Does this prove God?

[caine]

God can do everything. Everything includes creating yourself. Therefore God must exist.

[Canuckster1127]

God can do everything. Everything includes creating yourself. Therefore God must exist.

No, I don't think it does. To the Christian, our understanding is that God has always existed and has no beginning and no end.

God can do anything excet that which contradicts his being and his attributes, so the minor premise in that syllogism would introduce a fallacy into the mix that would taint the conclusion.

[August]

God can do everything. Everything includes creating yourself. Therefore God must exist.

Caine, let's look at each premise.

1. God can do everything. To accept the major premise, we must define what it is what we mean by "everything". The Bible tells us that God cannot do everything without limits, He can do everything that is in His nature to do. God cannot lie, for example, nor can God change. "Everything" then becomes too much of a catch-all, because it will allow you to ascribe conflicting characteristics to God, for example, He can be everywhere, but He can also be nowhere at the same time. That is not possible, nor is it in God's nature, so we must be careful not to assign the illogical to God under the guise of omnipotence.
2. Everything includes creating yourself. Canuckster has already pointed out that God was not created, but has always been. If we take this a little further, if God was created, it means that He had to be nothing before He was something. The primary problem is then "ex nihilo, nihil fit", out of nothing, nothing comes. Nothing cannot become something. Our perception of creation also includes a concept of time, and we believe that God is the creator of time, and that He stands outside of time. A creation deed implies a beginning point, the start of time of existence, but if you are the creator of time, and also created, you are not outside of the time dimension, but inside, i.e. you would at the very least have to start existing at the same moment as time. God tells us that He has always been, since before the beginning of time.

Do you want to revise your premises based on this and discuss further? I will add that I like what you did, it shows the proper use of logic and a clear intention to understand.

[caine]

Caine, let's look at each premise.

1. God can do everything. To accept the major premise, we must define what it is what we mean by "everything". The Bible tells us that God cannot do everything without limits, He can do everything that is in His nature to do. God cannot lie, for example, nor can God change. "Everything" then becomes too much of a catch-all, because it will allow you to ascribe conflicting characteristics to God, for example, He can be everywhere, but He can also be nowhere at the same time. That is not possible, nor is it in God's nature, so we must be careful not to assign the illogical to God under the guise of omnipotence.

So if God does in fact have limits, it would be wrong to call Him omnipotent, right? That does change a few things, and makes him more plausible in my opinion.

2. Everything includes creating yourself. Canuckster has already pointed out that God was not created, but has always been. If we take this a little further, if God was created, it means that He had to be nothing before He was something. The primary problem is then "ex nihilo, nihil fit", out of nothing, nothing comes. Nothing cannot become something. Our perception of creation also includes a concept of time, and we believe that God is the creator of time, and that He stands outside of time. A creation deed implies a beginning point, the start of time of existence, but if you are the creator of time, and also created, you are not outside of the time dimension, but inside, i.e. you would at the very least have to start existing at the same moment as time. God tells us that He has always been, since before the beginning of time.

I think that "time" is such a hard concept to understand. If there is nothing, there is not time either. If, on the other hand, there is something, something that can change, time automatically exists. Time is just a way to describe changes in our world. If everything was void, no changes would take place, and you could not measure time in any possible way. If, however, something changes, you can start talking about time; how many times did it change? How long time did it take to change compared to this change? I cannot imagine time as being created. Time comes with the rest of the universe. None of them can exist without the other.

If God has always existed, so has time, as he can change in some way or another. He can make a choice, he can tell himself a joke, or anything like that. I do not hope I am way off here

Do you want to revise your premises based on this and discuss further?

Well, I think you already killed it, didn't you? If God cannot do EVERYTHING, the premises are not valid.

I will add that I like what you did, it shows the proper use of logic and a clear intention to understand.

Thank you, I am trying hard to understand.

[Canuckster1127]

Limitations consistent with the non-contradictory nature of God do not necessarily equate with limits of ability. In those terms God is all powerful (omnipotent) The potential and power to do something, rejected by choice, does not refute the ability.

An analogy would be if you were in a room with another person and you had a gun and chose not to kill the other person, would that diminish the fact that you had the power of life or death over that person?

The decision not to do something when you have the power to do it, is not the same as not doing it because you lack the ability.

[August]

Caine, let's look at each premise.

1. God can do everything. To accept the major premise, we must define what it is what we mean by "everything". The Bible tells us that God cannot do everything without limits, He can do everything that is in His nature to do. God cannot lie, for example, nor can God change. "Everything" then becomes too much of a catch-all, because it will allow you to ascribe conflicting characteristics to God, for example, He can be everywhere, but He can also be nowhere at the same time. That is not possible, nor is it in God's nature, so we must be careful not to assign the illogical to God under the guise of omnipotence.

