Evidence for God from Science

Audie wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:No Audie, as it has been pointed out, it is based on logical reasoning and metaphysical philosophy.
We may not know what God is 100% exactly, BUT we do know what he MUST BE to be God.

Well I do hail ye, the Infallibles.

See Rick, Audie thinks I am catholic !

Philip wrote:

Audie: I see no magical thinking in simply saying that I do not understand or know something. I think that is reasonable.

I'm with you, so far - as that is just being honest.

Audie: You invent something else for me to think, and then say that it is irrational.

No, Audie, your OWN words and assertions have prolifically shown that you do not believe a living entity or intelligence was behind the universe we have. Further, you've asserted it's not necessary. Because, at the Big Bang, not only were the marvelous things that INSTANTLY appeared reveal the polar opposite of random function, design and interactivity, but what showed up were also PRECISELY the VERY things required to create a universe of incredible functionality and design, on an astounding scale. So, that is a double whammy of incomprehensible coincidence - which rational thinking tells us could in no stretch of the imagination could have been randomly produced.

So, let's again try to pin you down, once AGAIN: Do you or do you not believe the universe's origin required/necessitated a thinking, intelligent and purposeful Source that was also eternal?

You still refuse to respond to my request that you say what was incorrect in my post to theo, or even acknowledge that I asked.

Kinda hard to pin you down, aint it?


I asked you to explain what time is, several, ah, "times". Your whole
cosmo doesnt come to much unless time is understood. Zero response on that. What a surprise. Of course you havent a clue what time is.

Kinda hard to pin you down to admitting it; you know, "honest" and all.

You want to try to bully me with strings of adjectives, your assertions and concoctions about me in all caps or bold font?

Why ask me anyway, you always know better than I what I think, believe or have said.

So wonderful. You are right, coz whatever you concoct is true. You and Paul both, Infallibles.

You want to force me to respond to a question that you already "know' what i think, and already infallibly know I am wrong and you are right?

No, we are done.

I guess that goes for the rest of this forum too. You, Krink, abe, Paul and the gang all do the same thing. "you think this, you believe that; I am right coz god makes me infallible". That sums it up here.

Bye.

Who the heck is THEO???!!!

PaulSacramento wrote:

Audie wrote:

PaulSacramento wrote:No Audie, as it has been pointed out, it is based on logical reasoning and metaphysical philosophy.
We may not know what God is 100% exactly, BUT we do know what he MUST BE to be God.

Well I do hail ye, the Infallibles.

See Rick, Audie thinks I am catholic !

Well...

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

Audie wrote:I guess that goes for the rest of this forum too. You, Krink, abe, Paul and the gang all do the same thing. "you think this, you believe that; I am right coz god makes me infallible". That sums it up here.

I don't understand that last statement. I am right because god makes me infallible...

Kurieuo wrote:

Audie wrote:I guess that goes for the rest of this forum too. You, Krink, abe, Paul and the gang all do the same thing. "you think this, you believe that; I am right coz god makes me infallible". That sums it up here.

I don't understand that last statement. I am right because god makes me infallible...

I think Audie is getting you all confused with catholic popes.

OK, Audie referenced her response to Theo (see below). Notice, she has repeatedly failed to answer direct questions about what I've asked her - REPEATEDLY asked. Her response to Theo below in no way answers those simple questions. Hers is but a continuous dodge of some very simple and reasonable questions. These direct questions have NOTHING to do with the flood - a flood, BTW, which she knows not the time, nor scale of. But the flood debate is no excuse to dodge my direct questions. Next dodge, she wants to ask ME about the nature of time. These have nothing to do with what she believes is possible WITHOUT a purposeful, powerful intelligence and designer, and everyone here can clearly see that. Time is relative to PHYSICAL things (that pre-Big Bang, none of which existed), their changes, and occurrences of events in sequence. By necessity (and logic) the originating source of the universe stands outside of all that came from it. Time is a result of what was created - the physical reality that began at the Big Bang's beginning. And my direct questions are merely to pin her down on very reasonable questions as to what she believes, and yet, she won't even admit to what she believes about them. Not only does she fail to answer them, her dodges concerning time and an ancient flood clearly have nothing to do with why she can't just honestly answer them, and without weak responses (dodges) about someone making up things she believes/false accusations, etc. Hey, Audie, we can only go by what you've said. So how's about clarifying what you APPEAR to believe, by actually cutting the nonsense and come right out and state it! And then we can debate from there.

