A reasonable argument for God? (myth, quote, Christian, believe)

[TRANSPONDER]

Sorry for the delay in getting back. In fact I'm now watching the nothing from nothing debate. and some of the other posters have replied.

Originally Posted by KingDavid8

Sure, just as a piece of writing can be shown to have been typed by a cat walking across a keyboard. It's certainly not impossible. Cats do walk across keyboards now and then, hitting letters at random, and they certainly COULD end up in an apparently non-random order. But that doesn't make it the most likely explanation.

As I said already. The cat analogy is a false one as applied to natural order. I see no reason to doubt that the hypothesis of the coalescing of matter would not produce its own physical laws by what works staying together and what doesn't not staying together. There is no reason to compare it to an apparently contrived message popping up through a sheer random throw or a cat walking on keyboards. There is inherent natural order but it does not require a designing mind. This is simply (as said) the watchmaker argument rehashed.

Great, but I'm not arguing for "a suddenly appearing God". I believe that God always existed. Essentially, I believe that time began to exist when the universe began to exist, thus anything which would be behind the creation of the universe (be it God or something else) must have always existed.

Yes, I noted that you opted for a eternal God. I just ask how the existence of a complex invisible fully cognizant creative being could always have existed. Can you explain? Just saying it was always there explains nothing. I can explain (in fact the talk is going on now) as to how matter could appear from nothing and it could be going on right now. Thus the idea matter from nothing through natural processes is a somewhat better explanation than a fully developed being without an origin having always been there.

If you can't see that it is a huge assumption which violates reason (if not the 1st Theomodynamics law) then I have to lump it in as a Faith statement like pointing to Revelations 1:8, 21:6, and 22:13 as though it was evidence of something.

And what evidence, if any, points to a naturalistic origin origin for the universe rather than a divine one?

I believe I answered this. The mass of evidence for the development of inorganic and organic entities without the need to postulate and intelligent design despite intense efforts to try to find some.

While there is some mileage in pointing to questions about cosmic origins as with biological origins, following the signs back to the start and at least coming up with a better explained mechanism than Goddunnit has to be the better hypothesis.

Or, as I believe, the "cement" also always existed. I think anything around at the moment of the creation of the universe probably already existed.

I think so too and I would put my money on this big bang being an event in a much wider cosmos (though I can't prove that of course) and there might be a lot of similar events and cosmic extinctions going on all the time. That is the argument I put against proving that evolution can't be true because it violates Th1. The earth is not a closed system.

Of course, as you said, it moves the question to what made the 'cement' outside the universe in the first place? If it was always there that violates Thermo 1. The only scenario that doesn't is if something really can come from nothing and that Theist - favoured mantra, like physics reliability and the speed of light limit is true and even axiomatic, but not right down at quantum level.

What natural law does a God who always existed violate? You keep insisting it does, but can you explain what law you're talking about and how a God who always existed would violate it? If God always existed, then there is no "coming from nothing" involved, since there never was "nothing".

I repeat. I just ask how the existence of a complex invisible fully cognizant creative being could always have existed. Can you explain? Just saying it was always there explains nothing.
If you can't see that it is a huge assumption which violates reason (if not the 1st Thermodynamics law) then I have to lump it in as a Faith statement
If it was always there then it still had to create the matter from outside the universe and that violates Thermo 1. The only scenario that doesn't is if something really can come from nothing
I see no reason to doubt that the hypothesis of the coalescing of matter would not produce its own physical laws by what works staying together and what doesn't not staying together.
Following the signs about cosmic origins as with biological origins back to the start and at least coming up with a better explained mechanism than Goddunnit has to be the better hypothesis.
Thus the idea matter from nothing through natural processes is a somewhat better explanation than a fully developed being without an origin having always been there.

Fnally the argument that, if the 'cement' outside of the universe was always there, then why can't it always have been there without the extra complication of a complex and intelligent invisible deity to make it do what looks like natural processes anyway? It is multiplying logical entities without any good reason to drag a god into it. I put this to a theist a few decades ago. His reply was 'God has given us intelligence to dismiss absurd theories'.

I would have replied that an eternal uncreated god doing everything by an act of will is more absurd than it coming about through the observed natural forces (atomic valency, mineral combination and chemical reactions and natural selection of bioforms is case you ask what) but the thread was closed and I never got the chance of reply.

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by old_cold

Why is God necessary for that?

I'm not saying God is "necessary", just that theism explains why the universe is capable of creating and sustaining life, while naturalism does not. Things can happen "just because", but I lean towards theories that explain things rather than those that don't.

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Seems like you're taking what looks to be a gut feeling and stretching it pretty thin to prove a point. Do you have anything other than that feeling to demonstrate the odds as you see them?

Go back to my original post on page 31.

I don't see the difference between it happened "just because" and "god is a mystery".

The former isn't an explanation for why the universe is capable of creating and sustaining life. The latter is.

Magic isn't a theory, so what you're proposing can't be a viable alternate theory by definition.

Once again, I'm not proposing "magic" as a theory.

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

That's not how science works. It looks for explanations which account for the data and make successful predictions about future observations. So far, the currently accepted science does that the best. You haven't even given an explanation yet, much less tested it against the data or made useful predictions. Until you can, there's not even another explanation to investigate.

All right. Tell me how "naturalism" works as an explanation, then.

