Scientific Proof For The Existence of God/ Heaven

[Kylie]

I'll just leave these here for those interested...

I could do the same thing with the starship Enterprise. I could also do it with characters from Harry Potter.

What's your point?

 

[white gardenia]

Let me guess, since I haven't read the whole thread or watched the videos. This proof is because of quantum something or other?

If so, it's wrong.

No...in fact if your referring to quasi mystical belief systems which have grown out of David Bohm's quantum theories or out of the Copenhagen Interpretation (as popularized in films like "What the Bleep Do we Know/" etc etc..) then this is at the opposite end of the spectrum
In fact in the interview which i posted Frank Tipler characterized physicists who embrace Copenhagen as "not competent" (at about 2:50 minutes into the interview) Tipler, like David Deutsch and Richard Dawkins has embraced mwi precisely because it does away with non-locality and the vaguely mystical elements of Copenhagen and De Broglie–Bohm
(although as far as I'm concerned mwi doesnt actually solve the problem of non-locality and actually creats more problems than it solves...this is one issue where i completely disagree with Prof. Tipler)

But no, to make a long story short...this has nothing to do with quantum mysticism or the metaphysical left. quite the opposite...

 

[digitalgoth]

Exactly.

While I get the concerns over AI, I think it misses the point.

The point of application software, is to accomplish a specific task.
Before one even thinks about building an application, there is a business need.
You kinda have to know what you're going to make and why, before you can start. So indeed, for all practical purposes, software is a tool.

AI is about having those applications improve themselves through machine learning.

Once the applications stop doing what they are meant to do, they become useless.
So there would be exactly zero reason for developing an AI engine that can become "aware" and be capable of emotional decision making and stuff.

The only reason I can imagine that something like that might be build, is in some kind of science experiment or similar, to better understand how brains work and psychological processes etc.

I just don't see it happening.

I'm going to go off on a rant, not at you, because there's been a lot of trigger words lately for me about AI and it angers me.

I spend all day writing AI for financial services and predictive marketing, and as a hobby on the side biological modeling and sports prediction, and you're absolutely correct. I don't think people quite understand how difficult it can be to make an AI system do what you want in the first place. You aren't going to design something to have all this extra nonsense tacked on where it starts "thinking" about things, just pattern recognize the inputs and generate the desired output.

All of this nonsensical fear people have about AI is ridiculous. The only way this could possibly happen, is if you strapped a crappy made outsourced AI system to an anti-aircraft gun and train it to recognize certain types of enemy's planes and fire on them when it sees them. Assuming you didn't screw up and have it target commercial jetliners or not have any sort of error checking, all it will do is identify appropriate targets and shoot at them, which is exactly what you're going to want it to do. It isn't going to suddenly classify some child as a MIG 17 and shoot at it. Those kind of bugs are found in the lab, the finished product doesn't just update itself, that's just stupid.

I keep hearing this silliness about "AI escaping the lab and killing us all". Really? I deal with evolving self-learning systems (they tend to do better than back-propagation for complex interactions) and I don't recall taking any of the output from the network execution and wiring it up to the network card, 9mm sig sauer, build a bunch of robots that are ten times stronger than humans, and somehow let it "decide" that the most efficient move is to kill us all.

As you were saying, when I build an AI system for <purpose> once it hits the threshold of an acceptable solution to a problem domain the evolutionary training system stops, because it's done. It is now a tool or "product" and we move on with our lives. There's no reason for it to keep updating itself for conditions that serve no purpose, nor to update itself to have capabilities it didn't have before. If I really wanted it to do that, I'd make version 2.0 and release that as a patch/reinstall/MS Update, or whatever.

People are worried about weaponized AI, which could be a problem maybe. But you aren't weaponizing AI, you're taking a weapon, and adding AI to it for targeting purposes most likely. A targeting system is a basic classification system, and you're not going to bake in decision making to it. You're going to have a remote on/off switch and make the weapon hot or not and start targeting whatever you designed it to do. It's more automating the weapon where it in theory requires less manual soldier operations, keeps costs down, more accurate targeting, less casualities, etc.

I think people see too much science fiction and Terminator movies and just think that the military, which famously ignored nuclear launch codes for years so that they'd never lose control over the stockpile in case of a first-strike, will be replaced by skynet.