Below is what Audie asserts is an answer to my questions:

Audie's response to Theo: Reality-deniers love to use the word "assumption" as if it actually applied everywhere they
want to put it, and that it then functions as a magic bullet to destroy all that stands in the
way.

We could of course get into the assumptions ( vast leaps of baseless faith) required of
flood-believrrs, but such would be churlish.

Now, it is my contention that such scenario as you describe is 100% fantasy,with no demonstrable
basis other than belief in the originator's notion of personal infallibility when it
comes to bible readin'.

I also say it is impossible to be even moderately well informed about the physical wotld
and make an intellectually honest claim that there was a global flood.

Our hero of the cause abe made up something about how a layer of frozen dust proves there
was a global flood, and that the glaciers were somehow "stuck down" instesd
of floating away, in ye flood. Earlier, he had it that they did flost, but sank back down in place
(Ever so perfectly ) after the water went down.

I notice you made a lot of extra-biblical claims about mountain building etc, which suggests you
feel you know more than the bible tells, and more than any geologist on earth-
is that what you really think?

How do you propose to explain the persistence of polar ice far older than
the purported flood?

Audie wrote:I guess that goes for the rest of this forum too. You, Krink, abe, Paul and the gang all do the same thing. "you think this, you believe that; I am right coz god makes me infallible". That sums it up here.

Bye.

Audie, I think you're confusing the desire in people to be a "winner" in some intellectual debate with some deeper underpinning reasons. Consider the words of Penn Jillette here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZc3Xq8obk

It's not a matter of who is right or wrong, but rather a matter of truth and what we believe is true. If we're right regarding God and Christ, and you're wrong, then you'll have a lot coming your way hereafter. Of course, if we're wrong, and for your sake I hope we are, then it really doesn't matter, perhaps nothing really matters.

Now add that we truly believe God exists, and that Christ is the only hope we've got of not being righteously judged and punished for our sins. Well, I guess you can be forgiven for mistaking our desire for you to not be cast away hereafter with something like a passion to be right cuz god makes us infallible.

Philip wrote:OK, Audie referenced her response to Theo (see below). Notice, she has repeatedly failed to answer direct questions about what I've asked her - REPEATEDLY asked. Her response to Theo below in no way answers those simple questions. Hers is but a continuous dodge of some very simple and reasonable questions. These direct questions have NOTHING to do with the flood - a flood, BTW, which she knows not the time, nor scale of. But the flood debate is no excuse to dodge my direct questions. Next dodge, she wants to ask ME about the nature of time. These have nothing to do with what she believes is possible WITHOUT a purposeful, powerful intelligence and designer, and everyone here can clearly see that. Time is relative to PHYSICAL things (that pre-Big Bang, none of which existed), their changes, and occurrences of events in sequence. By necessity (and logic) the originating source of the universe stands outside of all that came from it. Time is a result of what was created - the physical reality that began at the Big Bang's beginning. And my direct questions are merely to pin her down on very reasonable questions as to what she believes, and yet, she won't even admit to what she believes about them. Not only does she fail to answer them, her dodges concerning time and an ancient flood clearly have nothing to do with why she can't just honestly answer them, and without weak responses (dodges) about someone making up things she believes/false accusations, etc. Hey, Audie, we can only go by what you've said. So how's about clarifying what you APPEAR to believe, by actually cutting the nonsense and come right out and state it! And then we can debate from there.

Below is what Audie asserts is an answer to my questions:

Audie's response to Theo: Reality-deniers love to use the word "assumption" as if it actually applied everywhere they
want to put it, and that it then functions as a magic bullet to destroy all that stands in the
way.

