BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

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What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

I notice when TS fails to understand something, he dismisses the point as 'nonsense'.

Oldbear83 said:

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I notice when TS fails to understand something, he dismisses the point as 'nonsense'.

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Better than Rebel who calls you an idiot for same

TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

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What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

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None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

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What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

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None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

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What you are arguing for is illogical, if there is an all loving all powerful god. With a god of these characteristics, it would be illogical and unecessary for him to create a world of pain and suffering for good. He could, being all powerful, override that requirement, and would being all loving, thereby creating the same end result without pain and suffering. What you are describing is a limited god who is either not all powerful, or not all loving. He lacks at least one of those attributes. If that is your god, then your theory could hold.

TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

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What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

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None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

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What you are arguing for is illogical, if there is an all loving all powerful god. With a god of these characteristics, it would be illogical and unecessary for him to create a world of pain and suffering for good. He could, being all powerful, override that requirement, and would being all loving, thereby creating the same end result without pain and suffering. What you are describing is a limited god who is either not all powerful, or not all loving. He lacks at least one of those attributes. If that is your god, then your theory could hold.

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"override that requirement" - then it wouldn't be a requirement. You see the flaw in your logic?

If it IS an actual requirement, meaning that an expanded good can not happen without it, then it is perfectly logical, and your argument fails.

TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
"It's probable that our universe exists the way it is. Plausible explanations have been given for its existence. The universe itself is testimony to the improbability of your god."

Once again, a view not shared by top scientists:


- "If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features are surprising and unlikely." - physicist David Deutsch

- "Somebody had to tune [the universe] very precisely," - Marek Demianski, a Polish cosmologist.

- "The odds against a universe like ours coming out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications" - Stephen Hawking

- "Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule....A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics. . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question" - astronomer Fred Hoyle

- "Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as brute fact." - physicist Paul Davies

- "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming." - physicist Paul Davies

- "This is the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science." - Robert Jastrow, former Head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
TexasScientist said:
"It's probable that our universe exists the way it is. Plausible explanations have been given for its existence. The universe itself is testimony to the improbability of your god."

Once again, a view not shared by top scientists:


- "If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features are surprising and unlikely." - physicist David Deutsch

- "Somebody had to tune [the universe] very precisely," - Marek Demianski, a Polish cosmologist.

- "The odds against a universe like ours coming out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications" - Stephen Hawking

- "Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule....A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics. . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question" - astronomer Fred Hoyle

- "Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as brute fact." - physicist Paul Davies

- "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming." - physicist Paul Davies

- "This is the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science." - Robert Jastrow, former Head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

I've already answered this point, in the previous post above - that this is a minority viewpoint among some scientists who mostly come from engineering or mathematical backgrounds. However, I notice you continue to misrepresent out of context Stephen Hawking, who was an atheist. Not a single NASA scientist relies on god as opposed to science in exercising their work.
A lot of these scientists are astronomers, physicists, and astrophysicists, but nice try.

You can't rationalize out of this one. You're just gonna have to eat the fact that these top scientists show there to be rationality behind a belief in a God, based on scientific discovery about the universe. It clearly shows that scientific knowledge does not diverge away from a belief in God, but rather it points to it.

What is evident is that some scientists, no matter how irrational, when considering their own mortality, want to believe in the irrational, and will devise ways to pseudo rationalize their belief in the irrational. But, just like you, when faced with difficult problems in life, they all rely upon scientific answers and solutions, as opposed to relying on mysticism.

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"What is evident is that some scientists, no matter how irrational, when considering their own mortality, want to believe in the irrational, and will devise ways to pseudo rationalize their belief in the irrational. But, just like you, when faced with difficult problems in life, they all rely upon scientific answers and solutions, as opposed to relying on mysticism."

The same argument can be turned around against you: what is evident is that you, as well as some scientists, want to believe there is no Creator God because of the implications, so in fear you try to rationalize this with science, when science has done nothing to prove there is no God; rather, as scientific knowledge grows, more and more, it points to His existence.

What I find ironic about the second part of your comment is that today mankind has the most scientific knowledge it's ever had...yet unhappiness, insecurity, strife, and evil continue unabated. In fact, it is probably worse than ever before. If a problem has a scientific answer or solution, of course that's what we go to. That is not in any way an affront to our faith in God. And remember, science itself is often the cause of pain and suffering (war, Covid). But there are deeper issues and wants in life that science is powerless to solve. Mysticism? As has been evident from all my previous posts, the heavens declare there is a God, and life on earth declare there is a God, and the historical testimonies of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus prove it.