People seem to think AI can do things in and of itself. It can't. It doesn't make decisions outside of what you set it up to do in the first place. There's only so much input information and output information going on. Only so many actions it can do. An AI automating a production line for GM and checking car quality is not going to have the ability to start making killer robots. No one would build that, because that would be a waste of time and money. And it wouldn't work. You just don't go down to the mall, buy a $19.95 AI machine, and plug it into an assembly line and say "Make me stuff that generates a lot of profit". You can't even get smart human beings to accomplish that successfully 90% of the time, why would people think an AI would be able to accomplish that?

 

[Kylie]

No...in fact if your referring to quasi mystical belief systems which have grown out of David Bohm's quantum theories or out of the Copenhagen Interpretation (as popularized in films like "What the Bleep Do we Know/" etc etc..) then this is at the opposite end of the spectrum
In fact in the interview which i posted Frank Tipler characterized physicists who embrace Copenhagen as "not competent" (at about 2:50 minutes into the interview) Tipler, like David Deutsch and Richard Dawkins has embraced mwi precisely because it does away with non-locality and the vaguely mystical elements of Copenhagen and De Broglie–Bohm
(although as far as I'm concerned mwi doesnt actually solve the problem of non-locality and actually creats more problems than it solves...this is one issue where i completely disagree with Prof. Tipler)

But no, to make a long story short...this has nothing to do with quantum mysticism or the metaphysical left. quite the opposite...

Then perhaps you could tell me what the argument is, because I don't fancy spending 47 minutes watching a video.

 

[Radrook]

Okay here's a brief synopsis...Frank Tipler started out as an atheist, so his first book on this topic (The Physics of Immortality) was an attempt to show that any human, living or dead, could be virtually rendered in a computer simulation. This may have seemed far fetched when the Physics of Immortality was first published but it seems significantly less far fetched now.... especially when respected scientists and researchers like Stephen Hawking are constantly warning us about the dangers of artificial intelligence. The first artificial intelligence will most likely be the first simulated human consciousness. ( ie computers are already more "intelligent" than human...they just cant process the information in any meaningful way) When people talk about artificial intelligence they are actually talking about a computer which is conscious/ self-aware in the way that humans are... most likely reverse engineered from a human. And so once this first simulated consciousness has been developed, we just do every physically possible variation of that simulation and we will have brought back every person who has ever lived (or could possibly have lived)
Tipler points out that we will be able to simulate all possible sets of memories and interactions for these simulated personalities… meaning that you, me and everyone that we know and love, can be brought back, along with all of our shared memories and experiences…..everyone who has ever lived can be reunited in this idealized version of an afterlife…indeed, as Tipler points out, this perfect virtual reality state seems almost indistinguishable from the Judeo -Christian description of heaven.
But then comes the question of how humanity (or whatever humanity evolves into) would be able to facilitate the computational power necessary to make this virtual heaven possible...or how we could make this "heaven" last forever...since the simulation would still be taking place within a finite universe. This is where the concept of an "Omega Point" comes into the picture.
As Wikipedia notes “the supposition of a closed universe evolving towards a
future collapse state is key to Tipler’s Omega Point. Within this universe, Tipler assumes a massive processing capability. As the universe becomes smaller, the processing capability becomes larger” Tipler points out that in the final fleeting moments of universal collapse we will have access to infinite energy and infinite computational power. Within this context we will be able to simulate anything, no matter how complex....and infinite computational power will facilitate infinite subjective time within the simulation....
Yikes I'm starting to realize that this isn't such a short synopsis and I actually have to get back to work....Ill have to explain the second half of this theory at some point t tonight holy:

Simulations remain simulations regardless of what they are attempting to simulate or how accurately they simulate.

 

[white gardenia]

Simulations remain simulations regardless of what they are attempting to simulate or how accurately they simulate.

Again most atheists still believe that human consciousness is nothing more and nothing less than a program running on a specific kind of computer...and therefore there is no reason that this program can't be transferred to a more durable kind of computer
Very intelligent researchers like Dmitry Itskov, the folks at Google Calico, Ray kurzweil etc all believe that human downloads will be possible in the near future... theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/11/-sp-live-forever-extend-life-calico-google-longevity?espv=1

 

[white gardenia]

Then perhaps you could tell me what the argument is, because I don't fancy spending 47 minutes watching a video.

