Does God want us to judge him?

[ding]

Nobody’s going to read that load of crap. Where did you steal it from?

I wrote it.

Whether they read it or not is of no concern to me, but it is to you.

edit: I wrote it with the help of all of my atheist friends on USMB. I couldn't have done it without you.

You can’t even be honest about copying something. You have no honour.

Seriously though, you guys really did play a role in creating my response. Now you are going to play a role in my spreading of it.

I'm sure you don't at all understand the negative affects of belligerent Bible thumping.

Threatening people with eternal and earthly suffering if they don't accept a specific set of magical beliefs is belligerent, immoral, unethical, and just plain evil.

This is what adults are using to brainwash children. That is sick.

If being punished for your sins is your major take away from reading the Bible your objectivity is in question. Why don't you elevate your game?

You keep referring to majical beliefs. At the heart of this debate is whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world.

Given what we know from science It's a fair question. You needing to ridicule it is because you actually don't have any grown up arguments. So either get better arguments are be prepared to be called out on it.

Let me see if I can explain this a way that might make sense to you.

If the universe were created through natural process and we are an accidental happenstance of matter and energy doing what matter and energy do, then there should be no expectation for absolute morals. Morals can be anything we want them to be. The problem is that nature does have a preference for an outcome. Societies and people which behave with virtue experience order and harmony. Societies and people which behave without virtue experience disorder and chaos. So we can see from the outcomes that not all behaviors have equal outcomes. That some behaviors have better outcomes and some behaviors have worse outcomes. This is the moral law at work. If the universe was created by spirit for the express purpose of creating beings that know and create we would expect that we would receive feedback on how we behave. The problem is that violating moral laws are not like violating physical laws. When we violate a physical law the consequences are immediate. If you try to defy gravity by jumping off a roof you will fall. Whereas the consequences for violating a moral law are more probabilistic in nature; many times we get away with it.

Morals are effectively standards. For any given thing there exists a standard which is the highest possible standard. This standard exists independent of anything else. It is in effect a universal standard. It exists for a reason. When we deviate from this standard and normalize our deviance from the standard, eventually the reason the standard exists will be discovered. The reason this happens is because error cannot stand. Eventually error will fail and the truth will be discovered. Thus proving that morals cannot be anything we want them to be but are indeed based upon some universal code of common decency that is independent of man.

So the question that naturally begs to be asked is if there is a universal code of common decency that is independent of man how come we all don't behave the same way when it comes to right and wrong? The reason man doesn't behave the same way is because of subjectivity. The difference between being objective and being subjective is bias. Bias is eliminated when there is no preference for an outcome. To eliminate a preference for an outcome one must have no thought of the consequences to one's self. If one does not practice this they will see subjective truth instead of objective truth. Subjective truth leads to moral relativism. Where consequences to self and preferences for an outcome leads to rationalizations of right and wrong.

Man does know right from wrong and when he violates it rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he did not violate it. You can see this behavior in almost all quarrels and disagreements. At the heart of every quarrel and disagreement is a belief in a universal right and wrong. So even though each side believes right to be different each side expects the other to believe their side should be universally known and accepted. It is this behavior which tells us there is an expectation for an absolute truth.

If there were never a universal truth that existed man would never have an expectation of fairness to begin with because fairness would have no meaning. The fact that each of us has an expectation of fairness and that we expect everyone else to follow ought to raise our suspicion on the origin of that expectation.

 

[buttercup]

The is no logical argument for supernaturalism.

*chuckles*

Logic itself points to the supernatural. I don’t think you’ve thought all of this through.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Logic itself points to the supernatural

You might want to explain yourself, here. Logic is a set of rules.

 

[buttercup]

Logic itself points to the supernatural

You might want to explain yourself, here. Logic is a set of rules.

Logic is an example of an objective, universal truth. It is not man-made.

Now you have two options here. You can either reject that logic actually exists… which would be self-defeating because you have to use logic (and make a truth claim) to do that, which collapses your own argument. OR, you can admit that certain things exist in this universe that are real but immaterial, apart from mankind. Things that clearly require intelligence.

And if you’re going to do the latter, you’re really not that far from believing in God.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Logic is an example of an objective, universal truth. It is not man-made

Wrong on both counts. Logic is a set of rules, and quite man-made, that governs rational thought. It helps us know what information says and does not say. It is also only a tool, and can be wielded nefariously. For instance , it's quite easy to form a valid argument, following all the rules of logic, on why dogs having 9 legs necessitates that unicorns make ice cream. That's why we need empiricism, after all....empiricism decides what is and is not true, not logic. Logic just helps us make educated guesses, using premises shown to be empirically true. It also helps us fool people using obfuscant, vague, untestestable, and untrue premises.

Your dichotomy is absurd. I must accept that some things are immaterial, else reject the rules of logic? Ha, I choose neither.

Why must I accept the "immaterial"? Being that it is immaterial, nobody could possibly know whether or not it exists. Because you say so? People someone insists upon it? That's not a good reason to really believe something so thin.

 

[buttercup]

Logic is an example of an objective, universal truth. It is not man-made

Wrong on both counts. Logic is a set of rules, and quite man-made, that governs rational thought. It helps us know what information says and does not say. It is also only a tool, and can be wielded nefariously. For instance , it's quite easy to form a valid argument, following all the rules of logic, on why dogs having 9 legs necessitates that unicorns make ice cream. That's why we need empiricism, after all.

Your dichotomy is absurd. I must accept that some things are immaterial, else reject the rules of logic? Ha, I choose neither.

Why must I accept the "immaterial"? Being that it is immaterial, nobody could possibly know whether or not it exists. Because you say so? People someone insists upon it? That's not a good reason to really believe something so thin.

