tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post3760797661648851539..comments2023-09-24T07:53:50.826-05:00Comments on The Atheist Experience™: Answering the right questions...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-68652026610965969272011-01-06T15:25:33.336-06:002011-01-06T15:25:33.336-06:00"P.S.- Saying that the universe has always ex..."P.S.- Saying that the universe has always existed is assigning magical power to the universe, which is Pantheism (God is the universe), not Atheism (No god exists at all)."<br /><br />I felt a need to comment on this, or at least a similar sentence uttered by Jonathon in this thread but I'll sooner find a needle in a haystack than I find his exact quote.<br /><br />Bottom line is, he talks of seemingly two options: a universe created by God and a universe that isn't created by God and somehow he thinks the latter is pantheistic. Why?<br /><br />The universe is the universe. Why call it God? It's like calling a volcano God for erupting.farmboyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15825056049310588217noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-34680286896470639692010-08-12T06:49:25.416-05:002010-08-12T06:49:25.416-05:00I like answering a red herring with a non-sequitur...I like answering a red herring with a non-sequitur. <br /><br />The ones that seem to go down best with such people also contain at least one oxymoron.gswhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00464061976742965239noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-7471351475171618032010-08-11T20:35:29.111-05:002010-08-11T20:35:29.111-05:00do you have a link to the particular debate?do you have a link to the particular debate?BathTubhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14198295395639562763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-40981233580064494792010-08-11T15:55:43.962-05:002010-08-11T15:55:43.962-05:00Little Richard's question (word for word) was ...Little Richard's question (word for word) was asked by WL Craig in a debate with Hitch. Who do you think crafted the question? Rich hypocritically censors comments and blocks users from his youtube channel and has the gall to claim no one has answered his (craigs) question.Bigphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08327528658279961224noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-86304938914091829122010-08-11T06:52:45.660-05:002010-08-11T06:52:45.660-05:00"And everyone in their right mind hates blind..."And everyone in their right mind hates blind faith. Yes, even God."<br /><br />two words. "Prove" and "It"Inghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13024689390434414829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-71949256035524657332010-08-11T06:50:27.091-05:002010-08-11T06:50:27.091-05:00Craig as usual is a moron.Craig as usual is a moron.Inghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13024689390434414829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-37321123185422549662010-08-07T18:15:34.831-05:002010-08-07T18:15:34.831-05:00Great post. I would like to see what Matt has to s...Great post. I would like to see what Matt has to say about <a href="http://rf.convio.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5631" rel="nofollow">this comment</a>, written by William Lane Craig itself.Roberto Aguirre Maturanahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522047788308686305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-25203080928028323312010-08-05T15:25:22.178-05:002010-08-05T15:25:22.178-05:00@Bruce: Well, I don't claim to know lots of la...@Bruce: Well, I don't claim to know lots of latin, but I' like to contribute my own try: "argumentum e consideratio arborum", which should mean "argument from observing trees", oder "argumentum e observa arbores", which I hope would be a more literal translation of your original idea of "Argument from Look at the trees!"Murielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08180735566101945702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-15794185878370315732010-08-05T11:05:19.199-05:002010-08-05T11:05:19.199-05:00@Raymond:
As I read your comment that Jonathon h...@Raymond: <br /><br />As I read your comment that Jonathon had simply restated the fallacy "argument from 'look at the trees'", it occurred to me: <br /><br />Most fallacies (the ones codified long since within the study of Logic) have a Latin name and, for clarity, an English translation. <br /><br />I have only an English major's grasp of Latin, so this may be as inaccurate as "Romanus ecco dominum" or whatever from Life of Brian, but I think "Argument from Look at the Trees!" would be something like<br /><br />Argumentum ad observo arborae<br /><br />Anyone want to play Cleese/centurion to my Chapman/Brian?VladTheImpalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15995433986482663832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-54916552372050102672010-08-04T13:04:57.879-05:002010-08-04T13:04:57.879-05:00No! Do not give up. Once you stop thinking about (...No! Do not give up. Once you stop thinking about (questioning) <i>why</i> you believe something, then you only believe it on blind faith. And everyone in their right mind hates blind faith. Yes, even God. The Bible does not ask anyone to believe anything on 'blind' faith, but actually gives examples of the early church questioning what Paul was proclaiming and thus questioning who Jesus actually was. This very debate started 1,980 years ago (roughly). Believing something on 'blind' faith is stupid. Once you do that, then you're taking part in religion. <br /><br />I quote Einstein again,<br /> "The worst enemy of Truth is a foolish faith in authority."Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-37857572100399987802010-08-04T09:03:06.904-05:002010-08-04T09:03:06.904-05:00Ok, I think it's time to give up as Johnathan ...Ok, I think it's time to give up as Johnathan is absurdly wrong on many things, refuses to acknowledge it, argues from anti-logic, and now is just arguing via random quotes. No one is clearly getting anywhere.<br /><br />Though FYI, Jo, there ARE models of the universe that lack a bigbang. One is currently being presented with some new evidence, and such models are claimed to explain the perceived "dark energy" problem.Inghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13024689390434414829noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-12740982844499114272010-08-03T21:19:16.607-05:002010-08-03T21:19:16.607-05:00Another common misconception is that the energy-ti...<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle#Energy-time_uncertainty_principle" rel="nofollow">Another common misconception is that the energy-time uncertainty principle says that the conservation of energy can be temporarily violated – energy can be "borrowed" from the Universe as long as it is "returned" within a short amount of time.[13] Although this agrees with the spirit of relativistic quantum mechanics, it is based on the false axiom that the energy of the Universe is an exactly known parameter at all times. More accurately, when events transpire at shorter time intervals, there is a greater uncertainty in the energy of these events. Therefore it is not that the conservation of energy is violated when quantum field theory uses temporary electron-positron pairs in its calculations, but that the energy of quantum systems is not known with enough precision to limit their behavior to a single, simple history. Thus the influence of all histories must be incorporated into quantum calculations, including those with much greater or much less energy than the mean of the measured/calculated energy distribution.</a>Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-73688831668867370812010-08-03T16:04:19.326-05:002010-08-03T16:04:19.326-05:00This is great<a href="http://www.theabsolute.net/minefield/athnews3.html" rel="nofollow">This is great</a>Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-13119262425712991292010-08-03T14:52:59.043-05:002010-08-03T14:52:59.043-05:00So let me restate, the universe had a beginning. A...So let me restate, the universe had a beginning. Actual infinities, as opposed to potential infinities <i>(i.e., a clock that will never stop ticking will go on infinitely, however never reach a state of having counted an infinite number of seconds because there will always be one more)</i> cannot happen within our universe. I reject the idea of the possibility of a singularity having an infinite amount of mass or energy because the volume of a singularity is finite (actually, it's 0). The universe began at a volume >0. However, time started at 0 (this is not hard to imagine, after all, a stopwatch starts at zero) and previous to volume >0. However, what seems to be taken granted is physics itself! Including that which we do not know. Where did these rules that govern what results during events start? What decided the nature of the Universe? Where did intelligible <i><b>order</b></i> begin? Your ability to even make observations on the universe? If you can believe in a causeless particle, you can believe in anything, even if does not correspond with reality. You've been swindled, lied to. I have a perpetual machine for sale, if you want to buy it. It harnesses these 'causeless' virtual particles for its power (it is not hylozoistic) but these exceptional particles are. (Virtual particles are only particles that we cannot detect but can detect their effects, so we know they are there). And nuclear decay may be unpredictable, but it is still a result of a prior event. And vacuum fluctuations existed outside or exterior to the 'trapped surface' during the big bang and then eroded to make way for the universe? <br /><br />Thank you, I've learned a lot. I would like to know what is beyond the distance that light could have traveled since the big bang.Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-82876839125205595312010-08-03T14:01:00.507-05:002010-08-03T14:01:00.507-05:00Maybe Tom Foss could direct me to a reputable sour...<b>Maybe Tom Foss could direct me to a reputable source for these mathematics.