Evidence for God from Science

coldblood wrote: Also, once you allow for one exception (i.e., God did not come into existence), you open the door to the possibility of further exceptions.

There can only be one omnipotent being, it would be a contradiction to have two, so we can conclude there is only one eternal being.

There can be only one exception, with all the omni properties.

Dan

Coldblood, the first or necessary cause makes perfect logical sense, what doesn't make sense is an infinite regress of causes.

Peter Kreeft points this out brilliantly in his first cause or necessary being.
http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm

I have always referred to this because it explains it very nicely to even a layman like me

Everything that begins to exist must have a cause, God never began to exist, he always existed.
The alternative is an infinite regress of causes which is a logical contradiction.
Kreeft explains why an infinite regress is a logical contradiction in this article.

bippy123, I think that I would far prefer to hear what you have to say than to wade through the wordy and non-conclusive arguments of Peter Kreeft, Thomas Aquinas, et.al. Nonetheless you say the “first cause” makes perfect sense. In the interest of extreme brevity, here is a short (sample) quote from the article:

“Why must there be a first cause? Because if there isn't, then the whole universe is unexplained, and we have violated our Principle of Sufficient Reason for everything.” -- Peter Kreeft

Why not simply paraphrase that quip and say if God lacks a first cause, then GOD is unexplained, because that would violate the “Principle of Sufficient Reason for everything”?


“Everything that begins to exist must have a cause . . . the alternative is an infinite regress of causes.” -- bippy123

Beginnings - causes - infinity -- The basic idea is that God, about whom we know nothing of his physical constituency, could have been here forever in perpetual consciousness, without causes; but the universe itself couldn’t have existed forever because it would have required an infinite link of dependent causes. But what if the universe had no beginning? Then the time interval from any moment in the past to the present would be finite and you could not mathematically calculate back to an infinite time in the past to a beginning that didn’t exist. Also, Thomas Aquinas, in spite of his brilliant and beautiful arguments, was apparently not familiar with the concept of randomness and the knowledge of inexact quantum variations, which do not allow us to wind the clock back in time with accuracy. The atomic transitions that give us light and the nuclear decays that give us nuclear radiation appear to happen without a cause. If ideas such as ‘without a cause and randomness' play havoc with your imagination don’t worry, you are in good company. Even the super genius Einstein himself rejected the idea, declaring that God doesn’t play dice with the world. Nonetheless, just because it defies your and my intuition, and even the great Einstein’s intuition, it still doesn’t mean that it isn’t true. Too, it certainly doesn’t mean that it is true, either; but all of our ideas, our intuitions, and our collections of common sense can be challenged. Just saying.

I am not in any way trying to say that God was malicious when he gave us these limited human intellects to comprehend the universe that surrounds us. All I was trying to suggest in my post was the he may be considerably more subtle than many of us are willing to accept.

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I do apologize for the brief pause I have taken... Had some issues to take care of.

Byblos wrote:Evidently you didn't do any in-depth reading on the subject.

- There could be multiple movers...

No there cannot be multiple movers. There can only be one omnipotent creator for if there were multiple omnipotent creators, each with the will to create, or not, they would annihilate one another and nothing would be created. Yet, there is a creation.

- There could be multiple gods from which only one has the function of a mover.

See above.

- There could be no mover at all.

You've got to be kidding me, right.

*** No there cannot be multiple movers. There can only be one omnipotent creator for if there were multiple omnipotent creators, each with the will to create, or not, they would annihilate one another and nothing would be created. Yet, there is a creation.

I am afraid that following your own logic about the Creator you are in error. Since God is only good, if there were multiples Gods, they would have the same array of properties and they would all be only good. Annihilation is out of the question to start with.

Another thing that is funny is that you are telling me that multiple omnipotent beings can't reason with one another and cooperate towards the creation of an universe. Why is that? If I have the will to create an airplane and you have the same will, can't we work together? Will we annihilate each other? You can do the left wing and I will do the right wing and then we can work together for the engine.

Another thing to take into consideration: if there were multiple omnipotent gods, annihilation is out of the question because of their nature as omnipotent. An infinite can't destroy an infinite... Maybe on paper it can happen. In reality it's kind of hard to say. It's just your mathematical imagination gone wild.