So if God does in fact have limits, it would be wrong to call Him omnipotent, right? That does change a few things, and makes him more plausible in my opinion.

Omnipotence means all-powerful. To say that God is omnipotent does not mean that God can do the illogical, but that is not to be confused with the supernatural, which God can and does do. God is limited only by His nature, and we can clearly discern what God's nature is from the Bible. If we then further dissect the words, omni means everywhere at all times, and powerful means having full actionable control, then it follows that God is omnipotent.

I think that "time" is such a hard concept to understand. If there is nothing, there is not time either. If, on the other hand, there is something, something that can change, time automatically exists. Time is just a way to describe changes in our world. If everything was void, no changes would take place, and you could not measure time in any possible way. If, however, something changes, you can start talking about time; how many times did it change? How long time did it take to change compared to this change? I cannot imagine time as being created. Time comes with the rest of the universe. None of them can exist without the other.

Aaaaa-ha, we are making some good progress here. Here is one of the fundamental assumptions that atheists have to make, by faith, to assert what you do above. I agree with you that time does not exist without our observable universe, but your assumption is that the observable universe is all that there is. That is something you have to take by faith, since it is logically unprovable that your assumption is true. I can, however, prove the opposite to you, that the observable universe is not all there is, because there are certain transcendental truths, for example the laws of logic, that do not depend on the existence of the observable universe to hold true.

If God has always existed, so has time, as he can change in some way or another. He can make a choice, he can tell himself a joke, or anything like that. I do not hope I am way off here.

Another fundamental question pending, but firstly I think you are making a logical error here. You will have to prove that if God has always existed that time necessarily would have had to exist, and it does not follow. If, as you say, change is a function of time, and we can observe the passing of time in the form of changes, that time would necessarily have had to have a beginning. But if change is a function of time, and time is temporal, where did time come from? If it is, as you said above, a function of the observable universe, then we know that time came into existence at the same time that the universe did. We also saw earlier that from nothing, nothing comes, so where did time and the universe come from? Only to an eternal being would time have no meaning, and would have the ability to create it without a change in its eternal nature. Creating time, and therfore subjecting Himself to the vagaries of time would be a change in God's nature, which would make God be not God.

Well, I think you already killed it, didn't you? If God cannot do EVERYTHING, the premises are not valid.

Well, you have to define what you mean by everything, as we discussed above. I actually meant if you were going to try a new syllogism based on the new information.

These are questions that mankind has struggled with forever, and we can only answer them in terms of whatever worldview makes the most logical sense. Let's see where we end up.[/quote]

[caine]

Limitations consistent with the non-contradictory nature of God do not necessarily equate with limits of ability. In those terms God is all powerful (omnipotent) The potential and power to do something, rejected by choice, does not refute the ability.

An analogy would be if you were in a room with another person and you had a gun and chose not to kill the other person, would that diminish the fact that you had the power of life or death over that person?

The decision not to do something when you have the power to do it, is not the same as not doing it because you lack the ability.

Omnipotence means all-powerful. To say that God is omnipotent does not mean that God can do the illogical, but that is not to be confused with the supernatural, which God can and does do. God is limited only by His nature, and we can clearly discern what God's nature is from the Bible. If we then further dissect the words, omni means everywhere at all times, and powerful means having full actionable control, then it follows that God is omnipotent.

So he can do whatever he please? But not create himself, because he has always existed? Fair enough. He doesn't have to follow the laws of physics, but those of logic, right? I mean, he can make a stone fly if he wants to, but he cannot cover a square with cirlces without making them overlap?

Aaaaa-ha, we are making some good progress here. Here is one of the fundamental assumptions that atheists have to make, by faith, to assert what you do above. I agree with you that time does not exist without our observable universe, but your assumption is that the observable universe is all that there is. That is something you have to take by faith, since it is logically unprovable that your assumption is true. I can, however, prove the opposite to you, that the observable universe is not all there is, because there are certain transcendental truths, for example the laws of logic, that do not depend on the existence of the observable universe to hold true.

True, the laws of logic does not depend on the existence of the universe. However, it makes no sense to talk about locic in a non existant universe. If nothing existed, nothing had to follow logic, and no one was there to describe the laws.

What is time? Isn't it just a human concept that we use to describe changes? I still cannot understand that you want time to be created by someone. It is a none physical thing, that does not hold any specific characteristics we can describe. Besides, time is not the same everywhere. If you syncronize two watches, put one on a plane and make it fly around the earth, it will have lost time when it comes back compared to the one on the ground. This means that time is just a way to describe changes, not some fine-tuned or defined proberty of the universe that is equal for all.