Okay I'll try to give you a quick sypnopsis
What is the Bible and/ or the Judeo-Christian tradition actually describing when it references supernatural phenomena like eternal life, afterlife, human souls.. ? to paraphrase Arthur C Clarke advanced technological progress may be indistinguishable from magic..and there are many people who believe that souls are actually a description of simulated VR technologies which have yet to be developed.
again, not to be too repetitious, but i have to point out the numerous similarities between a virtual reality AI simulation (as described by Elon Musk, Bill Gates etc…) and the Judeo-Christian description of a human soul. Both are seemingly ephemeral yet indestructible conveyers of human consciousness. again the Bible does not ever tell us what souls are made of. the Bible never tells us that souls are not made of simulacra.
But Maybe before I describe the theory ....I should ask you ...do that believe that human based artificial intelligence is possible? ...ie do you believe sam Harris, Stephen Hawking, elon musk and bill gates when they say that this type of artificial/ machine intelligence would be possible to develop....(and I'm referring to strong human based Ai as opposed to weak or narrow ai)

 

[white gardenia]

I'm going to go off on a rant, not at you, because there's been a lot of trigger words lately for me about AI and it angers me.

I spend all day writing AI for financial services and predictive marketing, and as a hobby on the side biological modeling and sports prediction, and you're absolutely correct. I don't think people quite understand how difficult it can be to make an AI system do what you want in the first place. You aren't going to design something to have all this extra nonsense tacked on where it starts "thinking" about things, just pattern recognize the inputs and generate the desired output.

All of this nonsensical fear people have about AI is ridiculous. The only way this could possibly happen, is if you strapped a crappy made outsourced AI system to an anti-aircraft gun and train it to recognize certain types of enemy's planes and fire on them when it sees them. Assuming you didn't screw up and have it target commercial jetliners or not have any sort of error checking, all it will do is identify appropriate targets and shoot at them, which is exactly what you're going to want it to do. It isn't going to suddenly classify some child as a MIG 17 and shoot at it. Those kind of bugs are found in the lab, the finished product doesn't just update itself, that's just stupid.

I keep hearing this silliness about "AI escaping the lab and killing us all". Really? I deal with evolving self-learning systems (they tend to do better than back-propagation for complex interactions) and I don't recall taking any of the output from the network execution and wiring it up to the network card, 9mm sig sauer, build a bunch of robots that are ten times stronger than humans, and somehow let it "decide" that the most efficient move is to kill us all.

As you were saying, when I build an AI system for <purpose> once it hits the threshold of an acceptable solution to a problem domain the evolutionary training system stops, because it's done. It is now a tool or "product" and we move on with our lives. There's no reason for it to keep updating itself for conditions that serve no purpose, nor to update itself to have capabilities it didn't have before. If I really wanted it to do that, I'd make version 2.0 and release that as a patch/reinstall/MS Update, or whatever.

People are worried about weaponized AI, which could be a problem maybe. But you aren't weaponizing AI, you're taking a weapon, and adding AI to it for targeting purposes most likely. A targeting system is a basic classification system, and you're not going to bake in decision making to it. You're going to have a remote on/off switch and make the weapon hot or not and start targeting whatever you designed it to do. It's more automating the weapon where it in theory requires less manual soldier operations, keeps costs down, more accurate targeting, less casualities, etc.

I think people see too much science fiction and Terminator movies and just think that the military, which famously ignored nuclear launch codes for years so that they'd never lose control over the stockpile in case of a first-strike, will be replaced by skynet.

People seem to think AI can do things in and of itself. It can't. It doesn't make decisions outside of what you set it up to do in the first place. There's only so much input information and output information going on. Only so many actions it can do. An AI automating a production line for GM and checking car quality is not going to have the ability to start making killer robots. No one would build that, because that would be a waste of time and money. And it wouldn't work. You just don't go down to the mall, buy a $19.95 AI machine, and plug it into an assembly line and say "Make me stuff that generates a lot of profit". You can't even get smart human beings to accomplish that successfully 90% of the time, why would people think an AI would be able to accomplish that?

I completely agree with you ...I think that the current fear mongering regarding ai is ridiculous.
But again weak or narrow Artificial intelligence is completely different from strong or Human based artificial intelligence ... consciousness is not the same thing as intelligence...ie machines are already more intelligent than humans, they just don't process the information in the very specific way that Humans do.. .but most atheists still believe that human consciousness is just a program running on a specific kind of computer...and therefore there is no reason that this program can't be transferred to a more durable kind of computer ....
this is very different from the idea that machines could evolve all by themselves into some sort of self aware super being ....that's seems much less likely imo....it could be possible but the resulting intelligence would be completely different from what ray kurzweil and other strong ai proponents are talking about

 

[Kylie]

Okay I'll try to give you a quick sypnopsis

Thanks.

