|
|
|
byhisgrace88
Formerly "creation88"
USA
166 Posts |
 Posted - 08/20/2004 : 14:34:56
|
Sometimes I think I try to overthink things. All you have to do to prove that there is a god of some sort, is do the oldest thing that we creationists have ever done. And that's just say, "what came before that". We can argue about what's happened over the last 4.2B years, or 6000 years, or whatever it really is, until our throats are dry and we can't talk anymore, and still get nowhere.
Non-theaistic evolution meets it's doom right at the beginning. There MUST be a god of some sort at the beginning.
It goes back to cleashaic (would someone please tell me how to spell that?) thing's like "which came first, the chicken or the egg?". There really is no answer. If I am wrong please tell me where.
I have presented thing's simalar to this, and been told that it is "mother nature". Well, that would prove my point. Mother Nature, whatever she actually is, IS god. Maybe not a personal god, but god nonetheless.
I am not trying with this post to convince you of the God that I believe in. I am more trying to dis-prove anything like an athiest point of view. An agnostic point of view is the closest you can come.
If anyone ever want's to talk to me about why I made the decision to believe in the God I believe in, I would be more than happy to discuss it.
One more thing....I don't want to hear one thing about the last 4.2B years in you're responses, unless it is DIRECTLY applicable to the questions I have raised. Whenever I present a question, everyone side-steps the obvious main question, and picks on something stupid, that has nothing to do with the matter at hand. So if anyone says anything that doesn't relate to the issue, I'm not going to respond at all. And I would ask that veryone else do the same.
|
Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.-- C.S. Lewis |
|
|
H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 15:09:03 [Permalink]
|
I agree that the question "so what came before?" is a pertinent question. The problem is, as you state, that repeated often enough you eventually reach a point where no answers are adequate.
You believe god is an acceptible answer. I don't, because you can still ask the question, what came before god?
If your answer is "Nothing, God is eternal," then I would have to say that your answer is problematic. You cannot simply make up a trait to fit an invisible being that ends the discussion. If the assumptions is all things must have a beginning, then god cannot be an exception. If god is an exception, then anything can be an exception, and we don't need to posit a god.
What you are really doing isn't so much answering the question, as you are asking for special dispensation for your beliefs. You think it isn't ok for a scientist to going around thinking the universe "just appeared," but it is ok for a christian to go around thinking god "just is." One isn't any more logical than the other. Both are beyond the limits of our knowledge. But where you say that god is unknowable and beyond your ken, an atheist might say the same of what came before the universe. Both are conceding an ignorance. It's simply that your position requires more assumptions than the other.
|
"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 08/20/2004 18:57:24 |
 |
|
|
welshdean
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
172 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 16:42:55 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by: C88
"what came before that".
A turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle on the back of another turtle.... ad infinitum. Do you get the picture?
When you're prepared to dicuss what came before your god, I'll discuss what came before the turtles! Fair?
edited to correct: 'your'e' to 'you're', even though it's 01:18 and I've had 10 pints of Stella Artois, my grandma shouldn't be ignored!! |
"Frazier is so ugly he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life."
"I am America. I am the part you won't recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky. My name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me."
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."
---- Muhammad Ali
|
| Edited by - welshdean on 08/20/2004 17:20:56 |
|
|
|
Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
|
|
satans_mom
Skeptic Friend
USA
148 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 19:55:53 [Permalink]
|
quote:
There MUST be a god of some sort at the beginning.
Four quick points:
1)How do you know there was a beginning?
2)How do you know there MUST be a God?
3)What makes you think you can profess such an existance when you denounce the existance of an eternal universe? If the universe isn't eternal, it's doubtful to me a God can be eternal. If God was eternal, the universe is eternal, therefore, God can be the universe itself. Your view is seemingly biased on this: God created the universe, so God is not the universe.
4)What makes you think that as a feeble-minded human like the rest of us you can even recognize such a profound existance without serious chronic errors in the "description" of the being?
quote:
An agnostic point of view is the closest you can come.
I'm not even so sure about that, but it's what I've settled.
|
Yo mama's so fat, she's on both sides of the family.
|
| Edited by - satans_mom on 08/20/2004 20:01:52 |
|
|
|
Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 19:56:28 [Permalink]
|
The God Of The Gaps strikes again.....
C88, just because we are ignorant of some specific knowledge does not create (pun intended) a neccessity for god.
For thousands of years humans have assumed the divine when another explanation was lacking. It's not proof. |
Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
|
|
|
|
satans_mom
Skeptic Friend
USA
148 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 20:04:11 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by creation88
If anyone ever want's to talk to me about why I made the decision to believe in the God I believe in, I would be more than happy to discuss it.