Lol. If logic is man-made, it is subjective. And anyone with half a brain knows that logic is not subjective. In case you’re misunderstanding, I’m talking about the abstract laws of logic, like the law of noncontradiction, etc.

I’m sorry, but there’s no way around it for you. If logic is an objective universal truth, then it’s obvious evidence that a number of things exist that are real but immaterial. Which should be obvious to anyone who isn’t already blind.

 

[Hollie]

Nobody’s going to read that load of crap. Where did you steal it from?

I wrote it.

Whether they read it or not is of no concern to me, but it is to you.

edit: I wrote it with the help of all of my atheist friends on USMB. I couldn't have done it without you.

You can’t even be honest about copying something. You have no honour.

Seriously though, you guys really did play a role in creating my response. Now you are going to play a role in my spreading of it.

I'm sure you don't at all understand the negative affects of belligerent Bible thumping.

I understand there is a distribution for everything. And in that distribution adherents do all kinds of things. But by any objective measure Christianity has been a force for good. For instance, Christians created wonderful charities and organizations. Spreading the Good Word is part of our Theology. You arguing against my theology is effectively proselytizing the Jewish theology of not proselytizing

I suppose it's convenient to ignore the horrors that Christianity has inflicted on believers and non-believers alike.

There are always those out there who claim their religion is so love-oriented that to not believe in it deserves death. I don't really understand the level of a mind that claims to worship a god of mercy and love, and then condemns anyone who disagrees with them to torture and death. On the other hand, this fits in exactly with most religious doctrines; life tends to be cheap in the theistic philosophy, mainly because the adherent's believe that life continues after death, or it is replaceable by the various gods. It is ultimately, even if only on a subconscious level, alright to kill people, because you are "sending them to a better place", or so goes the thinking. This is why the alleged "holy books" tend to be filled with violence and calls to wars. I long for the day when the priest, pastor or reverend gets up in the pulpit and reads aloud the verses in their holy books that applaud rape, murder, and pillage. In some cases, like in the Book of Joshua in the Bible, there seems to be nothing but murder and violence. Of course, the theologians won't read out those passages of the Bible in their sermons -- but you can!

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

If logic is man-made, it is subjective.

Wrong, it is simply a set of rules we have made and continue to refine. Just like mathematics, in many respects. Boolean logic is quite man-made.

What can be subjective are the premises themselves and the personal rejection of the entire logical argument as weaker than another.

Logic is just a tool. Logic doesn't show us truth. Logic shows us some possible truths, if the premises are accepted as correct. Empiricism confirms or denies the truth of the premises and the conclusions.

 

[Hollie]

Logic is an example of an objective, universal truth. It is not man-made

Wrong on both counts. Logic is a set of rules, and quite man-made, that governs rational thought. It helps us know what information says and does not say. It is also only a tool, and can be wielded nefariously. For instance , it's quite easy to form a valid argument, following all the rules of logic, on why dogs having 9 legs necessitates that unicorns make ice cream. That's why we need empiricism, after all.

Your dichotomy is absurd. I must accept that some things are immaterial, else reject the rules of logic? Ha, I choose neither.

Why must I accept the "immaterial"? Being that it is immaterial, nobody could possibly know whether or not it exists. Because you say so? People someone insists upon it? That's not a good reason to really believe something so thin.

Lol. If logic is man-made, it is subjective. And anyone with half a brain knows that logic is not subjective. In case you’re misunderstanding, I’m talking about the abstract laws of logic, like the law of noncontradiction, etc.

I’m sorry, but there’s no way around it for you. If logic is an objective universal truth, then it’s obvious evidence that a number of things exist that are real but immaterial. Which should be obvious to anyone who isn’t already blind.

You're confusing the philosophical arguments of logic with things that are "real but immaterial". "Real but immaterial" is a bit of a contradiction in terms.

 

[buttercup]

If logic is man-made, it is subjective.

Wrong, it is simply a set of rules we have made and continue to refine. Just like mathematics, in many respects. Boolean logic is quite man-made.

What can be subjective are the premises themselves and the personal rejection of the entire logical argument as weaker than another.

Logic is just a tool.

No, you are absolutely wrong. I don’t know anyone (who understands logic) who would deny that logic is objective. Objective truths are not man-made. It simply exists, whether one believes it or not. Objective truth is not dependent on us at all. Maybe that’s what you have a hard time understanding, as an atheist.

 

[ding]

At the heart of this debate is whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

So we need to start from that position and examine the evidence we have at our disposal which is creation itself. Specifically, the laws of nature; physical, biological and moral. And how space and time has evolved. And how we perceive God.

If we perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything we see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that we will agree with or accept. Whereas if we were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world we would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

Personal opinion. Yawn.

Nope. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.

So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create.

The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding her tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take more seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.

All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.

The is no logical argument for supernaturalism.

At the heart of this debate is whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

So we need to start from that position and examine the evidence we have at our disposal which is creation itself. Specifically, the laws of nature; physical, biological and moral. And how space and time has evolved. And how we perceive God.

If we perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything we see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that we will agree with or accept. Whereas if we were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world we would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create. George Wald

The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Entropy. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding it's tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.

If we examine the physical laws we discover that we live in a logical universe governed by rules, laws and information. Rules laws and information are a signs of intelligence. Intentionality and purpose are signs of intelligence. The definition of reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. The definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The consequence of a logical universe is that every cause has an effect. Which means that everything happens for a reason and serves a purpose. The very nature of our physical laws point to reason and purpose.

All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.

