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Prove God exists...sure, no problem.

Loudmouth

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Why is this so difficult to a logical mind?

Because those who claim that God exists use logical fallacies to support God's existence.

Your entire argument is based on a logical fallacy called argumentum ad ignorantiam or "appeal to ignorance". What you are arguing for is a God who exists in the gaps in our knowledge. IOW, you are claiming that God exists because we are ignorant of how the universe came about.


What happens when we remove God from those questions?

1. Where did all the matter in the universe come from?

2. Where did energy come from?

3. Is there any way for something to come from nothing?

These are all good questions. Adding "if there is no God" to the beginning of the questions does nothing to help us find the answer. In fact, assuming God exists doesn't help us one iota in answering these questions.

In response to my own questions, I have to say "I don't have the slightest idea" to each one.

So how do you logically proceed from "I don't know" to "God did it"? Can you give us a logical argument without commiting the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy?

Is there any possible way to explain the origins of the universe using purely natural means?

I say there's not...it's impossible for something to come from nothing.

You have just committed your second logical fallacy, the argument from personal incredulity.

I would strongly suggest that you go to this wiki page to read more.
 
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quatona

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If it´s impossible for something to come from nothing you will have to explain where your god came from.
 
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Freodin

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Perhaps my reasoning is completely wrong, but I have thought long about that and as yet have not found a flaw in it...

Point 1: Something from nothing.

In my view, this "contradiction" comes from a basic human inability to understand "nothing". As said before, my own reasoning could be completely wrong, but I have come to the conclusion that "nothing" is a meaningless term. "Nothing" does not - cannot - exist.

So "something from nothing" is simply wrong. Something from something else would be correct. As for identifying this "something else", I see no reason to introduce a divine being here, especially the Christian God, for which this non-existent "nothing" plays a rather large part in his "creation ex nihilo".

My personal favorite is primal chaos - a state undescribable and undefinable for the human mind, as close to "nothing" as you could get.

Point 2: the fine-tuning of the universe for life.

Why the universe exists, and why it exists in the way it does is unknown, perhaps even unknowable. All we can say is that this universe allows "life" as we define it, and that other cofigurations, which would not allow life would be imaginable.

But to conclude from the physical laws that allow life to a creator of these laws is invalid. Why? Because if a creator creates indeed "ex nihilo", he is not bound to the laws of physics to implement these same laws to allow life. For such a creator, any laws would allow life - he makes the laws.

So it is not possible to conclude from a certain set of laws to such a creator.

But again, my concept of primal chaos would allow for the existence of a universe tuned for life. Chaos allows for everything. And the only reason why we wonder how all this is possible is because we are here to wonder about it.
 
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FishFace

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First, I am in the correct forum...Creation is exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm in the Creation and Evolution forum. This is not remotely related to the topic at hand though.

You're discussing the cosmological argument, a subject of apologetics and theology. Creation here, as far as I know, regards creation in relation to evolution. There's no doubt as to whether evolution happened at the beginning of the universe - there was nothing alive, so it can't have.

I am not saying that God just appeared...and no one has bothered to answer my questions posted later...

I'll state it again for everyone's benefit...

Was there a beginning to space, time, and matter at any point in the past?

There was a beginning to matter. At the big bang, there was only energy. Whether there was a beginning to the other two, and to energy, I don't know.

That is my question...if you are going to refute any of these, please do so. If not, then agree with the question, and I have another one.

Uh, I don't think one can refute a question - one can answer it

I'm going somewhere, I promise.

I look forward to it (I actually mean that...)
 
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FishFace

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Well, if I have proved that a god exists, then I have accomplished all that I tried to accomplish.

I don't agree with outsider on this one. All you've proved is that either there is an infinite series of causes, or there was a first cause. Slapping the label "God" on the first cause is presumptuous and potentially misleading.
If the first cause was just a random blip, then I presume you wouldn't call that God; if you did, you would be leaving the door open for equivocation - you can't assign any properties to this random blip.