TexasScientist said:

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TexasScientist said:

"Again, and end product of the process of evolution."

What's the name of your religion?

A nonsense question as you know I have no religion.

Also, no evidence from you that animals don't have a soul, when you said there was "evidence"? Come on, we're waiting.

I don't believe animals have souls and never said that. However, if what you believe is true, then animals would have souls also.

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"A nonsense question as you know I have no religion."


Of course you do. In order to believe what you believe, you have to believe in the astronomically, astronomically improbable. That takes more faith than any other religion out there.

I don't believe animals have souls and never said that. However, if what you believe is true, then animals would have souls also.

If you read the comment accurately, I'm not saying you believe that animals have souls. I specifically asked you, "How do you know animals don't have souls?" to which you replied, "Evidence." That would seem to indicate that you know that animals don't have souls based on evidence. Seriously, are we slow this morning?

And yes, for all we know, animals do have souls.

You keep trying to impose a god of your own design, and therefore also your own limits.

Yet you think others are lacking logic.

TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

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What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

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None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

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What you are arguing for is illogical, if there is an all loving all powerful god. With a god of these characteristics, it would be illogical and unecessary for him to create a world of pain and suffering for good. He could, being all powerful, override that requirement, and would being all loving, thereby creating the same end result without pain and suffering. What you are describing is a limited god who is either not all powerful, or not all loving. He lacks at least one of those attributes. If that is your god, then your theory could hold.

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if the greatest good is love, and love only comes by way of free will, then yes, there will be suffering when sin is introduced into the world

Quote:

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"In fact it is completely irrational to believe any of the Christian legends. That is why Christians require faith. I'll grant you there is a vested interest of Christian apologists who have made a profession and racket out of trying to rationalize the irrational over the years."

I have given very strong, very rational reasons to believe them. Just because you reject them simply because you don't want to believe them, it doesn't make them irrational. Yes, it still requires faith, but faith is not founded on irrationality, it is founded on rationality. Everyone makes a leap of faith at some point. You do so, in your rejection of these beliefs in favor of embracing a belief that things happened, the odds against which are so improbable, so immensely and infinitesimally small, that it is unreasonable. Some might call THAT irrational. So what's the name of your religion?

If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur.


"However, Quantum Mechanics gives us the best of answers, explaining how something can in fact come from nothing, without a causal agent. Spontaneous origin is the most likely reason we are here. It fits very well with the observations being made about the universe and its expansion. Your imagination just says God did it, without any evidence or mechanism for how he did it. Quantum Mechanics tells us God isn't needed."

Quantum cosmology doesn't give us any answers, it only deals with mathematical and imaginary abstractions rather than observable astronomy and physics. It deals with the physics of the universe at the earliest beginning when the universe was so tiny that it isn't known how gravity works. Thus, it has allowed theoretical physicists to play with the numbers. Physicists developed a wave function of the universe that might happen at the quantum level, that depends on quantum fluctuations which could produce a set of possible universes, one which could have been our own.


The problems with this universe wave theory in quantum cosmology are these:

1) It is still based on the singularity model understanding of the universe, thus there's still a singularity, thus a beginning that it doesn't account for. Thus, it is NOT showing that something came out of nothing. Oops.

2) It is math. Math doesn't cause things to come into existence. Math doesn't cause anything to happen, it is causally inert. It's a concept that exists in - yep, you guessed it - minds. In fact, one of the proponents of this very quantum cosmology that you're espousing, Alexander Vilenkin, even reflects on this fact, acknowledging that math indeed is a concept in the mind, so therefore he asks a rhetorical question - "Are we therefore saying that a mind predates the universe?" The other proponent of quantum cosmology, Stephen Hawking, said in his book A Brief History of Time - "What puts fire in the equations that gives us a universe to describe? The equations don't give us a universe to describe. Something else must do that." So even the proponents of quantum cosmology are acknowledging that they haven't really shown a non-causal origin of the universe.