</b><br /><br />The Wikipedia article on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy" rel="nofollow">vacuum energy</a> is a good place to start. It's a little heady, but there's no shallow end to quantum physics. <br /><br />One of the big bottom lines about Quantum Physics is that your conventional ideas about reality are based on the macroscopic worlds, and even things that you think are immutable rules aren't necessarily true. A photon is both a particle and a wave simultaneously, a single photon can be in two places at the same time, state changes (but not information) can be apparently transmitted instantaneously (i.e., faster than the speed of light), and so forth. <br /><br /><b>Maybe Tom Foss could direct me to a reputable source for these mathematics. Because as far as I understand 0+0 does not equal >0.</b><br /><br />You're actually closer than you know, there. Vacuum energy is the result of the spontaneous appearance and subsequent annihilation of virtual particle-antiparticle pairs ("virtual" because they exist only for limited time and position). Because these particles always appear in pairs with opposite properties, the sum works out to be zero. <br /><br />So, to use a crude example, in some region of space a vacuum fluctuation event occurs and an electron (a particle with a charge of -1) and a positron (an antiparticle with a charge of +1) appear. They exist for some short time, then collide with one another, annihilating. The sum of their charges (and other quantum numbers) is -1+1, or 0. <br /><br />One possible result from this collision is annihilation, where a number of other subatomic particles may be generated (particle colliders like Cern's LHC and the Tevatron at Fermilab do precisely this under controlled collisions). These particles must adhere to three rules: conservation of momentum, conservation of quantum number, and conservation of energy. What this means is that the total sum of the momentum of all the particles and antiparticles generated in an annihilation event must be zero (for instance, two particles with the same mass traveling in opposite directions) the sum total of all the quantum numbers of all the particles must be zero (for instance, a particle with an electric charge of +1 and another with charge -1), and the sum total energy of all the particles in the set must equal zero (similar to momentum, since mass and energy are interchangeable, as per Einsteinian relativity). <br /><br />So your absolutely right, 0 cannot equal anything but 0. What happens is that 0 ends up equalling a set of numbers that, when added together, also equal zero. <br /><br />Incidentally, some math suggests that this is also true for the universe. If one added up all the positive and negative energy in the universe (keeping in mind the equivalence of mass and energy), it's within the error bars of being equal to zero. There are cosmological models which take advantage of this, proposing that the entire universe is like a large-scale vacuum fluctuation in some meta-space, but as with all such hypotheses, it is still at the level of pure speculation.<br /><br />Jonathon, I really appreciate that you're actually trying to learn about this. Quantum physics is very weird, very technical, and very unintuitive, but it's also very well-established. It's no longer surprising to physicists to see our base assumptions about the universe turned upside-down at the quantum level. <br /><br />Thanks for the compliment, Frits.Tom Fosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13796424725228769265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-13375053743394562542010-08-03T13:13:09.765-05:002010-08-03T13:13:09.765-05:00However, unless the premise is true by definition,...<b>However, unless the premise is true by definition, "self-evident" is not enough for soundness. You need to support it with evidence, or at the very least define your terms. What do you mean by "everything" and "beginning"? What constitutes a "cause"?</b><br /><br />'Everything' meaning all matter and events included within our 4D universe. 'Beginning' meaning the first moment that time came into being. 'Cause' meaning that which is previous, or simultaneous, to a corresponding consequence and not necessarily limited to our 4D universe.Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-65116260639716976352010-08-03T11:11:17.657-05:002010-08-03T11:11:17.657-05:00To answer Frits,
I must admit that Tom Foss is th...To answer Frits,<br /><br />I must admit that Tom Foss is the first place I have ever heard of two things: (a) Vacuum Fluctuations, and (b) mathematically proven uncaused particles. I have not made comments because I am not ready. I am currently researching said things. Maybe Tom Foss could direct me to a reputable source for these mathematics. Because as far as I understand 0+0 does not equal >0.Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-638131211404915702010-08-03T02:44:16.070-05:002010-08-03T02:44:16.070-05:00Jonathon,