What is the Bible and/ or the Judeo-Christian tradition actually describing when it references supernatural phenomena like eternal life, afterlife, human souls.. ? to paraphrase Arthur C Clarke advanced technological progress may be indistinguishable from magic..and there are many people who believe that souls are actually a description of simulated VR technologies which have yet to be developed.

To me, this seems about as rational as asking what Aesop's Fables were describing when they mention talking animals. Were they really just hyper intelligent shapeshifting aliens?

again, not to be too repetitious, but i have to point out the numerous similarities between a virtual reality AI simulation (as described by Elon Musk, Bill Gates etc…) and the Judeo-Christian description of a human soul. Both are seemingly ephemeral yet indestructible conveyers of human consciousness. again the Bible does not ever tell us what souls are made of. the Bible never tells us that souls are not made of simulacra.

Given that no one has ever proposed a definition of "soul" that everyone can agree on, and no one has ever provided evidence for a soul, I think the question of what makes up a soul is rather meaningless.

But Maybe before I describe the theory ....I should ask you ...do that believe that human based artificial intelligence is possible? ...ie do you believe sam Harris, Stephen Hawking, elon musk and bill gates when they say that this type of artificial/ machine intelligence would be possible to develop....(and I'm referring to strong human based Ai as opposed to weak or narrow ai)

You mean a computer that can function as a brain? I don't see why not.

 

[white gardenia]

Thanks.

your welcome...!
Hmmm this might be a long rambling post....before you read it you might want to read the Wikipedia profile on anthropic principle - a concept which paradoxically justifies both religious/ Christian and secular atheist worldviews.. Anthropic principle - Wikipedia anthropic principle presupposes that all of the particles in the universe have a specific role ...they all work in concert to keep the universe running smoothly ...similarly macrostructures like black holes or wormholes also have specific roles to play in the history of the universe....strong anthropic principle notes that there should be no special or separate category for the macrostructures known as human life...we are not somehow special or separate from the rest of nature....therefore we also probably have a role to play in the development of the universe...and we may even have some clues as to what our role should be

To me, this seems about as rational as asking what Aesop's Fables were describing when they mention talking animals. Were they really just hyper intelligent shapeshifting aliens?

I would say that aesops fables have relevence to the human condition...just as Shakespeare has relevance to the human condition...but why does religious text seem to transcend all mediums and have such a profound effect on people and on society in general .. Why does the advent of religion seem to be such a significant event in human history....as a christian I would say that the Bible and other related religious texts seem to emphasize in clear and concise terms where we are as a species and where we are trying to go....i would say the bible lays out the human condition in three imporant ways #1 the human desire for immortality.....# 2 the war between good and evil #3 the potential dangers of evil
Here is something we all instictively know...if thete is no afterlife, no heaven..... then this existence is reduced to a meaningless nightmare The great russian author tolstoy affirms this in his 1879 masterwork "A Confession" .. Tolstoy affirms that suicide is the most logical response to a life without meaning..what difference does it make if you live every second to its fullest? you will still forget everything when you die what difference does it make if you spent the last 20 years in prison or or the last twenty years living like a king. your memories and consciousness are simply erased at the moment of death ...as if you never existed to begin with. suicide is simply cutting to the chase .....
So the desire for immortality is paramount in the human condition...we all want eternal life for ourselves and for the ones we love...This is what draws people to religion...
So then we come to the concept of souls. the bible lay out this idea of souls as ephemeral yet indestructible conyeyers of human consciousness . in fact several different cultures and religious faiths have come to this same conclusion...intuitively it seems right that there should be souls....some core aspect of our consciousness which carries on after death..unfortunately science says that , as of yet, there is zero evidence for souls or for supernatural phenomenon of any kind (besides a few unexplained natural mysteries like wave function collapse, the "something" of the universe arising from the " nothing" of quantum vacuum etc etc
So the bible kind of explains the way things should be but the real world doesn't seem to match up with the higher platonic reality represented in religion...So a few people like frank tipler looked at the bible and thought hmmm maybe were supposed to make the souls... Or maybe God will make them through us....after all the bible describes how Christians are integral to carrying out gods plans spreading the gospel winning souls to Christ and generally trying to establish the platonic reality of heaven here on earth...("thy will be done thy kingdom come....on earth as it is in heaven"