Another fundamental question pending, but firstly I think you are making a logical error here. You will have to prove that if God has always existed that time necessarily would have had to exist, and it does not follow. If, as you say, change is a function of time, and we can observe the passing of time in the form of changes, that time would necessarily have had to have a beginning. But if change is a function of time, and time is temporal, where did time come from? If it is, as you said above, a function of the observable universe, then we know that time came into existence at the same time that the universe did. We also saw earlier that from nothing, nothing comes, so where did time and the universe come from? Only to an eternal being would time have no meaning, and would have the ability to create it without a change in its eternal nature. Creating time, and therfore subjecting Himself to the vagaries of time would be a change in God's nature, which would make God be not God.

If God has always existed, he has an unlimited history. Do you believe that God can think like us? I mean, if you place him in a dark room, will he start to think about different things, like what he has to do tomorrow, or that girl that he met last night? If so, he must have made that kind of thoughts forever. That doesn't make sense to me. For every thought he ever had, there must be one before it. That is impossible, as that would either mean that he has been thinking the same over and over again, OR that he has thought every possible thing, even things that does not make sense. This is an infinite amount of thoughts (that can be put in order by time btw) most of them being pure nonesense. I have to believe that everything MUST have a beginning, otherwise it would contradict with locic, something you said has always existed.

Well, you have to define what you mean by everything, as we discussed above. I actually meant if you were going to try a new syllogism based on the new information.

These are questions that mankind has struggled with forever, and we can only answer them in terms of whatever worldview makes the most logical sense. Let's see where we end up.

By everything I ment everything. Everything you can come to think of. If I have to make a new syllogism based on the new information (that you provided) it would have to go something like this:

God has always existed. Therefore, he exists.

It is useless, as it kind of conludes the premise. If God has always existed, why can't this universe just be part of a larger system that has always existed? Some scientists suggest that black holes may explode as big bangs in the future, creating new universes. This can have happended always, just as well as God can have always existed.

[August]

Caine, this is a most excellent discussion. We are starting to reach into some fundamental philosophy here, which is good. While we go through this, I want to ask that you keep trying, as you seemingly have done up to now, both sides of the argument in mind. Keep trying to interpret, from the most basic principles of atheism and Christianity, the things that we talk about here.

Limitations consistent with the non-contradictory nature of God do not necessarily equate with limits of ability. In those terms God is all powerful (omnipotent) The potential and power to do something, rejected by choice, does not refute the ability.

An analogy would be if you were in a room with another person and you had a gun and chose not to kill the other person, would that diminish the fact that you had the power of life or death over that person?

The decision not to do something when you have the power to do it, is not the same as not doing it because you lack the ability.

Omnipotence means all-powerful. To say that God is omnipotent does not mean that God can do the illogical, but that is not to be confused with the supernatural, which God can and does do. God is limited only by His nature, and we can clearly discern what God's nature is from the Bible. If we then further dissect the words, omni means everywhere at all times, and powerful means having full actionable control, then it follows that God is omnipotent.

So he can do whatever he please? But not create himself, because he has always existed? Fair enough. He doesn't have to follow the laws of physics, but those of logic, right? I mean, he can make a stone fly if he wants to, but he cannot cover a square with cirlces without making them overlap?

Yes, God cannot do the illogical, because that could potentially mean that He exists and does not exist at the same time in the same relationship. The illogical simply does not exist, nor can it ever exist, it is pure nonsense.

True, the laws of logic does not depend on the existence of the universe. However, it makes no sense to talk about locic in a non existant universe. If nothing existed, nothing had to follow logic, and no one was there to describe the laws.

Right, but those are 2 different things. Talking about something, being able to describe it or actually describing it has no bearing on it's existence or not. Of course, you are making that assumption again that the universe is all that exists, and that there is nothing else. We have already agreed that that statement is not true. We know that God uses logic, and because He does so, we can safely assume He has always done so.

What is time? Isn't it just a human concept that we use to describe changes? I still cannot understand that you want time to be created by someone. It is a none physical thing, that does not hold any specific characteristics we can describe. Besides, time is not the same everywhere. If you syncronize two watches, put one on a plane and make it fly around the earth, it will have lost time when it comes back compared to the one on the ground. This means that time is just a way to describe changes, not some fine-tuned or defined proberty of the universe that is equal for all.

Ok, let's go through this in a bit more complexity. You are saying that time is a function of change. If that is true, then whatever holds to time is always in a state of becoming, and not a state of being. God, however, is in a state of being, not a state of becoming, He cannot become anything other than God, it is the ultimate state of being. If that statement was not true, then God would not be God, He would be something less than God since He is always in the process of becoming God. I hope that shows clearly how God is necessarily not bound by time.