You have no way of knowing that even if there is only one God that he is omnipotent. That is a pure assumption.

So basically you are making a lot of assumptions.

***You've got to be kidding me, right.

Nope. Actually I am not. It's your own imposed limitations on yourself that make me seem funny. I am not that funny or I wasn't trying to be anyways.
You just need the universe to have a cause so you can explain God. You can't explain anything about God without using the Universe as a point of origin. (and you are not even using the universe to be honest)

What bothers me most is that human beings haven't even managed to explore (literally/physical presence) beyond our Moon and you present me with theories about a God who created an entire universe and I should actually take you more seriously. From my point of view and I stress out the words my point of view you are presenting yourself at a childish level.

BryanH, I suspect you're trying to make a point and not intending it, but the fact that you qualify that something is from your point of view, doesn't make telling someone they're presenting themselves at a childish level any less insulting or any less of an ad hominem attack.

BryanH, I suspect you're trying to make a point and not intending it, but the fact that you qualify that something is from your point of view, doesn't make telling someone they're presenting themselves at a childish level any less insulting or any less of an ad hominem attack.

I don't see any other formulation that would make my point. Just as a reference: it wasn't meant as an insult.

BryanH wrote:You have no way of knowing that even if there is only one God that he is omnipotent. That is a pure assumption.

It is not an assumption it is logic, if there is a God who is all powerful there cannot be another all powerful God because if they cannot have an effect on the other one(s) then they are no longer all powerful. So if God is all powerful, then the logic dictates that there can be only one.

I guess this comes down to how you define the word omnipotent.


om·nip·o·tent
[om-nip-uh-tuhnt] Show IPA

adjective
1.
almighty or infinite in power, as God.

2.
having very great or unlimited authority or power.

To describe God we are using the first definition.

Dan

Danieltwotwenty wrote:It is not an assumption it is logic, if there is a God who is all powerful there cannot be another all powerful God because if they cannot have an effect on the other one(s) then they are no longer all powerful. So if God is all powerful, then the logic dictates that there can be only one.

I understand your point of view, but logic has no actual meaning in what you are trying to say.

Only God has infinite power and only God is omnipotent.

These 2 attributes are ONLY assigned to God. We can't verify any of them in the first place so therefore you can't use them with any kind of logical deduction.

You can't start with a premise for which you have no truth value for.

The words infinite and omnipotent have approximate definitions. We don't know what omnipotent actually means and we don't know what infinite is. We just assume.

if they cannot have an effect on the other one(s) then they are no longer all powerful

Your logic dictates you to say that. It sounds reasonable enough, but as I said: applying logic to proving certain things about God is pointless because you start with an assumption.

You simply don't know how an omnipotent god can interact with another omnipotent god. It is just beyond any kind of comprehension.

Hey Bryan,

I know intimately the weaknesses in argumentation for many world views and Christianity itself has many variations all by itself. What I ended up doing was simply reading the biblical text without regard for any of the commonly held sect beliefs and let the text speak to me directly.
What I found was this. The gist of the message dealt with how we exist with others and with an entity described as God. Though it is fairly impossible to prove God in a scientific sense what did move me to Christianity was the fact that it expounded on a way that we should exist that is absolutely inline with the way I have always envisioned us existing together.
So for me I will be happy to exist following its concepts because I am in agreement with its position on everything that really matters between myself and others. If by some chance there isn't a God understood in quite the way we envision God to be then what have i lost by following its precepts?
For me there will be no loss. If I don't come back into existence once I die then I will never know that I was wrong and I will have been happy to have existed for the time I had in a manner that pleased me anyway.
Its a no lose situation. If there is a God whom I believe in and he is not exactly what I envision then my hope is that he will deal with such descrepancies knowing that we are very limited in our ability to comprehend. From the evidence I have found in the natural world that points to a designer existing I can attest that the designer is so far beyond our understanding that he deserves the title of God and I am willing to follow such a one as that.

BryanH wrote:

Danieltwotwenty wrote:It is not an assumption it is logic, if there is a God who is all powerful there cannot be another all powerful God because if they cannot have an effect on the other one(s) then they are no longer all powerful. So if God is all powerful, then the logic dictates that there can be only one.