So this concept of souls seems to match pretty closely with the scientific conception of artificial intelligence...if and when human based artificial intelligence is developed we may be able to spin it so that eevery physically possible variation of that intelligean is represented which would give us an Ai simulation of every person who had ever lived or could possibly have lived...and these ais would live in whatever kind of simulated environment that they would like.... in communication with the other ais...so this would basically be heaven or at least a very close approximation of how we imagine heaven....so once we develop this kind of virtual reality the distinction between natural and supernatural becomes irrelevant....we can live in whatever kind of environment that wed like....which is why the next problem becomes the problem of evil.

But yikes, this post is turning out to be even longer than i expected.and unfortunately I have to go to work...I'll try to continue this train of thought later...

 

[Chriliman]

I heard the part about how he claimed that Dawkins was wrong and miracles are not actually violations of any physical laws.

But if miracles can happen without violating physical laws, what do you need God for?

You need God because God is defined as initial cause of all good things. So by definition, you can't have a miracle without first having God.

Surely, any miracle, since it obeys physical laws, can be explained WITHOUT God!

If you disregard the above definition, then yes, you have a point, but again, by definition you would not have the laws of physics if God doesn't first exist to be the prime cause of the laws of physics and thus the cause of miracles that obey the laws of physics.

 

[white gardenia]

your welcome...!
Hmmm this might be a long rambling post....before you read it you might want to read the Wikipedia profile on anthropic principle - a concept which paradoxically justifies both religious/ Christian and secular atheist worldviews.. Anthropic principle - Wikipedia anthropic principle presupposes that all of the particles in the universe have a specific role ...they all work in concert to keep the universe running smoothly ...similarly macrostructures like black holes or wormholes also have specific roles to play in the history of the universe....strong anthropic principle notes that there should be no special or separate category for the macrostructures known as human life...we are not somehow special or separate from the rest of nature....therefore we also probably have a role to play in the development of the universe...and we may even have some clues as to what our role should be




I would say that aesops fables have relevence to the human condition...just as Shakespeare has relevance to the human condition...but why does religious text seem to transcend all mediums and have such a profound effect on people and on society in general .. Why does the advent of religion seem to be such a significant event in human history....as a christian I would say that the Bible and other related religious texts seem to emphasize in clear and concise terms where we are as a species and where we are trying to go....i would say the bible lays out the human condition in three imporant ways #1 the human desire for immortality.....# 2 the war between good and evil #3 the potential dangers of evil
Here is something we all instictively know...if thete is no afterlife, no heaven..... then this existence is reduced to a meaningless nightmare The great russian author tolstoy affirms this in his 1879 masterwork "A Confession" .. Tolstoy affirms that suicide is the most logical response to a life without meaning..what difference does it make if you live every second to its fullest? you will still forget everything when you die what difference does it make if you spent the last 20 years in prison or or the last twenty years living like a king. your memories and consciousness are simply erased at the moment of death ...as if you never existed to begin with. suicide is simply cutting to the chase .....
So the desire for immortality is paramount in the human condition...we all want eternal life for ourselves and for the ones we love...This is what draws people to religion...
So then we come to the concept of souls. the bible lay out this idea of souls as ephemeral yet indestructible conyeyers of human consciousness . in fact several different cultures and religious faiths have come to this same conclusion...intuitively it seems right that there should be souls....some core aspect of our consciousness which carries on after death..unfortunately science says that , as of yet, there is zero evidence for souls or for supernatural phenomenon of any kind (besides a few unexplained natural mysteries like wave function collapse, the "something" of the universe arising from the " nothing" of quantum vacuum etc etc
So the bible kind of explains the way things should be but the real world doesn't seem to match up with the higher platonic reality represented in religion...So a few people like frank tipler looked at the bible and thought hmmm maybe were supposed to make the souls... Or maybe God will make them through us....after all the bible describes how Christians are integral to carrying out gods plans spreading the gospel winning souls to Christ and generally trying to establish the platonic reality of heaven here on earth...("thy will be done thy kingdom come....on earth as it is in heaven"

So this concept of souls seems to match pretty closely with the scientific conception of artificial intelligence...if and when human based artificial intelligence is developed we may be able to spin it so that eevery physically possible variation of that intelligean is represented which would give us an Ai simulation of every person who had ever lived or could possibly have lived...and these ais would live in whatever kind of simulated environment that they would like.... in communication with the other ais...so this would basically be heaven or at least a very close approximation of how we imagine heaven....so once we develop this kind of virtual reality the distinction between natural and supernatural becomes irrelevant....we can live in whatever kind of environment that wed like....which is why the next problem becomes the problem of evil.