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by KingDavid8

I'm not saying God is "necessary", just that theism explains why the universe is capable of creating and sustaining life

Not really for two reasons:

1) The explanation itself is devoid of explanation. You are simply declaring that "god" explains the creation and origin of the universe. However all the same questions we had open about the universe are now open about this "god" coupled with the compounding issue that the "god" is an assumption and you have offered no evidence, data, argument or reasons to suggest such an entity is credible, let alone exists. So you have explained nothing, but created more problems.

2) There is a difference between "explanation" and "compatability". God explains nothing but it is "compatible" with the creation of the universe. You simply have to define that god in such a way as to be compatible with what we observe. When asked any questions such as "how, why, where, when" you simply have to answer "That is just how god did it, who is to know the mind of god".

So no, your god explains nothing, is so vaguely designed as to be used as a cop out explanation for anything at all, it's existence is assumed not evidenced, and in fact the idea raises more questions than it answers... especially given it does not answer any at all.

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Since you seem to inherently know the odds without being able to tell us what they are or how you know them - which is more likely, the Christian god, the FSM or the Invisible Pink Unicorn? Please rank them from most to least likely and give at least an order of magnitude guess as to the probability of each.

1. Christian God - about 90%
2 (tied) FSM - <0.1%
3 (tied) Invisible Pink Unicorn - <0.1%

Keep in mind, though, that I'm not arguing for the Christian God in particular on this board, but God in general. That something which we may call "God" exists is more like 99% for me. Monsters and unicorns don't explain why the universe is capable of creating and sustaining life, but some sort of "God" explains it nicely.

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by KingDavid8

1. Christian God - about 90%
2 (tied) FSM - <0.1%
3 (tied) Invisible Pink Unicorn - <0.1%

I would not presume to speak for the other user but I assume when he asked you for the odds he meant he wanted to see your workings on how you came to those numbers.

I assume what he did NOT mean is for you to simply make up a few convenient numbers and simply stick "%" after them.

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by KCfromNC

Yep, humans create stuff. Therefore, since the universe was created, it was created by humans. That's the logical conclusion from your analogy - which just highlights that it's a pretty poor attempt to confuse the issue.

Humans aren't the only ones that create stuff, so it's not a logical conclusion from my analogy at all. I'm not the one trying to confuse the issue here. Nice try, though.

To use this analogy to pretend that god is a better explanation, you'd have to find something god created to show it is analogous to people in your story.

Are you really that confused? I'm arguing that God created the universe. Did you really not know that?

And by the way, since we know humans exist and create stuff and have no similar knowledge of gods, my conclusion in the first paragraph is more likely than your idea of a creator god.

Huh? Since humans have only been around for a few million years and the universe is billions of years old, how can your conclusion be likely at all? Seriously, if you don't start making some kind of sense, I'm not seeing the point in responding to you.

Since it is more likely than your god explanation, and you've told us repeatedly that your god explanation is more likely than natural causes, you must accept that humans created the universe.

In the future, please say things that make sense. Doing so makes these discussions actually go somewhere.

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo

The main issue with it (aside from the fact you just declared it and provided no actual evidence, workings or argument that it is so) is it has the built in assumption that "life" as we have it now is the only form possible and so a universe that produces life requires some explanation.

No, I'm not talking about "life as we know it", but life in general.

This is simply not an assumption open to us, and certainly not to you. Who is to say that a universe configured differently would not also produce something that would evolve, become aware, and call itself life, but be totally unlike anything we have imagined.

Life completely unlike anything we have imagined would still require a universe that is capable of creating and sustaining life.

The assumption is based on pure arrogance, to think that our life IS life as life has to be.

Great, but I'm not making any such assumption.

However as we keep finding life unlike anything we thought possible... such as life working with silicon rather than carbon and life working on chemo-synthesis in place of photosynthesis and in the entire absence of sun light... our arrogance on how we think life needs to be is being tested.

I'm not talking about life as we think of it, but life in general. Life based on silicon or working on chemo-synthesis is still LIFE, and would require a universe capable of creating and sustaining life in order to exist and thrive.

You would be entirely unable to tell the probability of pulling an ace out of a deck of cards if you did not know a deck contains 52 cards - 4 of them aces. Yet when it comes to the creation and evolution of life itself you are missing a hell of a lot more than 2 simple variables, and yet you have the gall to pretend you can make declarations of the probability of things happening or not.

We can make declarations of the probability of things without knowing the exact odds all of the time. I can say that the idea that the CIA was behind the Kennedy assassination, while not impossible, is incredibly unlikely. Even though I don't know the exact odds that it happened.

[KingDavid8]

Originally Posted by orogenicman

The existence of a universe is not evidence of a creator.

In and of itself, no. But the existence of a universe capable of creating and sustaining life is better explained by a purposeful creator than by a naturalistic origin.

Where's your evidence for a creator.

I give my argument back on page 31.

And if a creator created the universe, who/what created the creator?

As I already explained, I believe that anything that existed at the moment of the universe's creation (be it God or the matter and energy that comprises the universe) likely always existed, since time began to exist when the universe began to exist. Thus God, if He created the universe, always existed. If, hypothetically, God did not create the universe, then whatever did so always existed.

Furthermore, what purpose did this creator have for creating the universe? You seem to know, so why don't you share it with us.

As I already explained, the purpose was to create a universe capable of creating and sustaining life.