I hope we both acknowledge that time exists though. Even though we cannot physically observe an entity called "time", we are aware of it, we sense it some way. Time also seems to be pretty transcendental, everyone is subject to it, and it is objective, i.e. no-one can assert nor prove that there is no such dimension as time. If we agree on that, that time exists, then we have to try and account for its origin, because everything that comes into existence has to have a cause.

In the Bible, the beginning of creation, i.e. the beginning of our observable universe, is often equated with the beginning of time.

There are a few different views of time:
1. Some agree with you, that time is of logical neccessity and therefore unbounded. If the universe had a finite beginning, a la big bang, then there had to be an instance of time prior to that. However, the shprtcoming of that view is that we cannot accurately describe time, we can merely establish that a finite time ago there were no physical objects.
2. The second view is that space and time are irrefutably bound together in spacetime, one cannot be without the other. This means that if we had an ex nihilo big bang, then time would come into existence at the same time, but if we have an osscillating universe, then time has always been.
3. If time is not a function of change, then the creation of the universe was just a happening in an instant of time.

The first part of the second statement, formulated many years after the writing of the Bible, seems to agree with Scripture.

If God has always existed, he has an unlimited history. Do you believe that God can think like us? I mean, if you place him in a dark room, will he start to think about different things, like what he has to do tomorrow, or that girl that he met last night? If so, he must have made that kind of thoughts forever. That doesn't make sense to me. For every thought he ever had, there must be one before it. That is impossible, as that would either mean that he has been thinking the same over and over again, OR that he has thought every possible thing, even things that does not make sense. This is an infinite amount of thoughts (that can be put in order by time btw) most of them being pure nonesense. I have to believe that everything MUST have a beginning, otherwise it would contradict with locic, something you said has always existed.

I'm sorry to say that you are making an incorrect assumption again. Let me stress it is probably not your fault, for we as humans try to always describe things from a human-centric perspective.

I want to deal with your statement in two parts. Briefly, I want to deal with something that you did not bring up, but I feel is neccessary for the context. That is, if only the material holds true, as an atheist will assert, then how do we as humans think? Every thought is nothing but a result of the laws of physics, and limited by that. That means that we really have no freedom to think, but we can only think as directed by the frequency and intensity of electrical impulses, which are determined by random and purposeless electrobiological processes, and therefore leads to the conclusion that all human thought, and expression and discussion thereof, is essentially meaningless. Of course, as Christians we believe that our thoughts are not limited by the material.

On to God's thoughts then...I think the mistake you are making is that you assume that God has to "think" like we do, i.e. a temporal succession of mental states. That is not true though. God comprehends the whole succession of mental states in a single eternal intuition. Since God is the creator of all things, including all knowledge (if God can learn something new He is not God), He neccessarily and simultaneously knows all there is to know. If God's knowledge is not timeless, that leads us to an illogical and absurd infinite regression of knowledge.

By everything I ment everything. Everything you can come to think of. If I have to make a new syllogism based on the new information (that you provided) it would have to go something like this:

God has always existed. Therefore, he exists.

It is useless, as it kind of conludes the premise.

Can you think of the illogical? Can you picture a square circle?

Have you heard of the Kalam argument?
1. The universe had a beginning.
2. Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause, which is God.

It sort of turns it the other way, starting with premises that we at least have a reasonable expectation to be true. The major is true from a big bang perspective, the minor is a logical statement (something cannot come from nothing). The rub is in the conclusion, where the second part, that the cause has to be God, is debatable.

If God has always existed, why can't this universe just be part of a larger system that has always existed? Some scientists suggest that black holes may explode as big bangs in the future, creating new universes. This can have happended always, just as well as God can have always existed.

That is nothing but speculation, and something that can be taken by faith, but there is nothing to suggest that to be valid. It still begs the question though, where did the first matter come from for all of that to happen?

[Canuckster1127]

If God has always existed, why can't this universe just be part of a larger system that has always existed? Some scientists suggest that black holes may explode as big bangs in the future, creating new universes. This can have happended always, just as well as God can have always existed.

Just a quick insert here.

August is touching a lot of things better than I can so I'm holding off so as not to overwhelm you Caine with this discussion. It's not easy if you have multiple people coming at you.

In this realm however, I think some updates exist in terms of the positing of corresponding white holes, circulation of matter through the system and some tie ins with what is refered to as Hawkings Radiation.

I admire Hawking and have read much of his material to try and grasp what he is saying.

If you read his most recent popular book "A Briefer History of Time" a lot of this is covered as an update to his previous work.

