What caused the Universe?

[-57]

Yes, indeed.

You can't get them to stay on topic when discussing the Creation Week.

They always ... without exception ... want to bring up everything BUT the creation events.

That's why I tell others, when discussing creation, never let someone bring up events that happened after that week, or the discussion is over.

I think it's an admission that he has lost the argument in the thread he started.....there is the requirement for a God...and as a humanist you must change your opinion or change the thread.
Of course when he moved outside of creation week he also presented the bible out of context showing that he didn't really understand the text presented in the scripture.

 

[doubtingmerle]

You can't self create stuff from nothing.

I can't, no, but the universe can. It regularly creates a particle of mater and anti-matter out of nothing, which later come together and annihilate each other.

There is the requirement for a creator. Considering the creator could not have created Himself...the creator had to have always existed if there is stuff today.

OK, but as I said, the creator can be nothing more than mindless forces of nature that always existed. That is one of my options. How do you know that the creator that always existed was not simply the mindless forces of nature?

 

[AV1611VET]

I think it's an admission that he has lost the argument in the thread he started.....there is the requirement for a God...and as a humanist you must change your opinion or change the thread.
Of course when he moved outside of creation week he also presented the bible out of context showing that he didn't really understand the text presented in the scripture.

Yes.

You can tell if a person is genuinely wanting to know, or just wanting to play scientist.

The Bible exposes them.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Imagine a medical student wanting to know how a child is formed in the womb, and all he wants to talk about is where that child will go to school.

 

[AV1611VET]

I can't, no, but the universe can. It regularly creates a particle of mater and anti-matter out of nothing, which later come together and annihilate each other.

No, they aren't created out of nothing.

Virtual particles are created out of energy, and the area they are created in is not a vacuum, but a conglomerate of energy criss-crossing each other within a cube of space.

 

[doubtingmerle]

OK, so now you're moving the goal post....and presenting scripture in an out of context fashion...all the while missing the true meaning.

Uh, no, just responding to what you said. You called your witness (the writer of Genesis) on the witness stand. So far this is the only evidence you have, your witness. So why can I not cross examine your witness?

Why do you insist on distorting the bible, inserting false meaning to it? Why can't you honestly understand what it says...then disagree with it if you choose to?

Uh excuse me, I was not distorting what your witness says. Your witness, the writer of Genesis, says God commanded Abraham to set out to kill his son. Do you agree that this is what your witness says? There is no distortion here.

The way you presented Abraham and his son clearly tells me you haven't made the link between God and His Son...and the scapegoat God provided Abraham. You tend to mock something you know nothing about.

Uh, yes, I did make that link, and in my opinion both are pointless. God should not have told Abraham to set out to kill his son. And God should not have said he could not have forgiven us unless we first kill his son. But we digress. If you want to stay on subject, why bring this up?

Back on subject. The only source for your claim for the universe is this witness you call on the stand, the book of Genesis. Fine. Can I now get back to cross examining your witness?

 

[AV1611VET]

Do you agree that this is what your witness says?

No.

There is no distortion here.

You mean like plutoing "sacrifice" to "kill"?

 

[-57]

I can't, no, but the universe can. It regularly creates a particle of mater and anti-matter out of nothing, which later come together and annihilate each other.

You can't create a particle of matter or antimatter out of nothing.

OK, but as I said, the creator can be nothing more than mindless forces of nature that always existed. That is one of my options. How do you know that the creator that always existed was not simply the mindless forces of nature?

This creates yet another problem for you....if forces of nature existed from eternity past..."now"... would never get here. Just as eternity in the future will never be reached. 1 zillion years into the future will be just as close as eternity is now. There had to have been a creator of stuff.

 

[-57]

Uh, no, just responding to what you said. You called your witness (the writer of Genesis) on the witness stand. So far this is the only evidence you have, your witness. So why can I not cross examine your witness?

Uh excuse me, I was not distorting what your witness says. Your witness, the writer of Genesis, says God commanded Abraham to set out to kill his son. Do you agree that this is what your witness says? There is no distortion here.

Uh, yes, I did make that link, and in my opinion both are pointless. God should not have told Abraham to set out to kill his son. And God should not have said he could not have forgiven us unless we first kill his son. But we digress. If you want to stay on subject, why bring this up?

Back on subject. The only source for your claim for the universe is this witness you call on the stand, the book of Genesis. Fine. Can I now get back to cross examining your witness?

I suppose you're entitled to your opinion. Because you want to put some sort of spin on scripture...doesn't make it false.

You, now claiming to be above God says..."God should not have told Abraham to set out to kill his son." This once again shows you don't know what your talking about.

 

[doubtingmerle]

No.

You write this in response to, "The writer of Genesis says God commanded Abraham to set out to kill his son. Do you agree that this is what your witness says?"

Lets look at what Genesis 22 says:

1 After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 2 He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’​

Does that refresh your memory of what is written? Would you please explain to the jury why you disagree with the statement, "The writer of Genesis says God commanded Abraham to set out to kill his son?"

 

[Kenny'sID]

You say it all came from nothing when you say your imaginary God created everything from nothing.
We don't know where it all came from and we admit it, you on the other hand claim an imaginary God did it all, where is the sense in that?

I said nothing of an imaginary God.