3) To get the universal wave function in quantum cosmology that is needed to explain the origin of the universe, physicists need to solve the Wheeler-Dewitt equation. However, this equation yields an infinite number of solutions, therefore physicists have to consciously choose boundary constraints in this equation, with the purpose of ending up with a universe like ours!! So this only supports the idea of a mind behind a universe, i.e. intelligent design!!

You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold, and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause. Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin. You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism.

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"If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur."

Your sperm comparison is a complete and utter joke. Your ignorance is astounding. It demonstrates your complete failure at understanding the concept. You are not presenting a probability. A probability only exists if you are trying to land on a predetermined target of significance. You can't look at the result, and then say AFTER the fact what the odds were for that one particular sperm and egg, and how improbable that it happened. That would be like spinning a roulette wheel 100 times, and AFTER knowing the results, saying how improbable it was to get that particular combination of 100 numbers and colors, yet it happened. Yes, of course it happened. ANY combination of 100 numbers and colors would have happened, because you spun the wheel 100 times, and the marble always lands on a number and color. It wasn't improbable that a particular combination of 100 numbers and colors happened- it was destined to happen. It'd only had been improbable for a specific combination that you specified BEFOREHAND to happen. That's the ridiculous argument you are making about the sperm and egg.

A more apt comparison between sperm/egg and the improbability of our universe would be if only ONE out of the 500 billion sperm a man makes in his lifetime can successfully fertilize an egg, and it happens......trillions, quadrillions, octillions times in a row. And yet, these odds would STILL be absolutely dwarfed by the unfathomable improbability that all 26 universal constants and quantities would fall in the precise range so that we have a universe capable of forming life. Just the odds for the gravitational constant by itself, in order for the universe to be conducive to life, is ONE in 10 to the 60TH power. The cosmological constant - one in 10 to the 120TH power. The low entropy state at the beginning of the universe - ONE IN TEN TO THE TEN TO THE 123RD POWER. And none of this includes the odds against life forming through abiogenesis- that's a whole 'nother can of worms! Now imagine the odds against all 26 of these constants hitting the precise value - at the same time. This is unfathomable. You are simply clueless as to the scope.


"You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold.."

I quoted these people.


".....and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause."

Given that I debunked your "plausible mathematical explanation" by exposing its major weaknesses and holes, you still need to search for one. It must have went over your head, since you didn't even rebut a single point I made. You obviously don't know enough about this topic.


"Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin."

What they acknowledged was there was still room for a Causal force, as was demonstrated by their quotes.


You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism."

The mathematics of improbability behind our universe is enough to point to an intelligent Cause to our universe. You, on the other hand, rely on this mathematically improbability happening in order to believe what you believe. What faith you have- what's the name of your religion? And note, you still have not produced a mathematical explanation for your beliefs, given I have debunked your appeal to authority.

"Only if your god isn't all loving and/or all powerful. Otherwise, your argument is totally illogical. Keep trying to force that square peg in the round hole, if you want."

This is a perfect analogy.
A square peg CAN fit in a round hole easily.
You just have to be less restrictive in your thinking to see how. Just like with what we're talking about.


"Most scientists rely on the evidence of reality and the fact that you don't need to invoke a god or gods to explain anything."

The reality that these scientists uncovered was just how incomprehensibly improbable that a universe that can produce life like ours happened. What many of these top scientists have acknowledged as a result, is that it is rational to view this level of improbability as evidence of purpose and design. If it is design, then it logically follows that there is a Designer. And if there is a Designer, then it logically follows that He must exist outside of our dimensional reality (matter, energy, space, and time) if He is the cause of it. This is just another way of describing "God".

If it is not design, then there are only two other possibilities: physical necessity, and chance. There is absolutely no evidence of physical necessity for the universal constants to be what they are. That leaves chance. This is what scientists and people like you who don't believe in design have to believe- that the ridiculously improbable of improbables happened. It is so incomprehensibly improbable that any intelligent, honest person would at LEAST acknowledge that it is perfectly rational to believe that this points to intent, purpose and design.


You leave out an important point in your claims. Some scientists who believe in the possibility of a deity, don't believe it is the Judeo/Christian/Islamic god, or any other god. Your argument, if true, doesn't preclude that deity from being any of the other various manmade gods, nor even the infamous "Flying Spaghetti Monster."

So what? The scientists are invoking some kind of intelligent cause to the universe, whatever it may be. That still flies in the face of your argument, right?


