One piece, the Kalam

[Hieronymus]

Also, Hier, how can you follow the biblical timeline of Genesis when there are two contradictory chronologies between Gen. 1 and Gen. 2?

Not contradictory at all.
Do your homework, Hog.
(Hog and Hier disagree... )

 

[Archaeopteryx]

IIRC:
1 - Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2 - The universe began to exist
3 - Therefore the universe has a cause.

You can replace "universe" with just about anything to make this work.

There's always a cause (this is usually a sequence or a combination of causes) for something to begin to exist.
A loaf of bread, an egg, the tides, our lives, the universe as we experience / perceive it.
Why would life and the universe be an exception?
They show signs of decay.

When you say "begins to exist," are you referring to things that come to be ex materia?

 

[Hieronymus]

What evidence do you rely on, for a global biblical flood?

Everything that suggests or implies it was a real event.
This is quite a lot. Otherwise i wouldn't be convinced.

There are TV stations exclusively devoted to creation science, Hier. What are you talking about?

Aha, okay, we don't have that here in Europe, at all.

We have a local one that is on every day. Also, I don't think people make fun of creation science. I know I don't. I have given it careful study and I am convinced is as but a propaganda mill. You might take a hard look sometime at how many of these creation-science experts sport bogus university degrees, for example.

Yeah, well, they shouldn't lie, obviously, but i think the other side has similar integrity deficits.
I'm not too interested in certain people and their human nature.
It's about the evidence and the case you can make either for or against something.

 

[Hieronymus]

When you say "begins to exist," are you referring to things that come to be ex materia?

Not necessarily.
Anything that begins / began to exist has a cause.
A loaf of bread too.

 

[Hieronymus]

What if you have mistakenly convinced yourself that you have the truth? Should that not be apparent by your inability to demonstrate to others that you have the truth?

What if they're not open to it?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Not necessarily.
Anything that begins / began to exist has a cause.
A loaf of bread too.

It seems you're equivocating: when you say that the universe "began to exist" you mean something quite different to what you mean when you say that a loaf of bread "began to exist."

 

[Hieronymus]

It seems you're equivocating: when you say that the universe "began to exist" you mean something quite different to what you mean when you say that a loaf of bread "began to exist."

No i don't, i just mean they began to exist.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

No i don't, i just mean they began to exist.

In what sense?

 

[Hieronymus]

In what sense?

In the sense that it hasn't always existed.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

In the sense that it hasn't always existed.

Leaving aside the problems that raises, are you talking about things that "begin to exist" ex materia or ex nihilo?

 

[Hieronymus]

Leaving aside the problems that raises, are you talking about things that "begin to exist" ex materia or ex nihilo?

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/one-piece-the-kalam.7928090/page-20#post-69450396
So both.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

http://www.christianforums.com/threads/one-piece-the-kalam.7928090/page-20#post-69450396
So both.

How can you be talking about both if the support for P1 refers to things beginning to exist ex materia (e.g., a loaf of bread)? If P2 then refers to the universe beginning to exist in another sense, then you are equivocating.

 

[Hieronymus]

How can you be talking about both if the support for P1 refers to things beginning to exist ex materia (e.g., a loaf of bread)? If P2 then refers to the universe beginning to exist in another sense, then you are equivocating.

No, youŕe posing a false dichotomy i.m.o.

 

[The Cadet]

If they don't know the One true God, then yes that counts. You'll know them by their fruit.

Well that means literally nothing. Many of the "christians" I know of have produced downright awful fruit, and many of the atheists I know have produced great fruit. Not that the passage ever made much sense, as you can be a terrible person and still offer a very convincing appearance of being a good person. And not that your criteria helps me much, given that I'm also skeptical of claims to knowing a "one true god".

IIRC:
1 - Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

We have not established this, as we have never observed anything to begin to exist in the sense you use the term. Or do you believe that the universe began to exist from existing matter? In every case that we observe something "beginning to exist", what we are observing is not new matter, or things conjured from nothing, what we are observing are new configurations of existing matter. Nothing was created in this sense when I bake a loaf of bread; I merely reconfigured existing matter in a way that suits me. This is very different from the kind of "begins to exist" that the Kalam posits for the universe, unless you believe that the universe came into being from existing matter, which would undermine your point somewhat.

I reject this premise as unfounded.

2 - The universe began to exist

Again, we don't know that this is the case either.

There's always a cause (this is usually a sequence or a combination of causes) for something to begin to exist.
A loaf of bread, an egg, the tides, our lives, the universe as we experience / perceive it.

Here's that conflation again. Again, whenever we observe something "beginning to exist", what we are observing is existing matter being rearranged in a novel manner. Most of us never observe any "new matter" beginning to exist. I'm not aware of any such examples.

 

[The Cadet]

No, youŕe posing a false dichotomy i.m.o.

And you're just throwing out words hoping they stick. It's not a dichotomy; "begin to exist" can have more meanings. But its usage in the argument must be consistent. And yours isn't.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

No, youŕe posing a false dichotomy i.m.o.

No false dichotomy; I'm just trying to clarify what you mean by "begins to exist" so as to prevent you from equivocating.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Dictionary definition of faith
"complete trust or confidence in someone or something."

You have faith if your confident that what you just said above is true.

Words can have multiple meanings based on context. You are not aware of this?

Your definition works when one says for example "faith in my abilities". That is trusting your abilities based on evidence, ie your previous success in using those abilities.

"Religious faith" however, is entirely different.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yes, and the molecules are characters, they're used as such.

No, they ARE not characters.
They are presented at such sometimes for ease of understanding and for the sake of simplicity.

But they are NOT characters. They are molecules.

There's no point in denying this.

There rather is no point in pretending that analogies for the sake of simplicity and ease of communication are to be taken as literal truth.

 

[quatona]

I don't think point 1 is refutable, to be honest..

The challenge is not to refute it - the challenge is to support it conclusively.

Then let's put time in it.

Time began to exist.
Time is a property of the universe, it's a part of 'space-time'.
The one million dollar question is obviously: What caused it to begin to exist?

Well, the 100million dollar question is: What does "cause" mean, in the absence of time?
And, once, we have an answer to that question, there will be the billion dollar question:
Does this definition allow us to pretend that "cause" (in this meaning) is the same concept in which "cause" is used in the premise.
(ÍOW: I sense a false equivocation coming our way.)

 

[DogmaHunter]

The claim "God is real" can never be shown to be wrong, but the fact that many people make this claim, is reason to believe God is possibly real.

Blatant argument ad populum.