It is no coincidence, in my opinion, that Hawking 20 years ago postulated that he believed a formula capturing the entire singulairt was in reach. While I do not hold that such an occassion is possible, I think it is telling, that now after 20 years, what there is, is a better understanding but even more complxity.

Reading Hawkings Briefer History of Time, the irony was not lost on me that Hawking actually moved into the realm of metaphysics dealing with what in effect is predestination, but from the direction of all events including human thought, and decisions being reduced to a formua if possible althought the complexity of it would be mind boggling.

I applaud the advances in science and don't doubt that more will be found that amazes us moving forward. However, I think it is a product of man's arrogance to imagine that we will ever reach a point where all questions are answered by a formula and a hypothetical elimination of all mystery.

I personally don't believe that will ever be achieved, because I believe there are elements of this universe that will tie into the infinite nature of God and I don't believe we from our human perspective are capable of framing the infinite into something that will eliminate all doubt or uncertainty.

So, there's my two cents in that area.

Carry on

Bart[/quote]

[caine]

Caine, this is a most excellent discussion. We are starting to reach into some fundamental philosophy here, which is good. While we go through this, I want to ask that you keep trying, as you seemingly have done up to now, both sides of the argument in mind. Keep trying to interpret, from the most basic principles of atheism and Christianity, the things that we talk about here.

It is indeed a most excellent discussion. It's is difficult though, and for the first time ever I feel challenged by a christian I am really trying to see things from both perspectives, and please (continue to) correct me if I miss something.

Yes, God cannot do the illogical, because that could potentially mean that He exists and does not exist at the same time in the same relationship. The illogical simply does not exist, nor can it ever exist, it is pure nonsense.

Good. We agree on that one then.

Right, but those are 2 different things. Talking about something, being able to describe it or actually describing it has no bearing on it's existence or not. Of course, you are making that assumption again that the universe is all that exists, and that there is nothing else. We have already agreed that that statement is not true. We know that God uses logic, and because He does so, we can safely assume He has always done so.

Alright, so logic has always existed. However, I think that logic and time can be compared regarding whether or not it has been created. Again, I consider logic to be a logical (;)) result of this universe. Logic is basically a way to describe things that can and cannot be done, just like time is a way to measure and describe change. So, if there were no universe, logic and time would kinda still exist, it would just not be possible to measure, test and describe it. As a square is a square, no matter if it exists or not, and the same goes for a circle, you can still not cover a square completely with circles without making them overlap. You don't have to call this logic. The idea of a square and a circle simply rules out the possibility. It is just as much laws of physics as it is logic, because you can test it if you want to.

Did that make any sense?

Ok, let's go through this in a bit more complexity. You are saying that time is a function of change. If that is true, then whatever holds to time is always in a state of becoming, and not a state of being. God, however, is in a state of being, not a state of becoming, He cannot become anything other than God, it is the ultimate state of being. If that statement was not true, then God would not be God, He would be something less than God since He is always in the process of becoming God. I hope that shows clearly how God is necessarily not bound by time.

Can God make himself human for a day? Can he ignore his own power for a while? If so, he could have been human always. If he was, we are back to the infinite string of thoughts that goes against logic. If he cannot, if he is always God and cannot comprehend a one way timeline, there is really not much I can say. Then, he could have existed since, well, always. It still sounds very, very bad and illogical in my ears. What is God? Just some kind of consciousness that is in no way depended on any physical material? See, this kinda goes against my logic as well. How can something exist in a void? Like the one before Big Bang? If there is nothing, how can God be there? Its like saying "the basket is empty, yet there is an apple in it".

I hope we both acknowledge that time exists though. Even though we cannot physically observe an entity called "time", we are aware of it, we sense it some way. Time also seems to be pretty transcendental, everyone is subject to it, and it is objective, i.e. no-one can assert nor prove that there is no such dimension as time. If we agree on that, that time exists, then we have to try and account for its origin, because everything that comes into existence has to have a cause.

Yes time exists. It has always existed. It just did not make sense before changes started to happen, and could not (if there had been someone to do it) be measured. I still do not believe in time as something other than a human idea. You cannot imagine a universe without time. It is simply illogical. And no, I don't think we need to account for the origin of time, because you cannot create time without a universe. It is no "thing". It is a concept, a logical result of changes.

In the Bible, the beginning of creation, i.e. the beginning of our observable universe, is often equated with the beginning of time.