That's not right at all. Science tells us it's entirely possible that there are other universes with different constants and laws that govern their existence and that could have different life forms."

Possible, but not resulting in universes which can produce billions and billions of lives as our universe did. It is vastly more probable that universes with small patches of order, capable of supporting a few lives at most, would form rather then our universe which came from a very large patch of order, which is something we should least expect. And either way, these universes still required the extreme, extreme improbability of having all universal constants and quantities exquisitely fine tuned for life to exist.


There is no reason to believe that there cannot be a universe with silica based life forms, or some other unknown element. In fact our universe is not perfect for longevity of life. IF omega were 1, and the total energy of the universe were zero, life could go on without limitation. However, we know that omega is about .3, the total energy of the universes is not quite zero, and that the energy in empty space will continue to cause accelerated expansion, which ultumately will not end well for life. Omega would be one in a perfect universe for life. This universe is hostile to life overall, but it is not surprising, given the size of the universe that there are some oasis scattered throughout the universe where conditions are temporarily right for the existence of life forms."

This is a point that doesn't have a point. The universe not being optimal in terms of longevity does nothing to undermine an intelligent design to our universe, as a finite universe may have been precisely what the intelligent Designer wanted. You are glossing over the exquisite fine tuning of the universe, hoping that a point about the universe not lasting as long as it could have might undo it all. That's like finding a complex machine on the planet Mars, and arguing that it was NOT made by intelligent beings because the metal used wasn't the most durable kind.


Your question about why we ended up in a universe that allows life presupposes there is a purpose behind this universe. There is no evidence of any purpose behind this universe. A better question, is how we ended up with life in this universe, something science can answer and Christianity cannot.


Evidently, what science has illuminated, Christianity already had answered all along.

Really? You're description of feeble, limited and fallible minds is exactly the mind of primitive first century iron age and earlier primitive people, who didn't even know the earth orbited the sun. Your primitive people invented many different religions and gods with outlandish and unbelievable tales to account for what their minds could not comprehend.

It is indicative of a feeble, limited, and fallible mind to believe that not knowing the earth orbited the sun somehow precludes one from being able to reliable observe someone dying, and then rising from the dead with their own eyes. Were their eyes underdeveloped back then too? Were their primitive minds not able to comprehend the difference between a dead person and an live person?

Your claim is based upon flimsy evidence, if you want to accept unbelievable claims as evidence. I've pointed out previously that absent brain function there is no consciousness and awareness, and partial brain damage can lead to partial or impaired consciousness and awareness. That is demonstrable and testable evidence. You have nothing that is demonstrable or testable.

Again, your evidence does NOTHING to show that consciousness/mind is ONLY a product of the physical brain, and thus begins and ends with the brain. In fact, many top neuroscientists whose studies and research has led them to believe in the duality of the mind - that there is a physical/material component (the brain) AND a non-physical component.

I have the historical evidence of a resurrected Jesus who says and demonstrates that the mind is not just the brain. This is the ultimate evidence, and it's evidence from historical testimonies, which are reliable and authoritative. And you've offered absolutely NOTHING up to this point which falsifies this.


There is no credible evidence of mysticism behind consciousness. It's pretty clear that when your brain dies, your soul (consciousness and awareness) dies.

The resurrected Jesus seems to show otherwise, and he says it's the same for us too.


Since dogs and cats have much more limited consciousness and awareness than Homo sapiens, does that mean their souls are smaller?

Maybe. Who knows? Is this really a substantive point in your mind?


I think it's more the other way around. I'm waiting for any empirical objective evidence you can produce to substantiate your mystic claims.

The historical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which you have tried, but failed to falsify.


Sure they do. Where is your soul?? What is it made of??

I don't know. Do I have to?


Your claims are all speculation with a hint of science fiction. Where is your evidence for a soul tied to a brain, and how is it tied? If it were true, then what you're saying is it is dependent upon the brain, which we know is temporal.

My claims are based on the resurrection of Jesus and what he told us. Do you have scientific evidence to the contrary?


Where do you think your soul came from? What is its origin? The process for your brain development started at conception. Where was your soul before that?

Our souls came from God of course. Who knows about it's origin. Who knows where it was before that. You have the confused notion that we need answers to these or it invalidates the point.