I understand your point of view, but logic has no actual meaning in what you are trying to say.

Only God has infinite power and only God is omnipotent.

These 2 attributes are ONLY assigned to God. We can't verify any of them in the first place so therefore you can't use them with any kind of logical deduction.

You can't start with a premise for which you have no truth value for.

The words infinite and omnipotent have approximate definitions. We don't know what omnipotent actually means and we don't know what infinite is. We just assume.

if they cannot have an effect on the other one(s) then they are no longer all powerful

Your logic dictates you to say that. It sounds reasonable enough, but as I said: applying logic to proving certain things about God is pointless because you start with an assumption.

You simply don't know how an omnipotent god can interact with another omnipotent god. It is just beyond any kind of comprehension.

Well Brian I believe we can verify these attributes from the Bible for many valid, logical, evidential etc... reasons and the Bible talks about the properties of God many times, so yes I do have truth for my premise and that truth is contained within the Bible.


You are not understanding the logic, two all powerful beings could not exist because then they would not be all powerful, it does not matter how they would interact with one another because as soon as another one exists by definition of the word they would not be all powerful because a power would exist that is as great as their own.

Dan

Danieltwotwenty wrote:You are not understanding the logic, two all powerful beings could not exist because then they would not be all powerful, it does not matter how they would interact with one another because as soon as another one exists by definition of the word they would not be all powerful because a power would exist that is as great as their own.

I just told you that you have no actual definition for all powerful/infinite/omnipotent... It's just an approximation. Do you understand that? As long as you can't define something in a clear manner, why are you insisting to tell me it's logical?

You are a finite being. God is infinite. You can't claim to understand how things work at an infinite level and tell me it's logical. The moment you say infinite, logic makes no sense.

Logic is a tool that works in connection with your level of knowledge. Your level of knowledge is finite. God is infinite. Therefore applying logic to a concept that you don't understand is pointless.

Hope this makes more sense. So that is why I have trouble understanding your logic that says multiples gods can't exist.

KBCid wrote:I know intimately the weaknesses in argumentation for many world views and Christianity itself has many variations all by itself. What I ended up doing was simply reading the biblical text without regard for any of the commonly held sect beliefs and let the text speak to me directly.
What I found was this. The gist of the message dealt with how we exist with others and with an entity described as God. Though it is fairly impossible to prove God in a scientific sense what did move me to Christianity was the fact that it expounded on a way that we should exist that is absolutely inline with the way I have always envisioned us existing together.
So for me I will be happy to exist following its concepts because I am in agreement with its position on everything that really matters between myself and others. If by some chance there isn't a God understood in quite the way we envision God to be then what have i lost by following its precepts?
For me there will be no loss. If I don't come back into existence once I die then I will never know that I was wrong and I will have been happy to have existed for the time I had in a manner that pleased me anyway.
Its a no lose situation. If there is a God whom I believe in and he is not exactly what I envision then my hope is that he will deal with such descrepancies knowing that we are very limited in our ability to comprehend. From the evidence I have found in the natural world that points to a designer existing I can attest that the designer is so far beyond our understanding that he deserves the title of God and I am willing to follow such a one as that.

I am quite close to your view with a "few" discrepancies.

I understand what you are saying Bryan, I understood it from the beginning but I do not agree with your conclusions.

We can understand God because he has revealed himself through his written word the Bible and also through his living word Jesus Christ.

His nature has been revealed as one God.

But going back to what we were discussing, I disagree that you cannot use logic to understand a being that is all powerful, if we know his properties we can draw conclusions from there, all powerful meaning above every other, logic dictates again that there couldn't be another because then God would not be all powerful and not be above all but would be equal to or possibly lesser and render the term all powerful into nonsense.

For the purpose of this discussion we should steer Clear of the word infinite as you say things become meaningless, lets use the term all powerful meaning more powerful than any other thing.

Hopefully losing the term infinite can help you understand.