We could of course get into the assumptions ( vast leaps of baseless faith) required of
flood-believrrs, but such would be churlish.

Now, it is my contention that such scenario as you describe is 100% fantasy,with no demonstrable
basis other than belief in the originator's notion of personal infallibility when it
comes to bible readin'.

I also say it is impossible to be even moderately well informed about the physical wotld
and make an intellectually honest claim that there was a global flood.

Our hero of the cause abe made up something about how a layer of frozen dust proves there
was a global flood, and that the glaciers were somehow "stuck down" instesd
of floating away, in ye flood. Earlier, he had it that they did flost, but sank back down in place
(Ever so perfectly ) after the water went down.

I notice you made a lot of extra-biblical claims about mountain building etc, which suggests you
feel you know more than the bible tells, and more than any geologist on earth-
is that what you really think?

How do you propose to explain the persistence of polar ice far older than
the purported flood?

I absolutely did not assert that is an answer to your q. It had nothing whatever to
do with you. Or your qustions. I wrote that to theo, in response to something he said about the flood. You jumped in, mocking me and demanding answers about something utterly irrelevant.

Now you are lying about me.


What the hell is wrong with you?

Kurieuo wrote:

Audie wrote:I guess that goes for the rest of this forum too. You, Krink, abe, Paul and the gang all do the same thing. "you think this, you believe that; I am right coz god makes me infallible". That sums it up here.

Bye.

Audie, I think you're confusing the desire in people to be a "winner" in some intellectual debate with some deeper underpinning reasons. Consider the words of Penn Jillette here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owZc3Xq8obk

It's not a matter of who is right or wrong, but rather a matter of truth and what we believe is true. If we're right regarding God and Christ, and you're wrong, then you'll have a lot coming your way hereafter. Of course, if we're wrong, and for your sake I hope we are, then it really doesn't matter, perhaps nothing really matters.

Now add that we truly believe God exists, and that Christ is the only hope we've got of not being righteously judged and punished for our sins. Well, I guess you can be forgiven for mistaking our desire for you to not be cast away hereafter with something like a passion to be right cuz god makes us infallible.

No krink, I am not confused.

Perhaps you are. I see from all of you that you "know" god is true, and that your cosmo among other things prove it. Thus armoured, you may get a math problem wrong, but you cannot be wrong on the big issues; aka, infallible.

But now you are going all pascal, it is now about what you believe?
Who is confused?

I dont accept it that old timers got inspired "of"any god to write down
that god's words. I dont accept it that a bit of "philosophical" sleight of hand
proves there is a god. You guys do. Is that not perhaps, hubris, as in excess of self confidence?

Now, I dont think it is overly confident to think that any question at all related to science
can eventually be answered. It is a good working hypothesis, it is good to try.
Of course, there may be questions we cannot even think of;
I suspect there are. I dont see that as an example of false, or over, confidenence.

Its been a long hard path, lots of very hard work, up from ignorance, but
one cannot deny there has been good progress.

Probably the greatest discovery of science, the greatest contribution to human intellect
is in showing us how very very little we actually know about nature. How new discoveries only
let us peek into the existence of vastly greater mysteries

Your philosophy and religion people assert that we can rise ( have risen)
above ignorance not by diligence but by revelation. Worse, by the assertion,
implicit or otherwise* that there is no need to know things. "All ye need to know". See Keats on that,

Goddidit, there is no reason to study what (else might have) did it.
You already have Truth.


That kind of thinking has been frozen in time for a few millenia now.

BW for all his sincerity as in the atheism thread I responded to a few minutes ago,
apparently cannot remotely grasp how it might be to think outside his frame of reference,
and is reduced to trying to shoehorn me into some "human condition" philosophy,

Sorry, but you dont seem able either.

Im not trying to present as wise, so above and beyond. I am not that.
But I am most certainly different from you, different in ways that you (guys) dont or wont or cant see.
The way you, phil, abe, and bw among others try-rather than trying to understand- to pigeonhole my ideas somewhere in your frames illustrates that with great clarity.