But yikes, this post is turning out to be even longer than i expected.and unfortunately I have to go to work...I'll try to continue this train of thought later...

Okay I'll try to finish my train of thought from that last post

one final parallel that I'll expound on is the concept of hell and the fact that the Bible warns about the dangers of hell on numerous occasions....as i already mentioned in this thread i am a universalist...i believe that everyone will eventually end up in heaven regardless of religion color or creed....i think that this is inevitable.... but then why does the bible warn us so often about hell and how sinful/ wicked behavior will lead down the road to hell?..here is one potential explanation
Some people might argue that while it is overwhelmingly more likely that our descendants will create virtual reality heavens, there is a slight chance that VR nightmares or hells could potentially be created…this is highly highly unlikely (I would actually say impossible) since there will be countless sets of checks and balances that will prevent this from ever happening…but it is just one more reason that should try to attain immortality now so that we will be able to have a say in how the future plays out …we want to make sure that our values are represented in whatever form of civilization controls the vast computational capabilities of the far future.
This simulated ai technology will be developed one way or the other…so we want to make sure that "good" people are in charge when that time comes ....ie I would rather have someone like joel osteen controlling my simulated reality than say, the Marquis de Sade. and this might be why so many faiths emphasize the potential dangers of sin and the idea that sin can have eternal consequences
Once we take that inevitable step into virtual reality....we will be able to live however we like in whatever simulated realities that we choose to fashion for ourselves...so perhaps the Bible is warning us, in the starkest terms possible, to choose carefully which direction we go as a society.. to make sure that we are fashioning for ourselves heavens and not hells....
Anyways these are some potential parallels between tiplers theory and key aspects of the Biblical account...I think it's possible that the bible is describing a more highly evolved universe in terms that primitive people could understand. These are some parallels that i have noticed...tipler himself has written an entire book on how the omega point theory overlaps with and/ or reaffirms the judeo christian worldview. if your intrtested you can check it out here.

The Physics of Christianity: Frank J. Tipler: 9780385514255: Amazon.com: Books

 

[white gardenia]

You need God because God is defined as initial cause of all good things. So by definition, you can't have a miracle without first having God.



If you disregard the above definition, then yes, you have a point, but again, by definition you would not have the laws of physics if God doesn't first exist to be the prime cause of the laws of physics and thus the cause of miracles that obey the laws of physics.

Yes that's exactly right...as frank tipler points out in the video, Richard Dawkins and nearly every other atheist scientist/ researcher admits that whatever force set the universe into motion had to be outside of time and space.... And by definition it had to be supernatural ...because according to the the known laws of physics it is impossible for "something" to be created out of "nothing"...even if this doesn't mean a personal God as seen in the judeo christian tradition it means, at the the very least, that something superseding the already established laws of physics had to be involved...and it could mean a personal God who is guiding/ shaping the universe towards a predefined goal....(perhaps in a fashion similar to David bohms "implicate order" theory ) ....
as frank tipler notes in the interview, richard dawkins and other atheists recognize the supernatural "outside of space and time status " of the initial singularity but just refuse to recognize it as God.

 

[Kylie]

You need God because God is defined as initial cause of all good things. So by definition, you can't have a miracle without first having God.

But by this logic, you couldn't have a hurricane either, or a tsunami, or cancer. So those things are just as miraculous as an actual miracle. Indeed, EVERYTHING becomes as miraculous as a miracle, so why not use the word miracle to refer to everything? But that would make the word Miracle meaningless.

If you disregard the above definition, then yes, you have a point, but again, by definition you would not have the laws of physics if God doesn't first exist to be the prime cause of the laws of physics and thus the cause of miracles that obey the laws of physics.

Of course, you would need to convince me that there would be no physics unless there was God. You don't expect me to take such an extraordinary claim based only on your say-so, do you?

 

[Kylie]

Yes that's exactly right...as frank tipler points out in the video, Richard Dawkins and nearly every other atheist scientist/ researcher admits that whatever force set the universe into motion had to be outside of time and space....