Starting to feel like a skipping record here


Dan

It is a valid question, and I will do my very best to answer them in the order that you are asking them so I will begin with one, First in all fairness to me, I would like to know if you have read the Bible, I will not ask you if you understand it completely because no one does, Except God and I am sure Satan has a very good understanding of the Bible also.

If you read in the old testament in Genesis, It explains in detail about why it is in our nature to sin, Let me first say something that may make you feel a little better about it before you read it, God said by one man the world was CONDEMNED and by one man all mankind would be saved, Adam with a lot of help from Satan caused us to be condemned, And Jesus Christ being 100% sinless, Died on the cross to save us, That is the way it had to happen, I feel as if you will understand this all if you read it and pray for guidance as you read it all.

In the old testament they were always sacrificing this and that trying to please God, Yet for the full blunt of our sins there was nothing that could be done on this earth that was worthy to cleanse us of our sin's, And that was pretty much that, I also know that in the old testament that a whole lot of confusing things went on with freeing Gods people the Jews and a bunch more things, But for now lets get past that and let me just say that there was nothing that could be done on this earth that was going to make up for the huge sin that was committed.

I would also like to point out that no matter how harsh you feel God dealt with his people, He never, NEVER,NEVER, intended to sell us down the river, You must understand that, God never for one second planned to burn us all in a fiery pit called hell, You just have to stop and think it over and you will understand why I am saying this, Also bear in mind that I said that he never intended for all of us to go to hell, Yes some will and I will explain but not in this answer, To get you thinking about why I know God never intended to burn us all in hell, Well you just need to think it out.

God told Moses his name was I AM, Moses questioned God a bit farther about it and God said that he was in fact the Alpha and the Omega , The beginning and the end, Time means nothing to God, he can travel freely in and out and back and forth in time any way or any time that he chooses, He also said that it has all been written, We are not doing anything at any time that God does not expect, God has already seen our whole lives from beginning to end, Yes there were times before Jesus that God did in fact lose his temper with men, Not just a couple of guys out for a beer, I mean the whole human race.

But God has had a perfect plan the whole entire time to save each and everyone one of us, I can prove every word of this with scripture, But I really do not want to get into all of that detail right now anyway, So God from the beginning has had a plan for our survival, For our rebirth, For our redemption, To pay for what we have done in our lives, I struggled for many years thinking I would never be good enough to be with God until I figured out what God had been trying to tell me the whole time, So I have pointed out that God indeed does have a plan and not only that he has in fact already carried it all out, Let me explain what Jesus did for us the day that he died on that cross, you already know that he paid for the sins that we had committed in our lives, Everyone just about knows that, What people struggle with on a daily basis is that is not all that he did.

If there is one thing that God knows better than anyone it is people, He built us, He created us, Not only did he build a perfect machine when he built us, He did some modifications on us, If you are into cars and you want them to go faster or slower now a days you just buy a kit of some sort, And you would probably ask a mechanic which one you should buy, ( RIGHT ) , Why, because who knows cars better than a guy who builds them right, Well God built us, And no one knows more about us than God does and that’s just the fact of the matter.

Here is another thing that people give no thought at all too, When he first built us he was gonna build us to last forever, But something came up, Yea it really is that simple, Something just CAME UP, I will give you a clue but again I just cannot go into all of it right now, The thing that came up was Satan, It was in no way a surprise to God because of why, Because he knows the beginning and the end of everything, So God changed some things so that he could go ahead and take care of this problem, And the problem was Satan, God being the wonderful loving God that he is probably had to give it a lot of thought before he decided that the only way to handle Satan was the way that he will ultimately be handled, and that will be burning in HELL for ever and ever.

God loves everyone and everything on this earth and in heaven, And I hate to say this because from a human stand point I could not love Satan, But God being God did love Satan as he does all that he created, So I am sure that it was hard for God to decide that he must be destroyed in the end, So God out of not just wanting to destroy Satan right off the bat, It gave Satan a minute of time to do a lot of terrible things and one of those was in fact cursing the whole human race, It was never that God did not have a plan what it was is that God did always have a plan, And when he does the final house cleaning he will get everything that does not believe in Jesus.