That long cut and paste is rather odd as you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world. There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

That long cut and paste is rather odd

Winning arguments don't change.

you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world.

No. I am discussing whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Wrong. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

I am using science to study what was created and no more. The only subjectivity is yours by calling allegorical accounts of ancient man fairy tales. If you start from the belief that the first eleven chapters of the Torah are an allegorical account of world history before the great migration from Mesopotamia - which was an actual historical event - then the first eleven chapters of the Torah takes on new meaning. Seen in this light these accounts should be viewed less like fairy tales and more like how important information was passed down in ancient times. Just as the Chinese used well known history and everyday things as symbols in their written language to make words easier to remember, ancient man used stories to pass down historical events and important knowledge to future generations. Interspersed in these allegorical accounts of history are wisdoms that they deemed important enough to pass down and remember. Such as man knows right from wrong and when he violates it, rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he didn't do wrong. Most people don't even realize this wisdom is in the Torah because they read it critically instead of searching for the wisdom that ancient man knew and found important enough to include in his account of world history.

We have to keep in mind that these accounts are 6,000 years old and were passed down orally from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Surely ancient man believed these accounts were of the utmost importance otherwise they would not have been passed down for thousands of years before they were recorded in writing. We shouldn't view these accounts using the context of the modern world. Unfortunately, we are so far removed from these events that we have lost all original meaning. If you were to ask almost any Jew what the Tower of Babel was about he would have no clue that it was the allegorical account of the great migration from the cradle of civilization. That is not intended to be a criticism. It is intended to be an illustration of just how difficult a task it is to discover the original meaning from ancient accounts from 6,000 years ago. We read these texts like they were written yesterday looking for ways to discredit them and make ourselves feel superior rather than seeking the original meaning and wisdom.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

Wrong. There are two possible options; spirit created the material world or the material world created spirit. These are the only two. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

Wrong. The Second Law of Thermodynamics precludes an infinite acting universe.

We know from science that space and time had a beginning. Specifically, red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations, quantum mechanics, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Inflation Theory.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation and Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations tells us that all matter and energy in the universe once occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom and then began to expand and cool. The the First Law of Thermodynamics (i.e. conservation of energy) tells us that since that time matter and energy has only changed form. Which means that the atoms in our bodies were created from nothing when space and and time were created from nothing.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that space and time did have a beginning. If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.

Inflation Theory, the First Law of Thermodynamics and quantum mechanics tells us that it is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool.

Chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis is the allegorical account of creation. Specifically, that the universe did have a beginning and that man is a product of the universe and matches the observations from science. Nathan Aviezer agrees with me too.

Similarly, Bar Ilan University’s Professor Nathan Aviezer, author of the book In the Beginning, told The Times of Israel, this discovery “isn’t going to make anyone who wasn’t a believer in God into one, or vice versa, but one thing the announcement does do is make it clear that the universe had a definite starting point — a creation — as described in the Book of Genesis,” said Aviezer. “To deny this now is to deny scientific fact.”

“Without addressing who or what caused it, the mechanics of the creation process in the Big Bang match the Genesis story perfectly. If I had to make up a theory to match the first passages in Genesis, the Big Bang theory would be it,” said Aviezer. “It’s an example of Divine irony that it took atheistic scientists like [Nobel laureate Paul] Dirac and all the others to point out the truth of the Torah. At this point I think we can say that creation is a scientific fact.”
Could New Scientific Discovery Support Creation?
Nathan Aviezer - Wikipedia

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

How about through logic? Science and the Bible both agree that space and time were created by no thing and that man is a product of that creation.

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

If you perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything you see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that you will agree with or accept. Whereas if you were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world you would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

Not at all. The purpose of the universe is to create beings that know and create. We aren't special in that regard. In fact, I will go so far to say there is nothing special about any of us. We're just creatures.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I don’t know anyone (who understands logic) who would deny that logic is objective.

I'm not denying that. I am saying it is a manmade construct. I reject your conditional statement, "If manmade, therefore subjective". Unless you want to agree that, say, we merely discovered logic and mathematics, instead of inventing them. I'm cool with that.

But no, logic does not show us truth. Again, I can easily form a valid argument, defying no rules of logic, why unicorns simply must make ice cream in the 6th dimension.

 

[ding]

I wrote it.

Whether they read it or not is of no concern to me, but it is to you.

edit: I wrote it with the help of all of my atheist friends on USMB. I couldn't have done it without you.

You can’t even be honest about copying something. You have no honour.

Seriously though, you guys really did play a role in creating my response. Now you are going to play a role in my spreading of it.

I'm sure you don't at all understand the negative affects of belligerent Bible thumping.

I understand there is a distribution for everything. And in that distribution adherents do all kinds of things. But by any objective measure Christianity has been a force for good. For instance, Christians created wonderful charities and organizations. Spreading the Good Word is part of our Theology. You arguing against my theology is effectively proselytizing the Jewish theology of not proselytizing

I suppose it's convenient to ignore the horrors that Christianity has inflicted on believers and non-believers alike.

There are always those out there who claim their religion is so love-oriented that to not believe in it deserves death. I don't really understand the level of a mind that claims to worship a god of mercy and love, and then condemns anyone who disagrees with them to torture and death. On the other hand, this fits in exactly with most religious doctrines; life tends to be cheap in the theistic philosophy, mainly because the adherent's believe that life continues after death, or it is replaceable by the various gods. It is ultimately, even if only on a subconscious level, alright to kill people, because you are "sending them to a better place", or so goes the thinking. This is why the alleged "holy books" tend to be filled with violence and calls to wars. I long for the day when the priest, pastor or reverend gets up in the pulpit and reads aloud the verses in their holy books that applaud rape, murder, and pillage. In some cases, like in the Book of Joshua in the Bible, there seems to be nothing but murder and violence. Of course, the theologians won't read out those passages of the Bible in their sermons -- but you can!