Why should I pay any attention to what Richard Dawkins thinks set off the Big Bang? He hasn't been trained in that field, has he? He's a biologist, what does he know about the formation of the universe.

The argument from authority doesn't work unless the authority is in a relevant field.

 

[white gardenia]

Why should I pay any attention to what Richard Dawkins thinks set off the Big Bang? He hasn't been trained in that field, has he? He's a biologist, what does he know about the formation of the universe.

The argument from authority doesn't work unless the authority is in a relevant field.

But i think the point is that this is conventional wisdom amongst scientists... time and space started at the big bang so therefore the "prime mover" had to be sitting outside of time and space....there are only few scientists who might openly disagree with that ...i think roger penrose believes in some sort of eternal return wherein the universal timeline loops back on itself....but i dont think thats a widely accepted model....
But even in his model something is coming from "nothing".... There have to be "supernatural " laws of physics (laws that supersede the known physical laws) to explain that impossibility...it isn't necessarily proof for a personal God or the judeo Christian God but it is proof that there is something superseding time and space....
I mean I am open to other arguments...are there other arguments out there to explain a "something" state arising from a "nothing" state...?

 

[Chriliman]

But by this logic, you couldn't have a hurricane either, or a tsunami, or cancer. So those things are just as miraculous as an actual miracle. Indeed, EVERYTHING becomes as miraculous as a miracle, so why not use the word miracle to refer to everything? But that would make the word Miracle meaningless.

According to Jesus, God doesn't cause storms or diseases, otherwise he wouldn't have rebuked the storm while on the boat or healed the sick and said their ailments were from the devil, not God. A miracle is God using what he has made to bring about a good outcome in a way we previously thought impossible. Again, this is how Christianity defines it. You're welcome to disregard the definition, just don't expect your arguments to hold water when you disregard what Christians actually believe.

Of course, you would need to convince me that there would be no physics unless there was God. You don't expect me to take such an extraordinary claim based only on your say-so, do you?

I'm not worried about convincing you, I'm just doing my job of giving accurate information in a loving way. I can't force you to believe me, nor would I want to. I hope I'm helping you better understand what Christians believe so you can ask more important questions and provoke deeper thought.

 

[Kylie]

But i think the point is that this is conventional wisdom amongst scientists... time and space started at the big bang so therefore the "prime mover" had to be sitting outside of time and space....there are only few scientists who might openly disagree with that ...i think roger penrose believes in some sort of eternal return wherein the universal timeline loops back on itself....but i dont think thats a widely accepted model....
But even in his model something is coming from "nothing".... There have to be "supernatural " laws of physics (laws that supersede the known physical laws) to explain that impossibility...it isn't necessarily proof for a personal God or the judeo Christian God but it is proof that there is something superseding time and space....
I mean I am open to other arguments...are there other arguments out there to explain a "something" state arising from a "nothing" state...?

I read this book a while back, and it presents a far better discussion of the topic than I could give. A Universe from Nothing

 

[Kylie]

According to Jesus, God doesn't cause storms or diseases, otherwise he wouldn't have rebuked the storm while on the boat or healed the sick and said their ailments were from the devil, not God. A miracle is God using what he has made to bring about a good outcome in a way we previously thought impossible. Again, this is how Christianity defines it. You're welcome to disregard the definition, just don't expect your arguments to hold water when you disregard what Christians actually believe.

Actually, Romans 8:28 says God uses ALL things to do good.

8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.​

I'm not worried about convincing you, I'm just doing by job of giving accurate information in a loving way. I can't force you to believe me, nor would I want to. I hope I'm helping you better understand what Christians believe so you can ask more important questions and provoke deeper thought.

So you make a claim as extraordinary as saying that there would be no physics without God, but when it comes time to back up that claim, you say, "Oh, I don't need to provide evidence."

Yeah, good luck with that.

 

[Chriliman]

Actually, Romans 8:28 says God uses ALL things to do good.

8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.​

I agree with that scripture and also believe those who don't love God are responsible for causing evil, but that God can still bring good out of the evil actions of others, hence Jesus' death by the hands of sinners, but then resurrection by the hand of God.

So you make a claim as extraordinary as saying that there would be no physics without God, but when it comes time to back up that claim, you say, "Oh, I don't need to provide evidence."

Yeah, good luck with that.

Accurate information is a form of evidence.