Where it the sense in "don't know"? Makes no sense at all to me this would all be such a big mystery. We have a great explanation for it all, and I'm going with it...makes perfect sense to me over your alternative.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I suppose you're entitled to your opinion. Because you want to put some sort of spin on scripture...doesn't make it false.

I don't see how my statement can be called spin. Genesis 22 clearly says that God told Abraham to set out to kill his son. If you don't think this is true, tell me what you think Genesis 22:1-2 is saying. If my interpretation is spin, then please state in your own words what you think Genesis 22:1-2 is saying, and why that is different from what I say it says.

You, now claiming to be above God says..."God should not have told Abraham to set out to kill his son." This once again shows you don't know what your talking about.

I make no claim to be above God.

I do make a claim to have a better grasp of moral principles compared to the (human) writer of Genesis. I say this, not because I am a superior moral person to that writer, but because I stand on the shoulders of giants. So no, I am not claiming to be morally superior to God. I am claiming that the moral deficiency of Genesis 22 puts the status of Genesis as a divine authority in question.

Your statement seems to say that, if God told you to kill your son, then it would be right to do that.

If I thought I heard the voice of God telling me to kill my son, I would not do it. I would go to a shrink. What would you recommend a person do if he hears a voice claiming to be God and telling him to kill his son?

 

[doubtingmerle]

I said nothing of an imaginary God.

Where it the sense in "don't know"? Makes no sense at all to me this would all be such a big mystery. We have a great explanation for it all, and I'm going with it...makes perfect sense to me over your alternative.

Ah and your explanation is that God did it. But where did the stuff come from that God is made of? Did that stuff always exist? If the stuff that God is made of always existed, why cannot we make the same claim that the "stuff" of ultimate reality--whether that be matter or physical laws or cosmic inflation or quantum mechanics or something else--always existed? Why is it OK to say that your God always existed, but not OK to say the ultimate source of the universe(s) always existed?

 

[doubtingmerle]

This creates yet another problem for you....if forces of nature existed from eternity past..."now"... would never get here. Just as eternity in the future will never be reached. 1 zillion years into the future will be just as close as eternity is now. There had to have been a creator of stuff.

Yes that creates a problem for me. I agree.

But it also makes a problem for you if your God made one and only one universe. If God waited a zillion years before creating the universe, and when that zillion years was over repeated that zillion year wait another zillion times, and when that set of a zillion zillion year periods was done, decided to repeat that another zillion zillion zillion times, and that doesn't even begin to describe the wait until the universe began, what in the heck was God doing all that time? What was he waiting for?

Since Einstein, "time" is known to be relative. As I have said several times, when we step outside the singularity at the beginning of the universe, time as we know it loses all meaning. Was there even sequential time "before" the Big Bang. Was time circular, or like a dimension in space that you could travel in any dimension? No matter if you are a theist or nontheist, as soon as you step outside the space time of the known universe, and try to grasp a meaning of reality before the universe, we are left with a great quandry as to what that was like.

That is one reason why, to me, the most logical thing is that, for all eternity, there always was a fundamental reality of some kind that was creating universes. We just happen to be living in one of them. So there was no wait of zillions of years before the Big Bang exploded. It may have always been the cosmic 4th of July, with Big Bangs for all of eternity past.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Find us the quotes where we all say this. (I, on the other hand, can find you quotes where I said that I don´t believe there has ever been a state of nothingness).
In fact, creatio ex nihilo is a Christian idea.

One can only conclude. And when I say nothing, say there was always a spec of dust out there, it's still no explanation, it's still essentially nothing. Also "nothing" as in no power to put it all together, something has to take a first action.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Find us the quotes where we all say this.

Ah and your explanation is that God did it. But where did the stuff come from that God is made of? Did that stuff always exist? If the stuff that God is made of always existed, why cannot we make the same claim that the "stuff" of ultimate reality--whether that be matter or physical laws or cosmic inflation or quantum mechanics or something else--always existed? Why is it OK to say that your God always existed, but not OK to say the ultimate source of the universe(s) always existed?

Fortunately I have an explanation from the Bible in that God always was. I don't have to depend on maybe's or IDK's.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Fortunately I have an explanation from the Bible in that God always was. I don't have to depend on maybe's or IDK's.

For the record, I don't say the universe came from nothing. Starting at the OP, and continuing throughout this thread, I have claimed that the universe probably came from an ultimate reality beyond the space time boundary of this universe, and have offered several possible alternatives of what that reality was like. If you refuse to read what I write, and make up things that I am saying, we will get nowhere.

Ok, your source is Genesis. If you are claiming Genesis as your authority, is it OK if I cross examine your authority, or are you going to ask not to have your source cross examined?

 

[MasonP]

Fortunately I have an explanation from the Bible in that God always was. I don't have to depend on maybe's or IDK's.

You do but when it comes to your religion you can fool yourself into believing that you don't, I guess you were the kind of people they were aiming for.

 

[quatona]

One can only conclude. And when I say nothing, say there was always a spec of dust out there, it's still no explanation, it's still essentially nothing.

Nobody has an explanation. Just asserting a personal entity is no explanation.

 

[quatona]

Nobody has an explanation.

..but you don´t get to sell your conclusions as our statements.

Just asserting a personal entity is no explanation.

 

[victorinus]

Millions of people obviously do

do you want God to exist?