I find it very curious that so far the ...Jonathon,<br /><br />I find it very curious that so far the person who has most effectively argued that you are wrong and more importantly explains very carefully why exactly you are wrong is being consistently ignored by you. Tom foss has asked you many pertinent questions which you refuse to answer. Could it be that you don't understand him? or is it simply that you are refusing to respond to him because he is showing very clearly why you are wrong and you simply are unwilling to admit it?<br />Tom foss has very carefully and respectfully answered all your claims. he has from his fist post explained why an uncaused cause is actually possible. he has explained how time works and what it is. but you blithely ignore this and keep on coming up with the same arguments over and over again. If you believe that repeating something often enough will convince anyone on this blog, you are clearly on the wrong blog. so why not answer Tom foss for a change?Fritshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10283591813641507318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-52715888632042305642010-08-03T02:31:12.741-05:002010-08-03T02:31:12.741-05:00" am not claiming that God arose at all. Rath..." am not claiming that God arose at all. Rather, I am claiming that He is eternal. The premise is:<br /><br />Anything that has a beginning, has a cause.<br /><br />I am claiming that God has always been and the universe has not."<br /><br />Proof? Or bare assertion/special pleading 2 in 1 fallacy?<br /><br />As faux news says: You decide.magx01https://www.blogger.com/profile/14831638782847911405noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-32199493578458274852010-08-02T23:12:53.736-05:002010-08-02T23:12:53.736-05:00If the universe is eternal, then: (a) it is an Unc...<b>If the universe is eternal, then: (a) it is an Uncaused Cause and therefore is God</b><br /><br />Only if you define "God" as "the Uncaused Cause." You appended a number of unjustified and unsupported features to this Uncaused Cause, which I think is why you think this is a problem. Even if we accept your basic cosmological argument, there is no reason to accept the features you have stuck on God, nor is there reason to think that the universe itself is not the Uncaused Cause. <br /><br /><b>(b) it would demonstrate that there exists beyond the contingent world of limited spatio-temporality a whole reality that is eternal, unlimited, and necessary.</b><br /><br />Please provide evidence for this assertion. The existence of the universe is only evidence for the existence of the universe. It cannot be evidence for the existence of some outside meta-universe, since we (by definition) have no way of receiving any evidence of anything from outside the universe. <br /><br /><b>However, their location can be measured to a certain degree (by determining where they are not), which is still very meaningful.</b><br /><br />This is a misunderstanding of the Uncertainty Principle, which states (in part) that there are certain quantities which cannot both be measured to an arbitrary degree of certainty. For instance, the more accurately I measure the position of a particle, the more uncertainty I must have regarding its velocity (in part because the act of measuring changes the particle in nontrivial ways at the quantum level). "Determining where a particle is not" is not really a significant component of particle physics (however, there is some value to determining where a particle is <i>capable of being</i>, which is how we define electron orbital shells). <br /><br /><b>Words describe things...miracles do not contradict the laws of physics</b><br /><br />This is why definitions are important. See, last I checked, miracle meant "an event that is contrary to the established laws of nature and attributed to a supernatural cause."Tom Fosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13796424725228769265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-25798724178478085572010-08-02T23:12:42.302-05:002010-08-02T23:12:42.302-05:00If the universe is temporal, then it is possible f...<b>If the universe is temporal, then it is possible for it to not exist (many people talk about the end).</b><br /><br />When scientists discuss the end of the universe, they do not mean that it will no longer exist. As far as we can tell, the universe will continue to exist for an actual infinite amount of time into the future. However, after a certain point (about 10^90 years from now, or so) all the protons will have decayed and all the usable energy in the universe will have been exhausted and turned into waste heat, such that space is all the same temperature and there is no movement of energy from a colder region to a warmer one. Also, the universe will have expanded so large that the clusters of exhausted matter will be so far from one another that they may as well not exist to each other. After this point, the universe will still exist, but nothing of any significance will happen ever again. Some scientists have glibly stated that this means the universe will become terminally boring. <br /><br />But as far as we know, the universe will never <i>not</i> exist, and the properties of the universe as we understand them (specifically the first law of thermodynamics) prohibit nonexistence. <br /><br /><b>If it can not exist, then it is contingent for its existence, since the mere possibility of existence does not explain why something exists.