With all due respect, I do not believe the bible holds the answer. But I guess you know that already

There are a few different views of time:
1. Some agree with you, that time is of logical neccessity and therefore unbounded. If the universe had a finite beginning, a la big bang, then there had to be an instance of time prior to that. However, the shprtcoming of that view is that we cannot accurately describe time, we can merely establish that a finite time ago there were no physical objects.
2. The second view is that space and time are irrefutably bound together in spacetime, one cannot be without the other. This means that if we had an ex nihilo big bang, then time would come into existence at the same time, but if we have an osscillating universe, then time has always been.

Again, I agree with number 1 as in "time has always existed, but could not be measured and did not make any sense prior to big bang.". I also partly agree with 2 for the same reason. It doesn't really matter to me if you say that time has always been, or time came to be along with the universe. It makes no difference as far as I can tell.

3. If time is not a function of change, then the creation of the universe was just a happening in an instant of time.

I am not sure I fully understand this one, and I will therefore not comment on it. Can you say it in another way? Sorry, but english is not my main language, and things can get a bit too complicated. Bear with me.

I'm sorry to say that you are making an incorrect assumption again. Let me stress it is probably not your fault, for we as humans try to always describe things from a human-centric perspective.

I want to deal with your statement in two parts. Briefly, I want to deal with something that you did not bring up, but I feel is neccessary for the context. That is, if only the material holds true, as an atheist will assert, then how do we as humans think? Every thought is nothing but a result of the laws of physics, and limited by that. That means that we really have no freedom to think, but we can only think as directed by the frequency and intensity of electrical impulses, which are determined by random and purposeless electrobiological processes, and therefore leads to the conclusion that all human thought, and expression and discussion thereof, is essentially meaningless. Of course, as Christians we believe that our thoughts are not limited by the material.

Damn it! I hate when I make incorrect assumptions. I do not believe that human thoughts is anything but physical. Saying that this equals not having free will is wrong IMHO. Moving you arm is something physical, yet you do have control of it. Thoughts is nothing but electrical impulses, and can be controlled by your brain. Just like you can control a light bulb or a radio. This does not mean however, that you would not make the same choices if you could go back in time. I did in fact have a pretty interesting discussion with my younger brother regarding this the other day. He (and I) have been playing a computer game called Championship Manager. The goal of this game is to buy and sell soccer players, set up your team and tactics, and then let the computer simulate match after match. Often, if you just need one victory to be champion, you would save the game before the match, and if you lose, reload and play it again until you win. My brother said this is illogical as the physical conditions that make you lose a game is the same if you could indeed reload in real life. I cannot argue against this theory (though I tried), as I do consider our thoughts a physical thing. For the same reason I believe that we will at some point be able to create real Artificial Intelligence, and we might even be able to store the memories of people an hard discs. Why would we even require a brain this complex if our thoughts is a non physical thing?

On to God's thoughts then...I think the mistake you are making is that you assume that God has to "think" like we do, i.e. a temporal succession of mental states. That is not true though. God comprehends the whole succession of mental states in a single eternal intuition. Since God is the creator of all things, including all knowledge (if God can learn something new He is not God), He neccessarily and simultaneously knows all there is to know. If God's knowledge is not timeless, that leads us to an illogical and absurd infinite regression of knowledge.

Alright, so God does not think like us. But if he is able to do so, we do have the same illogical infinite history of thoughts. Or at least a possibility of it to exist.

Can you think of the illogical? Can you picture a square circle?

Have you heard of the Kalam argument?
1. The universe had a beginning.
2. Everything that has a beginning has a cause.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause, which is God.

It sort of turns it the other way, starting with premises that we at least have a reasonable expectation to be true. The major is true from a big bang perspective, the minor is a logical statement (something cannot come from nothing). The rub is in the conclusion, where the second part, that the cause has to be God, is debatable.

That is nothing but speculation, and something that can be taken by faith, but there is nothing to suggest that to be valid. It still begs the question though, where did the first matter come from for all of that to happen?

If I had to make a new syllogism based on this, it would go something like this:

1- Everything physical needs a beginning and a cause.
2- God is not physical, and does not require a beginning and a cause.
3- Therefore God created the universe, as it is the only possible theory that does not contradict with #1.

[caine]

Just a quick insert here.

August is touching a lot of things better than I can so I'm holding off so as not to overwhelm you Caine with this discussion. It's not easy if you have multiple people coming at you.

Oh thank you I do feel a little outnumbered here. I have read you post. Thank you for your input.

[August]

It is indeed a most excellent discussion. It's is difficult though, and for the first time ever I feel challenged by a christian I am really trying to see things from both perspectives, and please (continue to) correct me if I miss something.

As we continue to discuss, I want to ask that you start accounting for the things we agree on from an atheistic perspective. My position is obviously that God made it all, as can be demonstrated from His revelation to us.

