17th April 2003 at 11:46 PM Absolute_Truth said this in Post #1
A painting without a painter? A building without a builder? and finally a Creation without a Creator?
Now, as I read this board, I constantly see, "Is it scientifically proven?" or something along the lines of that. Well, I would love to see some scientific evidence where nothing has created anything before. In fact, I believe science proves the opposite.
You are really doing two things.
1. Asking : what is the origin of the universe?
2. Using god-of-the-gaps theology and saying "if there is a gap, then it
must be God in it"
For the origin of the universe, there are currently 5 hypotheses that I know of. That the universe was created by God is
one of them. So far, there is insufficient evidence to eliminate
any of them. So, the existence of the universe gives you the background to hypothesize the existence of God, but
not proof of the existence of God.
As to something from nothing, we do see matter popping into existence from the nothing of vacuum all the time. They are called virtual particles. They don't last very long but, if energy is provided to them, they become permanent.
Never in any scientific experiment has life ever been created(I realize we can create amino acids, with primordial soup, but that theory has been recently discredited,
As to life coming from non-life, see
http://www.siu.edu/~protocell/
http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html We can discuss that in detail if you want.
The formation of amino acids in a primitive atmosphere has
not been discredited, but misrepresented by creationists. There are also several other ways that amino acids can have been, or are being made today, by chemical reactions.
Atheists, chuck common intellect at the door to avert from being held responsible to a God.
We are not discussing atheism here, but science. If you want to rail against atheism, be my guest. But you aren't going to defeat atheism by misrepresenting science or using science. Science is
agnostic.
The sad thing is no matter how much you force yourself to believe something inconceivable, the ultimate reality is that all will face judgement and have to give an account for how they acted on earth.
Since science isn't atheism, this is not relevant. Most Christians are evolutionists. They simply view science as telling them how God created and Genesis telling them the who and why of creation.
Let's be reasonable, in order to know for sure that God does not exist, you would have to know everything!
Not necessarily. It depends on how God is defined and what God requires. If you frame God such that there are observational consequences that
must be there if God exists, and you find the opposite, then you will have falsified God.
This is the danger of creationism. It misrepresents God and does falsely set God up so that He can be falsified.
Using Iraq as an example, if we see weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, do we need to know everything to decide that they are in possession of them?
This is a bad example. No one has ever falsified that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction by showing some. This is a case where someone has been leading you on and you haven't been critically evaluating the evidence.
So, I believe it is much more reasonable to believe in a God,
Fine. You stated this as your belief. Your reason, however, is flawed:
because the latter requires that you know everything.
You are saying that the entire search space must be searched to falsify the hypothesis that God exists. Yes, that is one way to falsify a hypothesis. It's how the hypothesis that unicorns live in Europe was falsified.
But that isn't the
only way a hypothesis can be falsified.
I would like to know your thoughts on this, especially atheists.
Shouldn't this be in the Apologetics Forum?