And, again, if god is all powerful and all loving (stress all loving) why wouldn't he just start with the equivalent of a resurrected body and brain experiencing love, joy, and happiness ab initio. Otherwise he is not all loving or all powerful.

Not necessarily, if God wanted us to go through this first phase for a good reason.


You're the one making extraordinary claims with WEAK evidence, not me.

I have actual historical evidence. You have nothing to refute them but presumptions. THAT is weak.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

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What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

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None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

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What you are arguing for is illogical, if there is an all loving all powerful god. With a god of these characteristics, it would be illogical and unecessary for him to create a world of pain and suffering for good. He could, being all powerful, override that requirement, and would being all loving, thereby creating the same end result without pain and suffering. What you are describing is a limited god who is either not all powerful, or not all loving. He lacks at least one of those attributes. If that is your god, then your theory could hold.

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"override that requirement" - then it wouldn't be a requirement. You see the flaw in your logic?

If it IS an actual requirement, meaning that an expanded good can not happen without it, then it is perfectly logical, and your argument fails.

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No. You're making my point. It's not a requirement for an all powerful god. An all powerful god can make it happen without the requirement, and an all loving and powerful god would make it that way. The god you are describing is either not all powerful, or not all loving, or not both.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:
"It's probable that our universe exists the way it is. Plausible explanations have been given for its existence. The universe itself is testimony to the improbability of your god."

Once again, a view not shared by top scientists:


- "If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features are surprising and unlikely." - physicist David Deutsch

- "Somebody had to tune [the universe] very precisely," - Marek Demianski, a Polish cosmologist.

- "The odds against a universe like ours coming out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications" - Stephen Hawking

- "Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule....A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics. . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question" - astronomer Fred Hoyle

- "Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as brute fact." - physicist Paul Davies

- "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming." - physicist Paul Davies

- "This is the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science." - Robert Jastrow, former Head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
TexasScientist said:
"It's probable that our universe exists the way it is. Plausible explanations have been given for its existence. The universe itself is testimony to the improbability of your god."

Once again, a view not shared by top scientists:


- "If anyone claims not to be surprised by the special features that the universe has, he is hiding his head in the sand. These special features are surprising and unlikely." - physicist David Deutsch

- "Somebody had to tune [the universe] very precisely," - Marek Demianski, a Polish cosmologist.

- "The odds against a universe like ours coming out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications" - Stephen Hawking

- "Some supercalculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule....A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with the physics. . . . The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question" - astronomer Fred Hoyle

- "Through my scientific work, I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as brute fact." - physicist Paul Davies

- "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…it seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature's numbers to make the universe. The impression of design is overwhelming." - physicist Paul Davies

- "This is the most powerful evidence for the existence of God ever to come out of science." - Robert Jastrow, former Head of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

I've already answered this point, in the previous post above - that this is a minority viewpoint among some scientists who mostly come from engineering or mathematical backgrounds. However, I notice you continue to misrepresent out of context Stephen Hawking, who was an atheist. Not a single NASA scientist relies on god as opposed to science in exercising their work.
A lot of these scientists are astronomers, physicists, and astrophysicists, but nice try.

You can't rationalize out of this one. You're just gonna have to eat the fact that these top scientists show there to be rationality behind a belief in a God, based on scientific discovery about the universe. It clearly shows that scientific knowledge does not diverge away from a belief in God, but rather it points to it.

What is evident is that some scientists, no matter how irrational, when considering their own mortality, want to believe in the irrational, and will devise ways to pseudo rationalize their belief in the irrational. But, just like you, when faced with difficult problems in life, they all rely upon scientific answers and solutions, as opposed to relying on mysticism.

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"What is evident is that some scientists, no matter how irrational, when considering their own mortality, want to believe in the irrational, and will devise ways to pseudo rationalize their belief in the irrational. But, just like you, when faced with difficult problems in life, they all rely upon scientific answers and solutions, as opposed to relying on mysticism."

The same argument can be turned around against you: what is evident is that you, as well as some scientists, want to believe there is no Creator God because of the implications, so in fear you try to rationalize this with science, when science has done nothing to prove there is no God; rather, as scientific knowledge grows, more and more, it points to His existence.