That is really all you must do to assure yourself that there will be a place in heaven for you is to as you already know, Is to believe in Jesus Christ, In the end of the world as we know it Jesus will return, And anyone that does not believe in him from there heart shall in fact perish, Yea there ain't no way to sugar coat this for you if you do not believe in Jesus you will in fact burn in Hell, You will spend eternity in a place that was nor even really created to punish humans, hell was built for SATAN and his ANGELS and at first no one else But at the coming of the Lamb , I mean Jesus many things changed, That's is why we have and old and a new testament, Because so much changed after he came and sacrificed himself in a terrible, awful way, It really makes me cry to think of what he went threw.

But let me tell you a few more things that the average Christian just don't know, When Jesus died on that cross that day he did so many things that most people don't even realize that he did for them, All of those times when God lost his temper with people, There were many that he just plain cursed to spend eternity with Satan in HELL, Yes he did, Just as sure as I am sitting here typing this he sentenced them to the second death, and that my friends is Hell, But when Jesus came all those curses that I know of were removed from Gods people, Everything that God did when he was mad got reversed that day, I am sure that I am not wrong about any of this but if anyone would like to challenge what I am saying I am willing to listen and to explain.

Here is another thing that people just cannot get through there hard heads, Jesus paid for every sin that you had committed in your whole entire life, But guess what, Not only that he paid for every sin that you might commit in the future too, Now you might ask why he did this, I am gonna sum it up for in a real easy to understand way that everyone can relate to, because he is the mechanic, He is the one that built you, And there is never ever a time that he is not able to repair you, I can here you right from where I am sitting, Yea really, I can, Everyone is saying well why do people die, Because we have too, That's that, If we live forever then how are we ever gonna get to the promise land, I assure you that I am not looking forward to dying, Because it might hurt, But Jesus is on the other side of that pain and I will be looking forward to that instead of thinking about the pain.

So, To the Lady that I started writing all of this for I am gonna answer your questions right now, Yes I know you see people that commit hurtful mean sins every day, I also know that many of these people are saved too, and I am sorry because I know that sometimes us humans do tend to wish hurtful things on people that do us wrong, But they are still SAVED and they can still be with God someday, I promise you that I do not know everything, and I don't even think that I do, I really believe that there is still going to be a lot of education up there when we get to heaven, I know that if they do as Jesus told them to they will in fact get to heaven, But most religions believe that there will be different levels of heaven even once you are there, So some of us will have to work much harder once we get there to get to the best place.

I really do believe that we are being educated here and we will be educated some more once we get there, Besides that earth has a mechanism of some sort built right into it, And as long as you are not doing things Gods way as best you can, Then you will never reap the full joy that earth has to offer either, So what I am saying is if people are hurting you, They will not get away with it, Earth is a education place, And it does in fact educate you, I KNOW, I was a terrible person and I am far from great now, And until you really try the best you can you will find no real happiness on this earth.

Sin may seem fun when you are doing it, And it may look like they are having fun, But I promise you that they are not having fun in the long run. Also there will never be peace on this earth as you are speaking of until Jesus comes, Humans are not capable of that yet, Until Jesus himself comes and shows us how, I believe that is what the millennium is for, That’s not scripture that is my opinion, I hope that answered Question One.

Here goes two,

Hello Everyone:
Nithash how are you doing, I do hope you still come here often, God does not make mistakes, I also see a post where someone says that we have free will, This is true without free will how else would we possible be able to chose God over Satan, The world is full of choices, Some are good and some are bad, That is what makes us different and unique, We need individuality to live, We cannot possible all be the same, It is just not possible, God's design is perfect and it must be, We must have the right to chose to see if we will make the right choices, Sorry.

As far as everyone being the same and each and everyone of us should own all the same things also, well that has been tried before, and it is still going on in places like China, But after all of these years they are beginning to see that it won't work there either unless of course it is by force, So if I understand what you are saying your complaint is not really about God it is about people, God will not control people it is not his job, At least until the time comes, What you are describing is Communism and the people that still suffer from it walk around terrified each and every day, So if that is what you seek, Well there are passports.