Alright, so logic has always existed. However, I think that logic and time can be compared regarding whether or not it has been created. Again, I consider logic to be a logical (Wink) result of this universe. Logic is basically a way to describe things that can and cannot be done, just like time is a way to measure and describe change.

No, hang on, you are confusing two things here. For completeness sake, let's quickly review the three basic laws of logic.
1. The law of identity
2. The law of the excluded middle
3. The law of non-contradiction
However, the linguistic description of the laws of logic is not the same as the actual laws of logic, and that is where I believe you are making the mistake. The same with time, a measurement of description of time is not time itself, it is merely putting it into a format that we can understand. If there were no humans around, logic would still exist...a rock will still be a rock and not a tree. The fact that there is no-one around to describe it is irrelevant. Are the laws of logic true for a blind, deaf-mute person?

It boils down to the ontology of logic. What is it's mode of existence? Where is it? What is it composed of? Logic is immaterial, immutable, eternal and universal. I think we have agreed on the immaterial, immutable and universal part, but I somehow still detect some resistance to the eternal part in some sense. So really quickly, if all of the universe ceased to exist in 5 minutes, the temporal will end with it. It tautologically follows that there will be no temporality in existence, and therefore, it will hold true (A), and the opposite, that the temporal exists (B), will be false. According to law #1 above, that A is A even in the absence of temporality, it necessarily follows that #1, and therefore the other two laws, are eternal.

Can God make himself human for a day? Can he ignore his own power for a while? If so, he could have been human always.

Your conclusion does not necessarily follow the premise. For God to be human, He does not have to ignore His power, He can merely not exercise it. It is fallacious to assume that because God has all the power, He has to exercise all of it all the time. It also does not follow that He could have been human always, since humans are temporal in nature, while God is eternal in nature.

We do believe that God manifested as a human (Jesus). He exercised some of His power while in human shape to perform miracles, but He also chose to exercise some of it in such a way (punished on our behalf and victory over death) that we as humans can be saved from eternal punisment. I don't know if you have kids, but imagine this, you are walking down the street with your 6 yo daughter and a mugger jumps out. You know that you have the power to run away, but your daughter cannot do that. What do you do? If you exercise your power to run away, your daughter will die, or you can tangle with themugger, maybe die in the process yourself, but that will give your daughter the time to escape. You (hopefully) choose to exercise your power in such a way that it saves your daughter. That is the same choice God made, for us.

If he was, we are back to the infinite string of thoughts that goes against logic. If he cannot, if he is always God and cannot comprehend a one way timeline, there is really not much I can say. Then, he could have existed since, well, always. It still sounds very, very bad and illogical in my ears.

A, I see where the confusion comes from, and it relates also to your confusion lower down. We know that God functions "in time" sometimes, like with the creation deed, there was a start and a finish. From our temporal perspective, we see time as a one-way street. However, because we have that temporal perspective, we cannot comprehend a position where time is meaningless. A simple analogy will hopefully help. Let's say you are breeding worms in a box. Your life expectancy is way higher than theirs, so from their perspective, you can be perceived as "eternal". When you put your hands in the box to feed them, you are functioning in their time, i.e. relative to their perception of time, yet you have not left your "eternal" state. The same with God, when He functions in time, He has put Himself into creation, while He still has not left His eternal state. We can therefore perceive that He is temporal, when functioning in time, while He also remains eternal. Another one, if we apply this to logic again, we use logic at a specific point in time, but that does not mean that logic is temporal in nature, as we saw above. It can be eternal yet applied in time.

What is God? Just some kind of consciousness that is in no way depended on any physical material? See, this kinda goes against my logic as well. How can something exist in a void? Like the one before Big Bang? If there is nothing, how can God be there? Its like saying "the basket is empty, yet there is an apple in it".

What is God indeed?

Let me start with the easy answer, or rhetorical counter-question, what is logic? Does it exist in a void? If there is nothing how can there be logic? Yet we saw from the proof above that it can be that there are things that exist that are eternal, immutable, imaterial and universal. Compare this with God, He has the same characterisitics.

Now, what is God? Since we get our concept of God from the Bible, that which is God's revelation, let's see what it says, how does God describe Himself?

(Exo 3:14) God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."

It's kind of a curious answer, Moses asked God "Who are you, God?", and that was the answer. The present tense indicates eternity, while the content of the words goes back to Law#1 (the law of identity) above, something is what it is. What does "I AM" then mean? God causes all creatures to be, but He Himself requires no cause. He moves all things, but is moved by nothing. He exists by His own power, He alone is self-existent. He is the source of all being and becoming, He is independedent, self-sufficient and secure. God is love and righteousness, we are because He is. (Character of God - Sproul)

The key characteristic of God, what He is, is aseity, meaning self-existence.

