accept that the "universe has always existed", but they scoff at the idea that "God has always existed".
Maybe because one can see trees and shit - you know, stuff that comprises the observable universe.
You could see trees and shit infinity-ish years ago?
Or, do you assume that anything you can see now has always existed?
I am having trouble seeing your point.
Bottom line: if you go back far enough, you will come to an uncreated Creator. (Whether or not you capitalize the "C" in "Creator" is a discussion for another day.)
thejeff wrote:
There was a double blind study (that, of course, I cannot find, lol) that showed that medical patients being prayed for had significantly better recoveries than patients who were not prayed for. (Patients did not know they were part of an experiment or that they were being prayed for). No idea the sample size.
Dunno which one you might be thinking of--I'm not aware of any well-designed studies that showed that, but I haven't exhausted the literature, either--but this was the big Harvard one (from
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/04.06/05-prayer.html-- all emphases mine):
"The fuzzy results [of previous studies] goaded researchers to conduct the largest and most scientifically rigid investigation to date. It covered 1,802 people who underwent coronary bypass surgery at six different hospitals from Oklahoma City to Boston. The cost was $2.4 million, paid by the John Templeton Foundation and the Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation of Memphis.
"In a clear setback for those who believe in the power of prayer, their prayers were not answered. Prayers offered by strangers did not reduce the medical complications of major heart surgery. Not only that, but patients who knew that others were praying for them fared worse than those who did not receive such spiritual support, or who did but were not aware of receiving it."
More here:
http://web.med.harvard.edu/sites/RELEASES/html/3_31STEP.htmland here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16569567[NOTE that this doesn't even address the question of whether prayer--if it were successful--would automatically imply that a "deity" was involved.]
Meant to add: but thanks for at least *attempting* to come up with some evidence for the proposition that there's a "god" now.
[Most will not even go this far--perhaps because, as in this case, there doesn't seem to be any that supports the proposition at all?--but at least you made the effort, and advanced the discussion (IMHO) as a result. Good on you.]
thejeff wrote:
Bottom line: if you go back far enough, you will come to an uncreated Creator. (Whether or not you capitalize the "C" in "Creator" is a discussion for another day.)
Time doesn't work the same in a singularity. There would be a point when you wouldn't be able to go back anymore, which would be the big bang.
thejeff wrote:
Joe or Something Else wrote:Maybe because one can see trees and shit - you know, stuff that comprises the observable universe.
You could see trees and shit infinity-ish years ago?
Or, do you assume that anything you can see now has always existed?
I am having trouble seeing your point.
Bottom line: if you go back far enough, you will come to an uncreated Creator. (Whether or not you capitalize the "C" in "Creator" is a discussion for another day.)
Putting aside whether the universe has always existed, the point is that there is evidence the universe exists now, which can not be said for the existence of god. And no, the universe is not evidence for the existence of god.
DietBacon wrote:
thejeff wrote:Bottom line: if you go back far enough, you will come to an uncreated Creator. (Whether or not you capitalize the "C" in "Creator" is a discussion for another day.)
Time doesn't work the same in a singularity. There would be a point when you wouldn't be able to go back anymore, which would be God.
Agreed ;-)
Religion doesn't really say that the universe came from a singularity, it was simply "put there"...
DietBacon wrote:
Religion doesn't really say that the universe came from a singularity, it was simply "put there"...
"Religion" doesn't say anything. Religion is invented by man.
God, on the other hand, is very real. Religion is simply man's attempt to explain God.
Atheism is a sad side-effect of man over-estimating our own importance.
Evidently not Jeff wrote:
thejeff wrote:You could see trees and shit infinity-ish years ago?
Or, do you assume that anything you can see now has always existed?
I am having trouble seeing your point.
Bottom line: if you go back far enough, you will come to an uncreated Creator. (Whether or not you capitalize the "C" in "Creator" is a discussion for another day.)
Putting aside whether the universe has always existed, the point is that there is evidence the universe exists now, which can not be said for the existence of god. And no, the universe is not evidence for the existence of god.
Tell me your thoughts on this:
http://www.godandscience.org/thejeff wrote:
Evidently not Jeff wrote:Putting aside whether the universe has always existed, the point is that there is evidence the universe exists now, which can not be said for the existence of god. And no, the universe is not evidence for the existence of god.
Tell me your thoughts on this:
http://www.godandscience.org/
Seems like a nice big pile of steaming bullsh*t. Hope this helps!
my thoughts wrote:
thejeff wrote:Tell me your thoughts on this:
http://www.godandscience.org/Seems like a nice big pile of steaming bullsh*t. Hope this helps!
What do you base your opinion on? Which parts do you take issue with? Do you have any data to back up your points?