No. Any objective assessment should evaluate all sides of an issue to arrive at objective truth. I just can't believe a Jew is making an argument against God. Or is your argument just against Christians? In that case you sound like you are proletizing your faith, and that's a Jewish no no.

 

[Hollie]

Personal opinion. Yawn.

Nope. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.

So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create.

The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding her tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take more seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.

All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.

The is no logical argument for supernaturalism.

At the heart of this debate is whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

So we need to start from that position and examine the evidence we have at our disposal which is creation itself. Specifically, the laws of nature; physical, biological and moral. And how space and time has evolved. And how we perceive God.

If we perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything we see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that we will agree with or accept. Whereas if we were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world we would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create. George Wald

The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Entropy. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding it's tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.

If we examine the physical laws we discover that we live in a logical universe governed by rules, laws and information. Rules laws and information are a signs of intelligence. Intentionality and purpose are signs of intelligence. The definition of reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. The definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The consequence of a logical universe is that every cause has an effect. Which means that everything happens for a reason and serves a purpose. The very nature of our physical laws point to reason and purpose.

All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.

That long cut and paste is rather odd as you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world. There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

That long cut and paste is rather odd

Winning arguments don't change.

you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world.

No. I am discussing whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Wrong. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

I am using science to study what was created and no more. The only subjectivity is yours by calling allegorical accounts of ancient man fairy tales. If you start from the belief that the first eleven chapters of the Torah are an allegorical account of world history before the great migration from Mesopotamia - which was an actual historical event - then the first eleven chapters of the Torah takes on new meaning. Seen in this light these accounts should be viewed less like fairy tales and more like how important information was passed down in ancient times. Just as the Chinese used well known history and everyday things as symbols in their written language to make words easier to remember, ancient man used stories to pass down historical events and important knowledge to future generations. Interspersed in these allegorical accounts of history are wisdoms that they deemed important enough to pass down and remember. Such as man knows right from wrong and when he violates it, rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he didn't do wrong. Most people don't even realize this wisdom is in the Torah because they read it critically instead of searching for the wisdom that ancient man knew and found important enough to include in his account of world history.

We have to keep in mind that these accounts are 6,000 years old and were passed down orally from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Surely ancient man believed these accounts were of the utmost importance otherwise they would not have been passed down for thousands of years before they were recorded in writing. We shouldn't view these accounts using the context of the modern world. Unfortunately, we are so far removed from these events that we have lost all original meaning. If you were to ask almost any Jew what the Tower of Babel was about he would have no clue that it was the allegorical account of the great migration from the cradle of civilization. That is not intended to be a criticism. It is intended to be an illustration of just how difficult a task it is to discover the original meaning from ancient accounts from 6,000 years ago. We read these texts like they were written yesterday looking for ways to discredit them and make ourselves feel superior rather than seeking the original meaning and wisdom.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

Wrong. There are two possible options; spirit created the material world or the material world created spirit. These are the only two. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

Wrong. The Second Law of Thermodynamics precludes an infinite acting universe.

We know from science that space and time had a beginning. Specifically, red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations, quantum mechanics, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Inflation Theory.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation and Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations tells us that all matter and energy in the universe once occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom and then began to expand and cool. The the First Law of Thermodynamics (i.e. conservation of energy) tells us that since that time matter and energy has only changed form. Which means that the atoms in our bodies were created from nothing when space and and time were created from nothing.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that space and time did have a beginning. If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.

Inflation Theory, the First Law of Thermodynamics and quantum mechanics tells us that it is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool.

Chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis is the allegorical account of creation. Specifically, that the universe did have a beginning and that man is a product of the universe and matches the observations from science. Nathan Aviezer agrees with me too.

Similarly, Bar Ilan University’s Professor Nathan Aviezer, author of the book In the Beginning, told The Times of Israel, this discovery “isn’t going to make anyone who wasn’t a believer in God into one, or vice versa, but one thing the announcement does do is make it clear that the universe had a definite starting point — a creation — as described in the Book of Genesis,” said Aviezer. “To deny this now is to deny scientific fact.”

“Without addressing who or what caused it, the mechanics of the creation process in the Big Bang match the Genesis story perfectly. If I had to make up a theory to match the first passages in Genesis, the Big Bang theory would be it,” said Aviezer. “It’s an example of Divine irony that it took atheistic scientists like [Nobel laureate Paul] Dirac and all the others to point out the truth of the Torah. At this point I think we can say that creation is a scientific fact.”
Could New Scientific Discovery Support Creation?
Nathan Aviezer - Wikipedia

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

How about through logic? Science and the Bible both agree that space and time were created by no thing and that man is a product of that creation.

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

If you perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything you see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that you will agree with or accept. Whereas if you were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world you would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

Not at all. The purpose of the universe is to create beings that know and create. We aren't special in that regard. In fact, I will go so far to say there is nothing special about any of us. We're just creatures.

I'm not going to address what I have already responded to while you do nothing more than cut and paste volumes of text you have cut and pasted into earlier threads.

If you have anything to support your case for magic and supernaturalism, present it.

 

[ding]

I don’t know anyone (who understands logic) who would deny that logic is objective.

I'm not denying that. I am saying it is a manmade construct. I reject your conditional statement, "If manmade, therefore subjective". Unless you want to agree that, say, we merely discovered logic and mathematics, instead of inventing them. I'm cool with that.