</b><br /><br />That a thing exists is self-evident. Why must it be explained? Again, you're assuming that nonexistence is both possible and more likely than existence, and you have no reason to make that assumption. <br /><br /><b>God is both the source and cause of the universe. He is existence, pure essence.</b><br /><br />Please show your evidence to support this assertion. Also, this contradicts your claim that nothing existed (and, in fact, supports Martin's point). If you claim that God is existence, and that God existed before the universe, then there was not "nothing not even potential" before the universe, and existence existed prior to anything else. Since, as you claim, the mere possibility of existence doesn't explain why something exists, then please explain why God exists.Tom Fosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13796424725228769265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-45164928333307847342010-08-02T23:12:09.891-05:002010-08-02T23:12:09.891-05:00The physical realm in that which we (humans) exist...<b>The physical realm in that which we (humans) exist (in which we are) began (come into being or have its starting point at a certain time or place); before it there was nothing not even potential, then there was something.</b><br /><br />This is an unsupported assertion. Please provide your evidence that there must have been "nothing" before there was "something." From all available evidence and experience, we have no reason to think that "nothing" is even a possible state of existence. <br /><br />This also returns to the problem of time. In order for "before" to be a meaningful term, time must already exist. Time is a feature of the universe in its current form; there is no reason to suspect that time existed before the physical universe, any more than we would suspect that length and width did. If time predates the universe (which is necessary for a "before" the universe), then either the universe must have already existed, which is a contradiction, or time must be uncaused and infinite, which you claim is an absurdity. <br /><br /><b>But then for existence to exist, it would have to first exist within everything it created, before it created it...</b><br /><br />Where is this "creation" coming from? The universe existed, and as spacetime changed, so too did the matter and energy contained within it (spacetime, matter, and energy being the whole set of "existence"). There is no "creation," just changes in response to the properties of the universe as it changed. <br /><br /><b>And who made claims about magic? I have not used that word in this forum before now. It sounds like somebody is making generalizations about me based on other people. That is much like bigotry.</b><br /><br />You claim that there must have once existed an intelligent agent able to create things out of "nothing" ("nothing" being a contradictory concept, if this intelligent agent existed. By any reasonable definition, that agent must be considered "something" and according to your claim, it existed, contradicting the notion that there was ever "nothing not even potential"), to exist outside of existence, and to act temporally supposedly before the existence of time. I (and others) see such abilities to defy basic principles of logic as no different from magic. <br /><br /><b>I am simply pointing out that for anything to exist, a cause must first exist.</b><br /><br />No. In addition to the reasons explained above, in order for a cause to exist, <i>existence</i> must exist. If there is no such thing as existence, then no cause can exist. <br /><br /><b>The universe is either temporal or eternal. It cannot be both.</b><br /><br />Which one is God? If God is temporal, it must have been created. If God is eternal, then an infinite amount of time must have passed for him before he created the universe, and the same problem of actual infinities exists.Tom Fosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13796424725228769265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-32405426570727751382010-08-02T23:11:31.413-05:002010-08-02T23:11:31.413-05:00The first premise is often taken as self-evident, ...<b>The first premise is often taken as self-evident, since to admit otherwise would amount to the ridiculous claim that nothing produces something. Even the infamous skeptic David Hume confessed, "I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause."</b><br /><br />David Hume died in 1776. Shockingly, we've learned things about the universe which contradict the self-evidence of that first premise.<br /><br />However, unless the premise is true by definition, "self-evident" is not enough for soundness. You need to support it with evidence, or at the very least define your terms. What do you mean by "everything" and "beginning"? What constitutes a "cause"?<br /><br /><b>The second premise is defended philosophically and scientifically.</b><br /><br />Only for certain definitions of "universe" and "beginning." <br /><br /><b>Hence, there were only a finite number of moments before today (i.e., a beginning of time). And everything with a beginning had a cause.