Plus, you haven't established that there could not have been an infinite causal chain.
 
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Loudmouth

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I don't agree with outsider on this one. All you've proved is that either there is an infinite series of causes, or there was a first cause.

And even then you run into the problem of causing time. Cause and effect implies a time line. If there was not time, or if time is different than how we experience it, it doesn't make since to ask for a cause, especially a First Cause. It's a bit like asking where a circle starts.
 
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KCfromNC

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This approach was very popular with a certain banned member (with his many different accounts and personalities). I wonder if he's back or if this kind of preaching is just something that Christians learn to emulate?
 
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RealityCheck

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First you have to define "beginning."

The difficult concept that people frequently fail to grasp is that space and time are co-dependent - one is another form of the other. This is the same as the relationship between matter and energy - one is another form of the other. Einstein's most famous equation, E=mc^2, shows the relationship between energy and mass mathematically, and although by itself it isn't to be applied to any and every situation, it provides the basic concept - matter can be turned into energy, and energy can become matter.

In the same way, space and time themselves are interrelated. It's easy enough to think of space having a beginning, if you think of space as being completely separate from time. But you cannot do so - space is as related to time as energy is to matter. This leads to the following --> Our dimension of "time" does not exist if "space" does not exist.

For most of the history of the universe this isn't a problem - because most of the history of the universe can be defined as having a certain size of "space" and thus a corresponding "time" at which that size of space occurred. The problem breaks down when you get to the theoretical "singularity" that preceded the big bang. If, indeed, the entire content of the universe were converted entirely to energy, and occupied absolutely no space at all (the definition of a singularity), then no space = no time. That is, it becomes meaningless to ask "when" the universe came into being, or "when" the big bang occurred - because that event itself is the "beginning of time", as it is also the "beginning of space".

I know - that's not easy to grasp. We're very much linear creatures and we view time as being a completely separate dimension of our existence. But that's not the case. As Einstein theorized, and as has been verified empirically, time is as maleable as space is, and is entirely co-dependent on and with space.

One of the implications of this is that our temporal understanding of "cause and effect", that the arrow of time points in one direction and causes always precede effects... simply does not apply to this singularity. At a singularity, where neither space nor time exist or have any meaning at all, Cause need not precede Effect. Cause and Effect really don't even have any meaning, because time is non-existant. To ask "what caused the big bang" is not a meaningful question because that presumes that time, as we understand and perceive it, exists separately from the universe. It does not, and that's confusing and unintuitive to most people. Okay, everyone - it's just that some people are able to set aside "that's confusing".

If there are other external factors to the universe... if there are other universes, for example, other dimensions outside of our universe, a "meta-time" that is not the same as the "time" of our universe... well, currently we don't have any way to describe or study that. The laws of physics are bound only to our universe. The laws of physics, really, only apply back in time to a certain time shortly after the big bang. Prior to that time, a very short time indeed (about 10^-43 seconds after the big bang, if I recall correctly), the laws of physics as we know and understand them did not exist. Or, rather, the basic forces that we know (gravitation, electromagnetic, nuclear) were entirely indistinguishable - the force between two masses would be no different from the force of attraction due to their charges, for example. Of course, at this time, matter itself doesn't appear to actually have yet existed!

But anyway - the point that I'm taking a long time to make is what Stephen Hawking stated much better, numerous times, in his books. We cannot study something that does not adhere to the laws of physics, and thus we cannot ask and answer any meaningful questions. If we ask "what was there before the universe" that is a meaningless question to science, because there is no "before" in our framework of space, time, matter, energy. "Before" the universe is meaningless because "before" implies time already existed prior to the universe - but as I said above, it did not.

One branch of theoretical physics, from which we got string theory (and later M theory), seeks to address some of these questions. But those are relatively new and still at the stage of untested theory - about where Einstein was in his thought experiments regarding special and general relativity. It took years, decades even, before anyone could come up with ways in which to test Einstein's theories and verify their validity. These new branches of physics will likely take as long or longer.
 