But no, logic does not show us truth. Again, I can easily form a valid argument, defying no rules of logic, why unicorns simply must make ice cream in the 6th dimension.

Remind me again if you were one of the atheists who pussed out on categorically stating that atheists are materialists. Cause I am pretty sure you are.

Logic does show the way to truth. Space and time were created from no thing. The belief of spiritualism is that space and time were created from no thing.

 

[Hollie]

You can’t even be honest about copying something. You have no honour.

Seriously though, you guys really did play a role in creating my response. Now you are going to play a role in my spreading of it.

I'm sure you don't at all understand the negative affects of belligerent Bible thumping.

I understand there is a distribution for everything. And in that distribution adherents do all kinds of things. But by any objective measure Christianity has been a force for good. For instance, Christians created wonderful charities and organizations. Spreading the Good Word is part of our Theology. You arguing against my theology is effectively proselytizing the Jewish theology of not proselytizing

I suppose it's convenient to ignore the horrors that Christianity has inflicted on believers and non-believers alike.

There are always those out there who claim their religion is so love-oriented that to not believe in it deserves death. I don't really understand the level of a mind that claims to worship a god of mercy and love, and then condemns anyone who disagrees with them to torture and death. On the other hand, this fits in exactly with most religious doctrines; life tends to be cheap in the theistic philosophy, mainly because the adherent's believe that life continues after death, or it is replaceable by the various gods. It is ultimately, even if only on a subconscious level, alright to kill people, because you are "sending them to a better place", or so goes the thinking. This is why the alleged "holy books" tend to be filled with violence and calls to wars. I long for the day when the priest, pastor or reverend gets up in the pulpit and reads aloud the verses in their holy books that applaud rape, murder, and pillage. In some cases, like in the Book of Joshua in the Bible, there seems to be nothing but murder and violence. Of course, the theologians won't read out those passages of the Bible in their sermons -- but you can!

No. Any objective assessment should evaluate all sides of an issue to arrive at objective truth. I just can't believe a Jew is making an argument against God. Or is your argument just against Christians? In that case you sound like you are proletizing your faith, and that's a Jewish no no.

Present the objective assessment for magic and supernaturalism.

 

[ding]

Nope. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.

So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create.

The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Thermodynamics. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding her tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take more seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.

All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.

The is no logical argument for supernaturalism.

At the heart of this debate is whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

So we need to start from that position and examine the evidence we have at our disposal which is creation itself. Specifically, the laws of nature; physical, biological and moral. And how space and time has evolved. And how we perceive God.

If we perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything we see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that we will agree with or accept. Whereas if we were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world we would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create. George Wald

The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Entropy. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding it's tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.

If we examine the physical laws we discover that we live in a logical universe governed by rules, laws and information. Rules laws and information are a signs of intelligence. Intentionality and purpose are signs of intelligence. The definition of reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. The definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The consequence of a logical universe is that every cause has an effect. Which means that everything happens for a reason and serves a purpose. The very nature of our physical laws point to reason and purpose.

All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.

That long cut and paste is rather odd as you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world. There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

That long cut and paste is rather odd

Winning arguments don't change.

you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world.

No. I am discussing whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Wrong. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

I am using science to study what was created and no more. The only subjectivity is yours by calling allegorical accounts of ancient man fairy tales. If you start from the belief that the first eleven chapters of the Torah are an allegorical account of world history before the great migration from Mesopotamia - which was an actual historical event - then the first eleven chapters of the Torah takes on new meaning. Seen in this light these accounts should be viewed less like fairy tales and more like how important information was passed down in ancient times. Just as the Chinese used well known history and everyday things as symbols in their written language to make words easier to remember, ancient man used stories to pass down historical events and important knowledge to future generations. Interspersed in these allegorical accounts of history are wisdoms that they deemed important enough to pass down and remember. Such as man knows right from wrong and when he violates it, rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he didn't do wrong. Most people don't even realize this wisdom is in the Torah because they read it critically instead of searching for the wisdom that ancient man knew and found important enough to include in his account of world history.

We have to keep in mind that these accounts are 6,000 years old and were passed down orally from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Surely ancient man believed these accounts were of the utmost importance otherwise they would not have been passed down for thousands of years before they were recorded in writing. We shouldn't view these accounts using the context of the modern world. Unfortunately, we are so far removed from these events that we have lost all original meaning. If you were to ask almost any Jew what the Tower of Babel was about he would have no clue that it was the allegorical account of the great migration from the cradle of civilization. That is not intended to be a criticism. It is intended to be an illustration of just how difficult a task it is to discover the original meaning from ancient accounts from 6,000 years ago. We read these texts like they were written yesterday looking for ways to discredit them and make ourselves feel superior rather than seeking the original meaning and wisdom.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

Wrong. There are two possible options; spirit created the material world or the material world created spirit. These are the only two. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

Wrong. The Second Law of Thermodynamics precludes an infinite acting universe.

We know from science that space and time had a beginning. Specifically, red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations, quantum mechanics, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Inflation Theory.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation and Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations tells us that all matter and energy in the universe once occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom and then began to expand and cool. The the First Law of Thermodynamics (i.e. conservation of energy) tells us that since that time matter and energy has only changed form. Which means that the atoms in our bodies were created from nothing when space and and time were created from nothing.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that space and time did have a beginning. If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.

Inflation Theory, the First Law of Thermodynamics and quantum mechanics tells us that it is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool.

Chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis is the allegorical account of creation. Specifically, that the universe did have a beginning and that man is a product of the universe and matches the observations from science. Nathan Aviezer agrees with me too.