What I find ironic about the second part of your comment is that today mankind has the most scientific knowledge it's ever had...yet unhappiness, insecurity, strife, and evil continue unabated. In fact, it is probably worse than ever before. If a problem has a scientific answer or solution, of course that's what we go to. That is not in any way an affront to our faith in God. And remember, science itself is often the cause of pain and suffering (war, Covid). But there are deeper issues and wants in life that science is powerless to solve. Mysticism? As has been evident from all my previous posts, the heavens declare there is a God, and life on earth declare there is a God, and the historical testimonies of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus prove it.

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I don't have any fear, but science has shown there is no need for a god to explain our existence. The body of science points to the existence of any god is highly improbable.

Science asks questions about the physics and governing properties of the universe, and tests those questions to provide predictable and repeatable answers. How those answers are used by mankind is not a judgement upon science, but instead upon mankind. Science doesn't cause pain or anything. Just like a gun does not cause anything, in and of itself. It's how it is misused by a person. Look at how many people are slaughtered in the name of god. It's clear that no god did it, but rather religious zealots. Do you think god had a hand in the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan, or was it religious zealots?

Science is not an entity or being. And in spite of your claim for a god, as you say "unhappiness, insecurity, strife, and evil continue unabated."

Oldbear83 said:

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You keep trying to impose a god of your own design, and therefore also your own limits.

Yet you think others are lacking logic.

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Not necessary. I just use the Judeo/Christian/Islamic god as described by his faithful.

TexasScientist said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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You keep trying to impose a god of your own design, and therefore also your own limits.

Yet you think others are lacking logic.

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Not necessary. I just use the Judeo/Christian/Islamic god as described by his faithful.

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Nope, not even close. Your imagination, yet again, misleads you TS.

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

---

What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

---

None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

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What you are arguing for is illogical, if there is an all loving all powerful god. With a god of these characteristics, it would be illogical and unecessary for him to create a world of pain and suffering for good. He could, being all powerful, override that requirement, and would being all loving, thereby creating the same end result without pain and suffering. What you are describing is a limited god who is either not all powerful, or not all loving. He lacks at least one of those attributes. If that is your god, then your theory could hold.

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if the greatest good is love, and love only comes by way of free will, then yes, there will be suffering when sin is introduced into the world

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If god gives you free will, then he could give you love, eternal peace and happiness, without the need for free will, or suffering, or the introduction of sin.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Quote:

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"In fact it is completely irrational to believe any of the Christian legends. That is why Christians require faith. I'll grant you there is a vested interest of Christian apologists who have made a profession and racket out of trying to rationalize the irrational over the years."

I have given very strong, very rational reasons to believe them. Just because you reject them simply because you don't want to believe them, it doesn't make them irrational. Yes, it still requires faith, but faith is not founded on irrationality, it is founded on rationality. Everyone makes a leap of faith at some point. You do so, in your rejection of these beliefs in favor of embracing a belief that things happened, the odds against which are so improbable, so immensely and infinitesimally small, that it is unreasonable. Some might call THAT irrational. So what's the name of your religion?

If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur.


"However, Quantum Mechanics gives us the best of answers, explaining how something can in fact come from nothing, without a causal agent. Spontaneous origin is the most likely reason we are here. It fits very well with the observations being made about the universe and its expansion. Your imagination just says God did it, without any evidence or mechanism for how he did it. Quantum Mechanics tells us God isn't needed."

Quantum cosmology doesn't give us any answers, it only deals with mathematical and imaginary abstractions rather than observable astronomy and physics. It deals with the physics of the universe at the earliest beginning when the universe was so tiny that it isn't known how gravity works. Thus, it has allowed theoretical physicists to play with the numbers. Physicists developed a wave function of the universe that might happen at the quantum level, that depends on quantum fluctuations which could produce a set of possible universes, one which could have been our own.


The problems with this universe wave theory in quantum cosmology are these:

1) It is still based on the singularity model understanding of the universe, thus there's still a singularity, thus a beginning that it doesn't account for. Thus, it is NOT showing that something came out of nothing. Oops.