Oh, please tell me. That would be very interesting. But forewarning, if you decide to make an open post you'd be setting yourself up for a annhilation of your beliefs by all the people here. It wouldn't be bashing, of course, but it would be evidence to the contrary.... |
Yo mama's so fat, she's on both sides of the family.
|
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 21:01:47 [Permalink]
|
Creation88 wrote:quote:
Non-theaistic evolution meets it's doom right at the beginning. There MUST be a god of some sort at the beginning.
Evolution doesn't address the beginning of anything. Your argument meets its doom right there.
How many times does it need to be said that the theory of evolution does not address how life began? That is why this has been discussed so much that we're all sick of it. The average creationist thinks, mistakenly, that the theory of evolution tells us how life began (or worse, how the universe began).
But it simply isn't true. The theory of evolution describes how, once life started on Earth, it has diversified, suceeded and failed, over billions of years.
Many evolutionary biologists believe in the Christian God. They know God exists, and they study evolution in order to find out how God made his Creation.
My question for you, C88, is this: why is it that you think that evolution requires atheism? Or even agnosticism? How is it that you came to such a conclusion?
satans_mom wrote:quote:
Oh, please tell me. That would be very interesting. But forewarning, if you decide to make an open post you'd be setting yourself up for a annhilation of your beliefs by all the people here. It wouldn't be bashing, of course, but it would be evidence to the contrary....
You are way out of line here, even without "bashing." The very idea that someone's personal experiences - those which lead them to a faith - could be anihilated by you or anyone else on a Web forum is the height of arrogance. As is the idea - without knowing what creation88 is going to say - that you've got "evidence to the contrary" for him.
From a purely evidence-based perspective, C88 may have actually been visited by God. What sort of "evidence to the contrary" could you hope to field against that?
You know, when C88 first showed up here, he was quite full of himself and convinced that a handful of 30-year-old and long-debunked creationist arguments would put all of us nasty evolutionists in our place. He ate quite a bit of humble pie back then, but worked through the problems and came out of the situation with more understanding of us.
It seems that skeptics could use a regular booster shot of humility every once-in-a-while, too. I'd be interested in C88's "finding of faith" story, but more out of curiosity than out of any expectation that I (or anyone else) could anihilate his basis for faith. If you think, satans_mom, that faith is so tissue-thin, you're in for an awakening. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 22:58:48 [Permalink]
|
quote:
You know, when C88 first showed up here, he was quite full of himself and convinced that a handful of 30-year-old and long-debunked creationist arguments would put all of us nasty evolutionists in our place. He ate quite a bit of humble pie back then, but worked through the problems and came out of the situation with more understanding of us.
It seems that skeptics could use a regular booster shot of humility every once-in-a-while, too. I'd be interested in C88's "finding of faith" story, but more out of curiosity than out of any expectation that I (or anyone else) could anihilate his basis for faith. If you think, satans_mom, that faith is so tissue-thin, you're in for an awakening.
Well, for all that I've been here, I've seen C88 post something and then go away and never reply. Not sure if thats going to change here. But anyways, you can't debunk hearsay over the internet, all you can do is suggest alternet possible explainations or claim that the person was delusional (unsupported) or claim that the person is flat out lying (unsupported, most of the time). So that pretty much leads to alternet explainations, and that is far off from debunking.
I'd probably be curious too, but I've read so many of them that I think I have lost my curiosity. |
Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov |
|
|
|
Maverick
Skeptic Friend
Sweden
385 Posts |
Posted - 08/20/2004 : 23:25:14 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by creation88
Sometimes I think I try to overthink things. All you have to do to prove that there is a god of some sort, is do the oldest thing that we creationists have ever done. And that's just say, "what came before that".
I don't know, and I don't pretend to know, either.
quote:
We can argue about what's happened over the last 4.2B years, or 6000 years, or whatever it really is, until our throats are dry and we can't talk anymore, and still get nowhere.
You know the universe is not 6000 years, and neither is the Earth.
quote:
Non-theaistic evolution meets it's doom right at the beginning. There MUST be a god of some sort at the beginning.
Sure. A god that created evolution, too.
Oh and by the way, no a god is NOT necessary.
quote:
It goes back to cleashaic (would someone please tell me how to spell that?) thing's like "which came first, the chicken or the egg?". There really is no answer. If I am wrong please tell me where.
Actually, the egg came before any chicken did.
quote:
I have presented thing's simalar to this, and been told that it is "mother nature". Well, that would prove my point. Mother Nature, whatever she actually is, IS god. Maybe not a personal god, but god nonetheless.