Similarly, Bar Ilan University’s Professor Nathan Aviezer, author of the book In the Beginning, told The Times of Israel, this discovery “isn’t going to make anyone who wasn’t a believer in God into one, or vice versa, but one thing the announcement does do is make it clear that the universe had a definite starting point — a creation — as described in the Book of Genesis,” said Aviezer. “To deny this now is to deny scientific fact.”

“Without addressing who or what caused it, the mechanics of the creation process in the Big Bang match the Genesis story perfectly. If I had to make up a theory to match the first passages in Genesis, the Big Bang theory would be it,” said Aviezer. “It’s an example of Divine irony that it took atheistic scientists like [Nobel laureate Paul] Dirac and all the others to point out the truth of the Torah. At this point I think we can say that creation is a scientific fact.”
Could New Scientific Discovery Support Creation?
Nathan Aviezer - Wikipedia

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

How about through logic? Science and the Bible both agree that space and time were created by no thing and that man is a product of that creation.

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

If you perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything you see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that you will agree with or accept. Whereas if you were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world you would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

Not at all. The purpose of the universe is to create beings that know and create. We aren't special in that regard. In fact, I will go so far to say there is nothing special about any of us. We're just creatures.

I'm not going to address what I have already responded to while you do nothing more than cut and paste volumes of text you have cut and pasted into earlier threads.

If you have anything to support your case for magic and supernaturalism, present it.

They are called logical arguments. AKA responses to your responses

I just made my case for spirit creating the material world just as Genesis 1 and 2 told us.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Remind me again if you were one of the atheists who pussed out on categorically stating that atheists are materialists. Cause I am pretty sure you are.

No idea what you are talking about. But deists are often, if not always, also atheists and, clearly, are not all materialists. So I think you can delete "ding copypasta talking point #298,6354" from the spreadsheet.

Logic does show the way to truth.

Yes, it can, as I said. But it does not determine what is true.

The belief of spiritualism is that space and time were created from no thing.

You mean, your definition of spiritualism. Good for you. Maybe it's true, for all I know. Doesn't change a thing for me.

 

[ding]

Seriously though, you guys really did play a role in creating my response. Now you are going to play a role in my spreading of it.

I'm sure you don't at all understand the negative affects of belligerent Bible thumping.

I understand there is a distribution for everything. And in that distribution adherents do all kinds of things. But by any objective measure Christianity has been a force for good. For instance, Christians created wonderful charities and organizations. Spreading the Good Word is part of our Theology. You arguing against my theology is effectively proselytizing the Jewish theology of not proselytizing

I suppose it's convenient to ignore the horrors that Christianity has inflicted on believers and non-believers alike.

There are always those out there who claim their religion is so love-oriented that to not believe in it deserves death. I don't really understand the level of a mind that claims to worship a god of mercy and love, and then condemns anyone who disagrees with them to torture and death. On the other hand, this fits in exactly with most religious doctrines; life tends to be cheap in the theistic philosophy, mainly because the adherent's believe that life continues after death, or it is replaceable by the various gods. It is ultimately, even if only on a subconscious level, alright to kill people, because you are "sending them to a better place", or so goes the thinking. This is why the alleged "holy books" tend to be filled with violence and calls to wars. I long for the day when the priest, pastor or reverend gets up in the pulpit and reads aloud the verses in their holy books that applaud rape, murder, and pillage. In some cases, like in the Book of Joshua in the Bible, there seems to be nothing but murder and violence. Of course, the theologians won't read out those passages of the Bible in their sermons -- but you can!

No. Any objective assessment should evaluate all sides of an issue to arrive at objective truth. I just can't believe a Jew is making an argument against God. Or is your argument just against Christians? In that case you sound like you are proletizing your faith, and that's a Jewish no no.

Present the objective assessment for magic and supernaturalism.

At the heart of this discussion are the two options; space and time was created by no thing or it wasn't. You being a thing can never understand a no thing. The closest you will ever be able to understand a no thing that creates space and time is a mind without a body.

 

[Hollie]

The is no logical argument for supernaturalism.

At the heart of this debate is whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

So we need to start from that position and examine the evidence we have at our disposal which is creation itself. Specifically, the laws of nature; physical, biological and moral. And how space and time has evolved. And how we perceive God.

If we perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything we see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that we will agree with or accept. Whereas if we were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world we would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

So now that a realistic perception of God has been established we need to examine the only evidence at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

We have good reason to believe that we find ourselves in a universe permeated with life, in which life arises inevitably, given enough time, wherever the conditions exist that make it possible. Yet were any one of a number of the physical properties of our universe otherwise - some of them basic, others seemingly trivial, almost accidental - that life, which seems now to be so prevalent, would become impossible, here or anywhere. It takes no great imagination to conceive of other possible universes, each stable and workable in itself, yet lifeless. How is it that, with so many other apparent options, we are in a universe that possesses just that peculiar nexus of properties that breeds beings that know and create. George Wald

The biological laws are such that life is programmed to survive and multiply which is a requisite for intelligence to arise. If the purpose of the universe was to create intelligence then a preference in nature for it had to exist. The Laws of Nature are such that the potential for intelligence to existed the moment space and time were created. One can argue that given the laws of nature and the size of the universe that intelligence arising was inevitable. One can also argue that creating intelligence from nothing defies the Second Law of Entropy. That creating intelligence from nothing increases order within the universe. It actually doesn't because usable energy was lost along the way as a cost of creating order from disorder. But it is nature overriding it's tendency for ever increasing disorder that interests me and raises my suspicions to look deeper and to take seriously the proposition that a mind without a body created the material world so that minds with bodies could create too.