2) It is math. Math doesn't cause things to come into existence. Math doesn't cause anything to happen, it is causally inert. It's a concept that exists in - yep, you guessed it - minds. In fact, one of the proponents of this very quantum cosmology that you're espousing, Alexander Vilenkin, even reflects on this fact, acknowledging that math indeed is a concept in the mind, so therefore he asks a rhetorical question - "Are we therefore saying that a mind predates the universe?" The other proponent of quantum cosmology, Stephen Hawking, said in his book A Brief History of Time - "What puts fire in the equations that gives us a universe to describe? The equations don't give us a universe to describe. Something else must do that." So even the proponents of quantum cosmology are acknowledging that they haven't really shown a non-causal origin of the universe.

3) To get the universal wave function in quantum cosmology that is needed to explain the origin of the universe, physicists need to solve the Wheeler-Dewitt equation. However, this equation yields an infinite number of solutions, therefore physicists have to consciously choose boundary constraints in this equation, with the purpose of ending up with a universe like ours!! So this only supports the idea of a mind behind a universe, i.e. intelligent design!!

You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold, and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause. Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin. You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism.

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"If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur."

Your sperm comparison is a complete and utter joke. Your ignorance is astounding. It demonstrates your complete failure at understanding the concept. You are not presenting a probability. A probability only exists if you are trying to land on a predetermined target of significance. You can't look at the result, and then say AFTER the fact what the odds were for that one particular sperm and egg, and how improbable that it happened. That would be like spinning a roulette wheel 100 times, and AFTER knowing the results, saying how improbable it was to get that particular combination of 100 numbers and colors, yet it happened. Yes, of course it happened. ANY combination of 100 numbers and colors would have happened, because you spun the wheel 100 times, and the marble always lands on a number and color. It wasn't improbable that a particular combination of 100 numbers and colors happened- it was destined to happen. It'd only had been improbable for a specific combination that you specified BEFOREHAND to happen. That's the ridiculous argument you are making about the sperm and egg.

A more apt comparison between sperm/egg and the improbability of our universe would be if only ONE out of the 500 billion sperm a man makes in his lifetime can successfully fertilize an egg, and it happens......trillions, quadrillions, octillions times in a row. And yet, these odds would STILL be absolutely dwarfed by the unfathomable improbability that all 26 universal constants and quantities would fall in the precise range so that we have a universe capable of forming life. Just the odds for the gravitational constant by itself, in order for the universe to be conducive to life, is ONE in 10 to the 60TH power. The cosmological constant - one in 10 to the 120TH power. The low entropy state at the beginning of the universe - ONE IN TEN TO THE TEN TO THE 123RD POWER. And none of this includes the odds against life forming through abiogenesis- that's a whole 'nother can of worms! Now imagine the odds against all 26 of these constants hitting the precise value - at the same time. This is unfathomable. You are simply clueless as to the scope.

And yet, just like the fertilized egg, for each person that has ever existed, no matter how improbable, here our universe is, because if it is possible for all of the required factors to be in place, then it will occur. How do you know that the laws governing this universe didn't come into existence with the formation of the universe? Quantum physics tells us that is possible. There may be other universes in a multiverse, each with there own separate governing laws.

"You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold.."

I quoted these people.
Out of context.

".....and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause."

Given that I debunked your "plausible mathematical explanation" by exposing its major weaknesses and holes, you still need to search for one. It must have went over your head, since you didn't even rebut a single point I made. You obviously don't know enough about this topic.
You didn't expose anything. I've given you explanations for why we're not in the perfect universe for life to exist.

"Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin."

What they acknowledged was there was still room for a Causal force, as was demonstrated by their quotes.

What they all acknowledge is that no causal force is needed.


You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism."

The mathematics of improbability behind our universe is enough to point to an intelligent Cause to our universe. You, on the other hand, rely on this mathematically improbability happening in order to believe what you believe. What faith you have- what's the name of your religion? And note, you still have not produced a mathematical explanation for your beliefs, given I have debunked your appeal to authority.

Quantum theory gives you the mathematical explanations. You haven't given any mathematical theories to support your claim for a god pulling the strings behind the scenes.

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TexasScientist said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

---

There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

---

What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

---

None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

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What you are arguing for is illogical, if there is an all loving all powerful god. With a god of these characteristics, it would be illogical and unecessary for him to create a world of pain and suffering for good. He could, being all powerful, override that requirement, and would being all loving, thereby creating the same end result without pain and suffering. What you are describing is a limited god who is either not all powerful, or not all loving. He lacks at least one of those attributes. If that is your god, then your theory could hold.

