One piece, the Kalam

[quatona]

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

What is the cause of a loaf of bread?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Christ.

Mohammed, Hercules, Krshna, Budha, Tom Cruise,....

He had an unmistakeable effect on the world for one.

Just like Mohammed, Hercules, Krshna, Budha, Tom Cruise,....

Also, obviously to a believer the universe and all that is in it is caused by God.
Our reality is the testable effect.

It's also the "testable effect" of the transcendent timeless eternal magical chicken-cheese sandwich.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

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?

Okay, let's consider this for a moment. If the beginning of the universe is the beginning of time, then the universe always existed, in the sense that it has existed for all time.

 

[DogmaHunter]

If you wanted to know you would have looked for it yourself, so no, iḿ not gonna.
But if you have a specific question, that's cool. Shoot!

He just asked a specific quesiton and you peeps refused to answer it.

 

[quatona]

Not necessarily.
Anything that begins / began to exist has a cause.

I´m wondering what the foundation is for this claim that keeps being presented as though it were unquestionable.
If, by any chance, the foundation would be our experience, the more honest way of putting it would be:
"Everything in the universe that begins to exist ex materia has a material cause."

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I´m wondering what the foundation is for this claim that keeps being presented as though it were unquestionable.
If, by any chance, the foundation would be our experience, the more honest way of putting it would be:
"Everything in the universe that begins to exist ex materia has a material cause."

But qualifying the statement like that makes it unserviceable for apologetics.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Just realize that if you're always skeptical of every truth claim then you'll never discover the actual truth.

That kind of smells as an argument against skepticism and for gullibility.

Logically, truth has the power to free the skeptic of his doubts, but he is still free to doubt.

No. Evidence does that. Truth is unkown until the evidence exposes it.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Paging @anonymous person... Seems more relevant to respond to this in the current thread:

Are you referring to things that come to be ex materia or ex nihilo?

Why are you deliberately omitting the material cause?

 

[Hieronymus]

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".



We have not established this, as we have never observed anything to begin to exist in the sense you use the term.

Wrong.
We have established it, we call it cause and effect, causality.
But you're free to disagree.

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

There's not much disagreement about this among scientists in the relevant field(s).
The evidence strongly suggests it.

 

[Hieronymus]

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

You love that word, don't you?
It's about cause and effect, causality, regardless of what begins to exist.
It's just about things beginning to exist, which is an effect.

Ex nihilo in this case means "not from anything in the universe", by the way.

 

[Hieronymus]

"Religious faith" however, is entirely different.

How would you know?
I do know and i can assure you it's not different.

 

[Hieronymus]

Well, the 100million dollar question is: What does "cause" mean, in the absence of time?

Exactly the same.

 

[Hieronymus]

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.

Since they're used as characters, to carry a meaning, they are characters, or at least used as such.

 

[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)?

It doesn't matter, it's about causality, cause and effect.

 

[quatona]

Exactly the same.

The same as what?

 

[Hieronymus]

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

I think heś trying to ask:
Why would anyone believe the Bible is the (written) Word of God?
What makes someone believe it is a trustworthy Book of Truth?
But that's a completely different subject...

 

[Hieronymus]

What is the cause of a loaf of bread?

You want me to explain by what means bread is made?

 

[Hieronymus]

The same as what?

As what it means otherwise.

 

[Hieronymus]

I´m wondering what the foundation is for this claim that keeps being presented as though it were unquestionable.
If, by any chance, the foundation would be our experience, the more honest way of putting it would be:
"Everything in the universe that begins to exist ex materia has a material cause."

Things can not cause themselves to begin to exist, otherwise it would have had to exist prior to its existence.

 

[quatona]

As what it means otherwise.

Quit obviously it can´t.