When I said "bye", it was because of that impasse. Ok, I peeked.
More of the same. Looks like there is nowhere for this to go.


*see phi and his way of dealing with it when I pointed out that if one does not know what time
is, the whole cosmo argument is rather lame.

I do know God is real, as real as I am and the world around me.

Are you infallible because you know things? That's absurd, and nothing more than a poor rhetorical trick.

I believe my knowledge is epistemically justified, I don't believe denial of God is.

Whether we can be wrong in our knowledge, yes.

Audie: Of course, there may be questions we cannot even think of;
I suspect there are. I dont see that as an example of false, or over, confidenence.

It is baseless that Audie has any confidence in all at science explaining 1) what it is entirely unequipped to (the Universe's origin, design and functions, instantly appearing and obeying very specific and exceptionally narrow parameters), as that this is a question BEYOND science (science only measures the PHYSICAL and examines things that are derived from other things and causes - but science cannot measure or explain the non-physical becoming physical. 2) Science has never remotely explained any part of the early universe, other than what happened and its functions - but NEVER the CAUSE or origin - which is a METAphysical - see spiritual - thing. So why would she have confidence that science might one day be able to explain what it is totally unequipped to, is simply having faith in some undefined way of discerning metaphysics some day being possible. It's got not one thing to do with science! And her entire time question is irrelevant, because time is only a measure in relation to PHYSICAL things and events that occur and change. Without the physical, then no relationships of physical things, events, reactions - none of that. So, time itself is linked to the physical - which at a very certain point, wasn't there. And then it was. The tools of science are only capable and concerned with discerning the physical - not the non-physical. So, Audie, if she is to explain the origins of things - even time itself - she must have tools capable of such. We have none, this is clear. We are no closer to explaining what caused or came before the physical, scientifically, than we have since the scientific method was developed. So, Audie's is a belief in some hoped for metaphysical answer that we do not have the metaphysical tools to measure or explain. The assertion that we just can't know, but that one day we might - that's based upon wishful (or deluded) thinking, not on science.

So, answers for the origin of all things, no matter what, MUST lie within some source, entity or God that is eternal, unfathomably powerful, and intelligent beyond all we can know or do know of, AND that ultimate, original source cannot be random or unthinking things - as it's BOTH irrational AND unscientific to think so. These are what she either does or must deny, if she thinks the parameters are beyond this - which, again, leads right back to metaphysics. It's not science, so I wish she'd just abandon speaking of these things as scientific or some hoped for scientific answers. Science will FOREVER be incapable of explaining what existed before and caused the Big Bang, because that wasn't physical Even space itself did not yet exist.

Lastly, my critique of Audie's assertions has absolutely nothing to do with some supposed attack or slander upon her personally. It is merely an assessment of her beliefs and assertions, as to the parameters necessary for ANY Cause of the Universe, and what can and what cannot be known by scientific methodology and tools. If NOTHING physical existed prior to the Big Bang - not even space itself - then the answers are not to be found in the physical. That is just simple logic!

the dust of the earth

If NOTHING physical existed prior to the Big Bang - not even space itself - then the answers are not to be found in the physical. That is just simple logic!

Philp, that is not simple logic at all. It's a misguided assumption at best. We think nothing may have existed before that but there could also be that a previous universe itself got under its own gravity, shrunk to the size of a proton and then exploded. Rinse and repeat. There is no way to know for sure for now.

But there are restrictions on the big bang theory that one must respect if one is to appeal to it. We can't even be certain that a big bang happened. That is only based on the inflation of the universe and the microscopic background radiation, like a ripple that we detect We could very well be in a closed or flat universe as well. The big bang theory answers these two points well but has its own problems, e.g we can't know what happened before the bang (and actually it was someone being facetious that first gave it the title of Big bang on radio) and the big bang itself doesn't answer why planets and heavier elements formed, the big bang presumes that everything that formed after had to be in the singularity which exploded in the first place...but my point is, to anyone looking at that, your answer (then the answers are not to be found in the physical), simply doesn't cut it.