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RealityCheck

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If it´s impossible for something to come from nothing you will have to explain where your god came from.


And actually, it's been well demonstrated that it is possible for something to come from nothing. Fellow Christians, you really need to get your head out of the old and catch up. It's been decades since Hawking et al. showed how it is possible for matter to spontaneously generate out of nothing, provided that the matter exists for an extremely short time.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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I contend that the answer to these questions is exactly the same as the answer to the question "Where did God come from?".

Third question...

If there is no God, is there any way for something to come from nothing?
Yes. Take a looksee at quantum mechanics.

Quantum fluctuations, circular time, the nature of the lawless nothingness, etc.

I also would like to know how you can have a vaccuum without the idea of "space", which is considered to be one of the things created in the "Big Bang Theory" along with matter and time.
The Big Bang was simply an expansion of a finite amount of energy confined in an infinite volume.

The Casimir effect evidences the notion of 'things causing themselves / things existing without cause'.

Note also that you do not prove the existance of your god (or anyone else's pantheon) using arguments from ignorance: "We don't know how the universe came to be, so therefore God must have done it".
 
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Loudmouth

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I just finished the book "Dreams of a Final Theory" by Stephen Weinberg. It's a great book, even if it is a bit dated. Dr. Weinberg used a great analogy for the fine-tuning argument.

Imagine that there is a world called Earthprime. It is the same as our Earth in all respects except that the planet is covered in clouds at all times. Therefore, the physicists on Earthprime would not have astronomical data to work from, their whole universe would be Earthprime. They would then observe that the amount of heat coming into their universe is just the right amount to support light. Just a few extra watts above or below the observed value would result in an iceball or pressure cooker type of world. They would conclude that the universe had been fine-tuned just for them.

That is, until they invent spaceflight and space telescopes (or ground based IR telescopes for you nitpickers). They would then discover that their world is one of billions and that other conditions do occur that are not conducive to life. It would become apparent that life arises where it is conducive for life to arise. That life changes to fit it's environment, not the other way around.

I thought this was a very good analogy. Feel free to use it, and make sure to site Doc Weinberg.
 
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FishFace

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It's worse. It's like asking for the number less than 0 in the set of positive integers, or for the point at the start of a line, which isn't on the line. "Before time" is an unintelligible phrase.
 
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Loudmouth

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It's worse. It's like asking for the number less than 0 in the set of positive integers, or for the point at the start of a line, which isn't on the line. "Before time" is an unintelligible phrase.

Or my personal favorite, a place that is north of the north pole.
 
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LittleNipper

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Well, every indication to me is that GOD exists across time and across dimentions. I really see no biblical reason indicating that this is not so and at least several indications in the bible to suggest this to be the case.

I like GOD's term for HIMSELF ----- I AM. It covers past present and future. JESUS said, that before Moses was, I AM."
 
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Loudmouth

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Well, every indication to me is that GOD exists across time and across dimentions.

But do you have a logical argument which evidences God's existence?

I like GOD's term for HIMSELF ----- I AM.

That's the Bible's term for God. The Bible was written by men, whether inspired by God or not.

I have yet to hear God tell me what his name was.
 
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Skaloop

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I like GOD's term for HIMSELF ----- I AM. It covers past present and future. JESUS said, that before Moses was, I AM."

"I am" is present tense. It does not cover past and future. That responsibility falls to "I was" and "I will be," respectively.
 
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Lord Emsworth

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... then wage war on the rest of the universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krikkit#Krikkit

 
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LittleNipper

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But do you have a logical argument which evidences God's existence?



That's the Bible's term for God. The Bible was written by men, whether inspired by God or not.

I have yet to hear God tell me what his name was.
Well, Benjamin Disraeli (twice the Prime Minister of Great Britian and a converted Jew) was once asked a very similer question. He stated in in two words, "The Jew." There is no other logical explanation that this vastly ancient culture group has not been assimilated or long destroyed except GOD has a promise & purpose for them.
 
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