Yes time exists. It has always existed. It just did not make sense before changes started to happen, and could not (if there had been someone to do it) be measured. I still do not believe in time as something other than a human idea. You cannot imagine a universe without time. It is simply illogical. And no, I don't think we need to account for the origin of time, because you cannot create time without a universe. It is no "thing". It is a concept, a logical result of changes.

Sorry, but you seem to contradict yourself here. irst you say that time has always existed, then you say you cannot create time without a universe. I think we agreed before that time is a function of change, so if we cannot observe change, we cannot account for time. This means that time is according to definition 2 above, neccessarily linked to spacetime. If we are to make sense of origins then, which is part of our disagreement, we can reasonably assume that if we account for space (i.e. the universe), then we have accounted for time. It then gets back to the question of where the universe came from, and we have to account for it from our different worldviews. As a Christian, I believe that it was created by God out of nothing, and revealed to me by God. What is the atheist explanation(s)? Oscillating universe? Unproven. Eternal universe? Impossible. Chance? o such thing.

Again, I agree with number 1 as in "time has always existed, but could not be measured and did not make any sense prior to big bang.". I also partly agree with 2 for the same reason. It doesn't really matter to me if you say that time has always been, or time came to be along with the universe. It makes no difference as far as I can tell.

It does make a difference when we are discussing origins. I think that we have knocked this around enough, and have enough agreement to continue?

I am not sure I fully understand this one, and I will therefore not comment on it. Can you say it in another way? Sorry, but english is not my main language, and things can get a bit too complicated. Bear with me.

All I was trying to say here is that if we affirm the opposite of what we agreed on, that time is a function of change, then we can still account for space and time, albeit seperately. If time is an endless line, then the creation of the universe was a dot on that line, an instant of time. I did also note that it does not help us with our discussion, because all it then concludes is that sometime in the finite past there were no objects.

Damn it! I hate when I make incorrect assumptions. I do not believe that human thoughts is anything but physical. Saying that this equals not having free will is wrong IMHO. Moving you arm is something physical, yet you do have control of it. Thoughts is nothing but electrical impulses, and can be controlled by your brain.

But how can you have free will if you are limited by what your genes dealt you and the laws of physics allow? You will always be limited by that, you cannot break the laws of physics. If your thoughts are physical, where are they? Can you touch them? Can you capture them in a bottle, or a hard disk, and sell them? Can you show me your love thought? Bear in mind that our expressions of thought, i.e. writing or speaking are not the thoughts themselves.

Is consciousness a property of matter? Are rocks consciouss?

For the same reason I believe that we will at some point be able to create real Artificial Intelligence, and we might even be able to store the memories of people an hard discs. Why would we even require a brain this complex if our thoughts is a non physical thing?

You see to hold to a lot by faith. Let me ask a counter-question, why are we here? Why is there something, instead of nothing?

Alright, so God does not think like us. But if he is able to do so, we do have the same illogical infinite history of thoughts. Or at least a possibility of it to exist.

We are agreed then, God does not have to think like us. That pretty much takes care of the illogical infinite regression of thoughts. Is it then safe to assume that if something or someone can think, they have to exist? And only God can think like God, so He has to exist?

f I had to make a new syllogism based on this, it would go something like this:

1- Everything physical needs a beginning and a cause.
2- God is not physical, and does not require a beginning and a cause.
3- Therefore God created the universe, as it is the only possible theory that does not contradict with #1.

Ok. But the contra is still that the creator does not have to be the Christian God, it can be a deistic god, who created the universe and then took no further interest.

But are we agreed on the first 2 premises?

[Felgar]

Just wanted to point out that from our current scientific understanding, time is a) physically very real (not just an abstract construct) and b) linked to space. 'Spacetime' is a proper understanding, in that space, matter, and time (i.e. our whole universe) is certainly linked. This seems obvious by the effect that matter and space have on time. The presence of matter (gravity) bends space and therefore slows time. Also, simply moving through space changes time too, in that a fast moving object will appear to have time moving slower for it, from a stationary observer's perspective. This is the cause of satellite clocks becoming out of sync with our own.

Also note that light bends space and thus distorts time. In fact there is research into making a fake black hole (where space and therefore time is bent into a loop) using lasers, and that would essentially be a time-machine. We can measure the passage of time and also alter it, so it's definately something very real and it's also inherently linked with space itself.

Therefore, it seems clear that time as we know it goes hand-in-hand with our universe and would not exist beyond the confines of it. In other words, time was created as a property of our universe and could not preceed the universe itself. This is in contrast to something like logic which is eternal and does exist outside the confines of our universe.