No, nature is nature. I see nothing godlike in it - unless I decide that a god has nature-like qualities and therefor possibly could be god. But it's really all in the definition of the word "god".
quote:
I am not trying with this post to convince you of the God that I believe in. I am more trying to dis-prove anything like an athiest point of view. An agnostic point of view is the closest you can come.
Well jolly good luck with that. Meanwhile, I would like to point out that to disprove atheism, shouldn't you need to prove the existence of a god?
quote:
If anyone ever want's to talk to me about why I made the decision to believe in the God I believe in, I would be more than happy to discuss it.
I suppose it is because you have strong reason to choose that particular god. What are your reasons? Do you have evidence? Do you believe the Genesis book to be the literal truth, even though there's plenty of things that goes against it? |
"Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy." -- Carl Sagan |
|
|
|
beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2004 : 00:44:52 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by creation88
.......There MUST be a god of some sort at the beginning.
And the reason is? No don't tell me, let me guess. Because you said so. Well I say what came before god? I bet you think I'm going to say if god was always there why couldn't the material for the Universe have always been there? But I'm not going to say that.
What came before god was the primate species that eventually developed the ability to imagine external causation for the events around them. And what came after god was the evolutionary progress of the primate species that developed the ability to observe in a more careful way and find actual causation for the events around them instead of imagined causes.
quote:
I am not trying with this post to convince you of the God that I believe in. I am more trying to dis-prove anything like an athiest point of view. An agnostic point of view is the closest you can come.
Well see my thread, "why the Bible is just a book". It gives you a way to 'prove' the god theory. I'm not going to rehash it here. Then see, "Is the agnostic position valid" thread. I for one, am an atheist, not an agnostic. I see no evidence for a god and lots of evidence against one. quote:
One more thing....I don't want to hear one thing about the last 4.2B years in you're responses, unless it is DIRECTLY applicable to the questions I have raised. Whenever I present a question, everyone side-steps the obvious main question, and picks on something stupid, that has nothing to do with the matter at hand. So if anyone says anything that doesn't relate to the issue, I'm not going to respond at all. And I would ask that veryone else do the same.
Take your head out of the sand, read a bit, try to understand the science you are being confronted with and answer the challenges put to you. If you have a case, you shouldn't be afraid of responding to any scientific challenge to your beliefs whether it is related to your post or not. But if you wish to address just the slim piece you have described then address these specific issues brought up by your challengers:
Why is a 'god' the only possibility for answering the question of what came before the big bang?
Seems to me there are lots of possibilities and a god is the least likely of them. |
|
|
|
filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2004 : 03:31:32 [Permalink]
|
I will cheerfully and shamelessly admit that I cannot debunk the existence of some sort of supreme being. Further, I will challenge, with money on the line, any atheist to do so. My money'd be safe because it can't be done.
At the same time, how can one prove the existence of God? My cash would remain mine there, too.
What was before the beginning? I don't know and neither does anyone else. The best anyone can do, be it me, thee, or Stephen Hawking, is venture a guess, a speculation. I have read the speculation that it just might not be possible to know.
Speculation: "God" is no more than a different set of laws of physics; laws just a bit beyond our ken. Sure wish I had evidence in support of that.
 |
"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
|
|
|
|
beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2004 : 03:56:33 [Permalink]
|
I just realized I'm getting my forums mixed up. Here's the Bible is just a book thread.
quote:
Further, I will challenge, with money on the line, any atheist to do so. My money'd be safe because it can't be done.
The proof is there if you take the approach of testing the 'god theory' rather than the approach of 'absence of evidence for a god doesn't disprove a god'.
In short, one can determine criteria that would be evidence for a god. Establish the validity of the criteria, then test to see if the criteria can be found. If there were gods, then one would expect some evidence. That's different than saying one has no way to prove it one way or another.
Another way to approach it is to say if there were a god, but the god did not interact in any way with the Universe, you would of course not be able to test the god theory. Just as we can't test what happened before time began or what is outside of our Universe.
But, if your definition of god(s) includes mandatory intervention or interaction of some kind, and that would certainly be part of the definition, then you can test for that interaction or intervention. Turns out then, the test is negative, no evidence can be found for any intervention nor interaction. The god theory has been disproved.
|
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 08/21/2004 04:10:00 |
|
|
|
Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
|
|
Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
|
|
beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2004 : 21:09:46 [Permalink]
|
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
quote:
But, if your definition of god(s) includes mandatory intervention or interaction of some kind, and that would certainly be part of the definition, then you can test for that interaction or intervention. Turns out then, the test is negative, no evidence can be found for any intervention nor interaction. The god theory has been disproved.
Can you explain how this is not the textbook form of Appeal to Ignorance?
Sounds like you should ask this on the other thread. I'd love to debate the issue with you there. |
| Edited by - beskeptigal on 08/21/2004 21:11:15 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