</b><br /><br />This is a contradiction. In order to cause something to occur, there must exist the capacity for one event to follow another event, which is a decent working definition of time. In other words, in order for a cause-effect relationship to exist, time <i>must already exist</i>. Therefore, time <i>cannot</i> have both a beginning and a cause. Revise your statement. <br /><br /><b>Uhh... a reason is a cause.</b><br /><br />No. The reason that you can knock a billiard ball into a pocket is because the properties of matter are such that solid objects interact in such a way that one can transfer momentum to another with no net loss of momentum. The cause of the billiard ball entering the pocket is you hitting it with another billiard ball. These are not the same thing. A cause is an event which precedes another event, the latter being a consequent of the first. In the two examples I provided, there is only a single event, no event preceding it. The properties of the universe do not constitute an "event."<br /><br /><b>However, a scientist (a proper one at least) would have to exhaust every possible variable before making the conclusion that something is truly not caused. That would require omniscience, which no person has.</b><br /><br />This would be true...if not for that whole principle of non-contradiction. Properties of the universe--specifically, the uncertainty principle, but also other properties of the quantum world--make it <i>mathematically impossible</i> for these events to be caused. And that math has, so far, been validated by all observation. It is possible that the models are incorrect; we can't base science or philosophy on possible future knowledge. Given the current understanding of the universe, and the overwhelming evidence from particle phyics, the premise that there are no uncaused events is unsound. <br /><br /><b>Does anyone have a dictionary?</b><br /><br />A dictionary doesn't tell me what <i>you</i> mean by those terms. For someone who is so into philosophical arguments, I'd think you'd understand that words can mean many things, and definitions must be pinned down very precisely if we are to make valid, sound arguments using them.Tom Fosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13796424725228769265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-61793333415126243312010-08-02T16:58:44.833-05:002010-08-02T16:58:44.833-05:00Martin: "Even the infamous skeptic David Hume...Martin: "Even the infamous skeptic David Hume confessed, "I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause."<br /><br />Which is exactly what you're claiming about your god, so I'm frankly baffled as to why you're bringing up Hume as if he supports your position."<br /><br />I am not claiming that God <i>arose</i> at all. Rather, I am claiming that He is eternal. The premise is:<br /><br />Anything that has a <i>beginning</i>, has a cause.<br /><br />I am claiming that God has always been and the universe has not. You (seem to) think that the universe has always been; contrastingly, I am claiming that the universe had a beginning, therefore has not always been and that the universe is contingent on something that <i>has</i> always been.Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-89503105471698880942010-08-02T16:52:26.885-05:002010-08-02T16:52:26.885-05:00If the universe is eternal, then: (a) it is an Unc...If the universe is eternal, then: (a) it is an Uncaused Cause and therefore is God or (b) it would demonstrate that there exists beyond the contingent world of limited spatio-temporality a whole reality that is eternal, unlimited, and necessary. Thus, either supporting Pantheism, or Theism. That is why the universe <i>is</i> the evidence.<br /><br />Martin:"Sure, you're saying [that] God existed outside the universe, but in order for him to create the universe, God had to exist somewhere. And just where this somewhere is, and how it came into existence, is what you're not addressing."<br /><br />I'll address it here. Yes, I agree that God must first <i>be</i> to create the universe thereafter. As far as his location, it was outside the universe; in other words, beyond. So he was beyond the universe (metaphysical). That is all we can know. It is similar to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal; quanta cannot be measured absolutely. However, their location can be measured to a certain degree (by determining where they are not), which is still very meaningful.<br /><br />Again, if the direct cause of the universe was caused itself, then at whatever point the regression stops (because, logically, it must), that is God. 'God' is a word. Words describe things.<br /><br />Martin:"If the processes by which this god works are not magical, then please just explain their mechanics."<br /><br />Science is hard at work determining how to explain the mechanics. And miracles <b>do not</b> contradict the laws of physics; they simply <b>add</b> to the physical system.Jonathonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16052314590272034325noreply@blogger.com