I also agree with you 100%, Some people are just plain mean and they should not be mean but that is how we can tell them apart, Bad people hate and that is a very sad fact but it is not everyone, Or any particular race or people, yes there are under educated people that are full of hate and they always will be, I find that the majority of people every where I have ever been that there were many more nice people than mean and nasty people, I am here in the USA, I was born here, I have traveled for months at a time to 48 states and 4 3rd world countries and believe me I have seen some bad people, But PRAISE GOD, I have seen so many more good people than bad every where I have ever been.

I really wish I felt like writing a whole bunch of stuff about myself but I really just don't, But as far as bad people go I was one of the worst in my day, And as far as there not really being a God, Well I just plain feel sorry for you about that because I know for a fact that there is a God and he is very good at what he does, Back when I was not such a nice person, I was shot 3 times with a 45 caliber hand gun at very close range, There was a total of 3 bullets fired from the gun, There was a total of 6 holes in my clothing, That is an entrance and an exit hole for each and every bullet, And yet here I am.

I was stabbed two times in the back and had no idea they were even there until I was stabbed, I have been in 17 Motorcycle wrecks and 3 almost fatal auto accidents, Oct 30th 2007 , It is a long story but I laid down one day and just stopped breathing, 18 hours later my brother found me and called emergency, Before the emergency bus left the parking lot my heart quit beating, They told my brother I was gone, he did not even bother going to the hospital he figured there was no use, And no I am not one of those people who saw the light , All I really got from the whole deal was it seemed that many people were franticy working on me.

The very next thing I remember is knowing for some reason that I was dieing, I worried what would happen to my brother because he is much older than me, and I worried about who would feed my dog, I thought I was dead for sure and all of a sudden I saw the face of Jesus, That’s all just his face and the blood from the crown of thorns and I thought well God I am gonna go to hell and he said don't worry you are washed in my blood, The next thing that I remember I was no longer being bother I was in an elevator surrounded by about 7 doctors, They had moved me from ICU to a regular room.

One doctor stayed behind when the rest left, and he told me that it took him 4 hours to bring me back, And I thought from where I wonder, He also told me that he was the cardiologist on duty when I arrived that night, I tought little more about it, Later it seemed that day a pretty nurse came into my room and it seemed I had seen her before, And she said I was here when you came in, And she asked me did I know where I was at and I looked around and guessed hospital, I really did not know, And she asked if I knew how I got there, I told her that I thought someone had played a trick on me, She laughed, And she then asked did I know how long I had been there and I said since yesterday, She told me then that I had been there 14 days and had been in a coma, She also told me that it took them 4 hours to bring me back, This time I asked from where, She said to life.

I thought it was a joke, Then she told me that if I had have gotten any doctor besides the one that I had gotten that he would have just given up and called me for dead, We talked a while and then she left and came back from time to time because she said that I was a miracle, I was there a couple of more weeks, They were worried because my brain had been without air so long that I would never be OK again, I was still hallucinating after all of that time, It took over a year for me to be able to go to the bath room and all the way back by myself, Many miracles happened that day to me and for me, So please don't deny my God, Everything that I have told you can be proved by Police records, hospital records, and other emergency services, Everything even back to the car wrecks and motorcycle wrecks can be proven.

I don't know about you but that is a God I would trust any old time, It turns out that I had several diseases that seemed to be affecting me in many adverse ways, And I had caught Pneumonia on top of all of that and did not even no it, I knew that I hurt a lot but did not know why, So when you get distressed with all the bad people in the world, Remember the Doctor and the nurse that worked for hours to save the life of someone that they did not even know, And the next time that you are wondering about Gods existence, Remember he took time out of what I must assume is a very busy schedule to come and be with me and to tell me that I had nothing to fear from death that he had already taken care of that for me too.

And the next time you are sick remember that he just really up and cured me of 6 fatal diseases, And when I was terrified for my life he took time to calm me and stay with me till I was calm, And by the way one of those diseases I had was a liver disease and it was 100% incurable, What else you should know is that I was a terrible sinner at that time of my life, I deserved to get whatever had have came to me that night, But instead of Justice that night he was giving out pardon's, So if I were some of you I would give that Bible a second look and try a tad harder to understand what it is saying because it just might save your life someday. Today I am completely healthy and feel great.

Thanks a Lot for reading
Norman