If we examine the physical laws we discover that we live in a logical universe governed by rules, laws and information. Rules laws and information are a signs of intelligence. Intentionality and purpose are signs of intelligence. The definition of reason is a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event. The definition of purpose is the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The consequence of a logical universe is that every cause has an effect. Which means that everything happens for a reason and serves a purpose. The very nature of our physical laws point to reason and purpose.

All we have done so far is to make a logical argument for spirit creating the material world. Certainly not an argument built of fairy tales that's for sure. So going back to the two possibilities; spirit creating the material world versus everything proceeding from the material, the key distinction is no thing versus thing. So if we assume that everything I have described was just an accidental coincidence of the properties of matter, the logical conclusion is that matter and energy are just doing what matter and energy do which makes sense. The problem is that for matter and energy to do what matter and energy do, there has to be rules in place for matter and energy to obey. The formation of space and time followed rules. Specifically the law of conservation and quantum mechanics. These laws existed before space and time and defined the potential of everything which was possible. These laws are no thing. So we literally have an example of no thing existing before the material world. The creation of space and time from nothing is literally correct. Space and time were created from no thing. Spirit is no thing. No thing created space and time.

That long cut and paste is rather odd as you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world. There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

That long cut and paste is rather odd

Winning arguments don't change.

you are attempting to make a case for magic and supernaturalism with references to the natural world.

No. I am discussing whether or not the material world was created by spirit. If the material world were not created by spirit, then everything which has occurred since the beginning of space and time are products of the material world. Everything which is incorporeal proceeded from the corporeal. There is no middle ground. There is no other option. Either the material world was created by spirit or it wasn't. All other options will simplify to one of these two lowest common denominators which are mutually exclusive.

There is nothing in the natural world that has been shown to have supernatural or magic as its cause.

Wrong. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal. It should be obvious that if the material world were not created by spirit that everything that has unfolded in the evolution of space and time would have no intentional purpose. That it is just matter and energy doing what matter and energy do. Conversely, if the material world were created by spirit it should be obvious that the creation of the material world was intentional. After all in my perception of God, God is no thing and the closest thing I can relate to is a mind with no body. Using our own experiences as creators as a proxy, we know that when we create things we create them for a reason and that reason is to serve some purpose. So it would be no great leap of logic to believe that something like a mind with no body would do the same. We also know from our experiences that intelligence tends to create intelligence. We are obsessed with making smart things. So what better thing for a mind with no body to do than create a universe where beings with bodies can create smart things too.

Science is amenable only to investigations of repeatable phenomena. Religion is amenable only to supernatural phenomena. This is the philosophical bias of religion. Trapped by its own subjectivity.

I am using science to study what was created and no more. The only subjectivity is yours by calling allegorical accounts of ancient man fairy tales. If you start from the belief that the first eleven chapters of the Torah are an allegorical account of world history before the great migration from Mesopotamia - which was an actual historical event - then the first eleven chapters of the Torah takes on new meaning. Seen in this light these accounts should be viewed less like fairy tales and more like how important information was passed down in ancient times. Just as the Chinese used well known history and everyday things as symbols in their written language to make words easier to remember, ancient man used stories to pass down historical events and important knowledge to future generations. Interspersed in these allegorical accounts of history are wisdoms that they deemed important enough to pass down and remember. Such as man knows right from wrong and when he violates it, rather than abandoning the concept of right and wrong he rationalizes he didn't do wrong. Most people don't even realize this wisdom is in the Torah because they read it critically instead of searching for the wisdom that ancient man knew and found important enough to include in his account of world history.

We have to keep in mind that these accounts are 6,000 years old and were passed down orally from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Surely ancient man believed these accounts were of the utmost importance otherwise they would not have been passed down for thousands of years before they were recorded in writing. We shouldn't view these accounts using the context of the modern world. Unfortunately, we are so far removed from these events that we have lost all original meaning. If you were to ask almost any Jew what the Tower of Babel was about he would have no clue that it was the allegorical account of the great migration from the cradle of civilization. That is not intended to be a criticism. It is intended to be an illustration of just how difficult a task it is to discover the original meaning from ancient accounts from 6,000 years ago. We read these texts like they were written yesterday looking for ways to discredit them and make ourselves feel superior rather than seeking the original meaning and wisdom.

But insofar as the world around us is natural, science remains our best tool for investigating it. The methodology used by investigators employing science is presently the best that life on earth has yet devised. In contrast, any attempt to see the origin of our natural selves through the theistic accounts is doomed to fail due to its supernaturally bounded nature.

Wrong. There are two possible options; spirit created the material world or the material world created spirit. These are the only two. A case for spirit creating the material world can be made by examining the evidence that we have at our disposal.

There's no reason not to conclude that existence could simply be an ongoing process infinite in both directions. BTW, this is a naturalistic explanation for something religionists are quite content to accept supernaturally, i.e., that their gods exist as an infinity. So there's nothing about the naturalistic paradigm that the religionist doesn't already embrace. There is no evidence though that requires one to add sentience and other anthropomorphic attributes to the infinite nature of nature. Therefore, the theistic worldview unnecessarily complicates a simple concept in order to assign the infinite nature with a quasi-comforting personality.

Wrong. The Second Law of Thermodynamics precludes an infinite acting universe.

We know from science that space and time had a beginning. Specifically, red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations, quantum mechanics, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Inflation Theory.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation and Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations tells us that all matter and energy in the universe once occupied the space of 1 billionth of 1 trillionth the size of an atom and then began to expand and cool. The the First Law of Thermodynamics (i.e. conservation of energy) tells us that since that time matter and energy has only changed form. Which means that the atoms in our bodies were created from nothing when space and and time were created from nothing.