The other thing you either overlooked or didn't consider is that space-time is not linear, it's curved and that has immense consequences. Time was born after the singularity expanded. It is easier to think of the singularity as a dot hanging in the middle of a dark void, vacuum or a black blank space but it's wrong to think like that. There was no void or dark space, there was no space around it, no time of it, it had no past and no future, no location, time didn't exist, space didn't exist (because I hope you understand that space and time are correlated and non-seperable, without one the other isn't present). I can imagine its hard to think like this, at least for me it is, but there it is, nonetheless. That is what is meant when we say a big bang happened. So your "if nothing physical existed prior to the big bang" is a non-starter. There is no prior in the big bang, NOTHING existed and there is no distinction here between Physical or non-physical. That is what the standard BBT says.

And that is because of the nature of space-time. As I mentioned before that space-time is curved and goes hand in hand so every inch of space therefore has a time coordinate, but it also means that there is no proper starting point of the big bang which we can locate and say, here it started, hence no specific time. So imagine if you had to walk on a flat surface and you never saw a curved surface. Now if you are introduced to a curved surface such as a sphere, or a circular road, you would be astonished that once you get from your starting point to the ending point you infact reach back at the starting point. There is no curtain at the end through which you could peer through and see. Such is with time as well. There is no master link in the chain because each link is tied up in a curved path like a closed chain.

That is why the idea of travelling faster than the speed of light will get you back to the past is true (at least on paper since speed of light is constant and it's what's used to measure space-time) because you will go along a curved path and eventually end up at your starting point because of the curvature of space-time, like a train on a circular track but not to what happened before the starting point hence the linear doesn't idea of time, like yours doesn't work here, or what was before the big bang. So you can't go back in time before the big bang because it doesn't exist prior to the BB.

And it may even put to test the first-mover hypothesis as well. Though I haven't thought of that through so can't say for sure. Jac...your input would be interesting to me if you would like to comment.

As you can see it's not simple at all. You and Audie may have different views on the above and hence different definitions. I think she asked you what time was?

Your indirect God of the gaps doesn't justify anything spiritual there.

Just my two cents.

Neo: We think nothing may have existed before that but there could also be ...

And so, I'll stop you right there. 1) This is not known; 2) Science doesn't have any evidence of this; 3) IF there was nothing physical before the Big Bang, then I am correct - science cannot deduce the non-physical. Period!

Neo: ... that a previous universe itself got under its own gravity, shrunk to the size of a proton and then exploded. Rinse and repeat. There is no way to know for sure for now.

A theoretical which is undetectable, unmeasurable, unprovable! Science cannot provide anything beyond unprovable speculation!

Neo: ... but my point is, to anyone looking at that, your answer (then the answers are not to be found in the physical), simply doesn't cut it.

Sure it does - that is, when it comes to one asserting the explanation for the universe is or may be found within a Godless/unintelligent origin - particularly if they appeal to a physical explanation for a non-physical occurence.

Neo: And it may even put to test the first-mover hypothesis as well. Though I haven't thought of that through so can't say for sure. Jac...your input would be interesting to me if you would like to comment.

So now, you're asserting a non-theist cause for the universe? ULTIMATELY, NOWHERE, at NO time, there was not originating Cause or Mover. Really, how can any Christian say that???!!!

Neo: Your indirect God of the gaps doesn't justify anything spiritual there.

So, Neo, you think all of this had NO role of God in all of these incredible things. Really, my assertion has nothing to do with what PROCESSES God ultimately used, but that NO process He didn't create, program or guide could explain any of your unguided metaphysical assertions. And IF the Big Bang - or some other process(es) or chain of them existed, you've merely "kicked the can down the cosmic road." Nothing comes from nothing. Great intelligence, design, functionality and sophistication does not create or develop itself. Neo, you are so far down some sci-fi theoretical road it is scary. And you seem very close to saying we don't need a God to have a universe. I hate to say it, but unless you are willing to believe what it says, you should simply throw your Bible in the garbage can, as it appears that worthless to you!