Red shift, cosmic background radiation, Friedmann's solutions to Einstein's field equations and the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that space and time did have a beginning. If the universe is expanding then it must have a beginning. If you follow it backwards in time, then any object must come to a boundary of space time. You cannot continue that history indefinitely. This is still true even if a universe has periods of contraction. It still has to have a beginning if expansion over weights the contraction. Physicists have been uncomfortable with the idea of a beginning since the work of Friedman which showed that the solutions of Einstein's equation showed that the universe had a beginning. The problem with a cyclical universe is with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. For every matter to energy or energy to matter exchange there is a loss of usable energy. So while the total energy of the universe does not decrease, the usable energy of the universe does decrease. If it is a periodic or cyclical universe then the entropy will increase with each cycle. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a fundamental law of nature which tells us that entropy can only increase or stay the same. Entropy can never decrease. Which means that in a finite amount of time, a finite system will reach a maximum state of disorder which is called thermal equilibrium and then it will stay in that state. A cyclical universe cannot avoid this problem. Since we do not see thermal equilibrium (good thing too because there would be no life) we know that the universe did have a beginning.

Inflation Theory, the First Law of Thermodynamics and quantum mechanics tells us that it is possible for matter to have a beginning. In a closed universe the gravitational energy which is always negative exactly compensates the positive energy of matter. So the energy of a closed universe is always zero. So nothing prevents this universe from being spontaneously created. Because the net energy is always zero. The positive energy of matter is balanced by the negative energy of the gravity of that matter which is the space time curvature of that matter. There is no conservation law that prevents the formation of such a universe. In quantum mechanics if something is not forbidden by conservation laws, then it necessarily happens with some non-zero probability. So a closed universe can spontaneously appear - through the laws of quantum mechanics - out of nothing. And in fact there is an elegant mathematical description which describes this process and shows that a tiny closed universe having very high energy can spontaneously pop into existence and immediately start to expand and cool.

Chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis is the allegorical account of creation. Specifically, that the universe did have a beginning and that man is a product of the universe and matches the observations from science. Nathan Aviezer agrees with me too.

Similarly, Bar Ilan University’s Professor Nathan Aviezer, author of the book In the Beginning, told The Times of Israel, this discovery “isn’t going to make anyone who wasn’t a believer in God into one, or vice versa, but one thing the announcement does do is make it clear that the universe had a definite starting point — a creation — as described in the Book of Genesis,” said Aviezer. “To deny this now is to deny scientific fact.”

“Without addressing who or what caused it, the mechanics of the creation process in the Big Bang match the Genesis story perfectly. If I had to make up a theory to match the first passages in Genesis, the Big Bang theory would be it,” said Aviezer. “It’s an example of Divine irony that it took atheistic scientists like [Nobel laureate Paul] Dirac and all the others to point out the truth of the Torah. At this point I think we can say that creation is a scientific fact.”
Could New Scientific Discovery Support Creation?
Nathan Aviezer - Wikipedia

It is the process of science that explores and discovers. Now, it's possible that science could be stymied and could hit the wall so-to-speak at finding a purely natural cause but that still wouldn't prove a supernatural causation and it still wouldn't prove god(s). How do we discern the truth? By faith? By assertion and stepping away and accepting untested and anecdotal claims to magic and supernaturalism? Or do we assiduously test our truths, hold them up to scrutiny and demand they be accountable at some level?

How about through logic? Science and the Bible both agree that space and time were created by no thing and that man is a product of that creation.

In fact, the only model I see that opens up the possibility of nature gone awry is the theistic one. How often does nature simply allow a sea to part, or a dead man to rise? How many natural pillars of fire, burning bushes, or global floods are there? How often do virgins spontaneously impregnate? Where else do angels and demons fly about with abandon or men ascend golden staircases to heaven?

If you perceive God to be some magical fairy tale then everything you see will skew to that result. There won't be one single thing that you will agree with or accept. Whereas if you were trying to objectively analyze the evidence for spirit creating the material world you would listen to the whole argument and not look for trivial things to nitpick.

There is no thing that can describe God because God is no thing. God is not matter and energy like us and God exists outside of our four dimension space time. In fact the premise is that God is no thing. That God is a spirit. A spirit is no thing. Being things we can't possibly relate to being no things. A two dimensional being would have an easier time trying to understand our third dimension than we - a four dimensional being - would in trying to understand a multi-dimensional being outside of our space time. The closest I can come to and later confirm with the physical laws is that God is consciousness. That Mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality - that the stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is Mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life, and so eventually evolves creatures that know and create.

Suppose life exists elsewhere? That would be utterly devastating to the religious articles as "creation" is uniquely an earthly event. Although, you and I both know that some obscure Bible verse would eventually be "discovered" as describing the event. Ah, see, science "proving" the religious texts. Send a probe to Mars, and prove life developed off the planet Earth. This we are doing. What theists are doing to establish their suppositions... well, forgive the irony, but, gods only know.

Not at all. The purpose of the universe is to create beings that know and create. We aren't special in that regard. In fact, I will go so far to say there is nothing special about any of us. We're just creatures.

I'm not going to address what I have already responded to while you do nothing more than cut and paste volumes of text you have cut and pasted into earlier threads.

If you have anything to support your case for magic and supernaturalism, present it.

They are called logical arguments. AKA responses to your responses

I just made my case for spirit creating the material world just as Genesis 1 and 2 told us.

Magic and supernaturalism do not make the case for logical arguments.

The gods lied in the Genesis fable. You made no case for magical spirits creating anything.