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if the greatest good is love, and love only comes by way of free will, then yes, there will be suffering when sin is introduced into the world

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If god gives you free will, then he could give you love, eternal peace and happiness, without the need for free will, or suffering, or the introduction of sin.

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He gives me love. He doesn't force me to love Him back because, LOVE IS AN ACT OF FREE WILL. Love cannot be forced.

You want either no god or a god of your own design. This is why so many times before I have brought up the word "humility" with you in these threads. You think you have a better way and refuse to accept the possibility you don't.

Guess what? YOU DON'T

TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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"Your argument is that your god and you believe a child who is subjected to molestation is better off for it. There simply is no way for you to justify that."

The argument is and always has been that if God allows evil to happen, then it is possible that God had good reasons for it, and therefore it would not be at odds with his omnipotence and love. You still have not logically falsified this. You have only asserted YOUR standard of what is "better" based on your limited perspective and understanding, just like how a child thinks he knows what is "better" over the parents.

It is possible that there is a "best" good that can only come by way of pain and suffering, and that is what God wants for us. Immediately gifting us that good while bypassing the process might not yield the same good, therefore it isn't the "best". The argument that God can change what is "best" to involve not having suffering is a logical error, because if God can change what is "best", then "best" doesn't exist. God being all-powerful does not mean He can perform nonsense logic. If you believe that's what all-powerful means, then your understanding of it is flawed. It would also be against His character, akin to saying, "if God is all-powerful, then He can commit sin".

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What you're saying is illogical and not rational, but a convoluted attempt to justify your belief. If your god is all powerful and all loving, he would not have created a place of pain and suffering, created and inserted you into it, just so you can get to a better place where there is no suffering. He could have/would have skipped the pain and suffering and inserted you into heaven to begin with. To do otherwise means he is either not all loving or not all powerful. That is logic. What you argue is nonsense.

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There simply is no way around the fact that you have failed to logically refute the possibility that the "best" good can only come from allowing pain and suffering. Until then, all you are doing is repeating the same unproven premise based on the perspective of a limited and heavily biased mind. Calling it "nonsense" is a lot easier than having to refute.

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What you are describing is not possible and is itself illogical. There is no "best" good that can come from pain and suffering, when you have an all loving powerful god, by definition of the terms or words. Look up all loving, best, and all powerful, heaven or utopia. That's why your argument is nonsense.

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None of the definitions of all loving, best, all powerful, afterlife heaven, or afterlife utopia preclude a preliminary state of pain and suffering in this life. If it is possible that the existence of pain and suffering creates a new situation or capacity that allows for an even greater good than if there were no pain and suffering at all, then your argument fails. God would still be all-loving and all-powerful, the situation would be the best, and heaven after this life would still be a utopia.

What you have constantly failed to prove, is that this possibility does not or can not exist. You simply assume it does not exist, based on your presuppositions, heavy bias, and limited perspective.

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What you are arguing for is illogical, if there is an all loving all powerful god. With a god of these characteristics, it would be illogical and unecessary for him to create a world of pain and suffering for good. He could, being all powerful, override that requirement, and would being all loving, thereby creating the same end result without pain and suffering. What you are describing is a limited god who is either not all powerful, or not all loving. He lacks at least one of those attributes. If that is your god, then your theory could hold.

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"override that requirement" - then it wouldn't be a requirement. You see the flaw in your logic?

If it IS an actual requirement, meaning that an expanded good can not happen without it, then it is perfectly logical, and your argument fails.

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No. You're making my point. It's not a requirement for an all powerful god. An all powerful god can make it happen without the requirement, and an all loving and powerful god would make it that way. The god you are describing is either not all powerful, or not all loving, or not both.

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Oh I see. So God should just make whatever is "sin" into what is "holy", and that way we wouldn't be sinners anymore! Right?

Or, God doesn't need the requirement of adding 1 to 1 to get to 2, He can just turn the 1 into a 2 and skip the adding, right?

God being "all-powerful" doesn't mean God can go against His own attributes, like commit sin or perform nonsense logic. Your understanding of "all-powerful" is flawed.

TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Quote:

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"In fact it is completely irrational to believe any of the Christian legends. That is why Christians require faith. I'll grant you there is a vested interest of Christian apologists who have made a profession and racket out of trying to rationalize the irrational over the years."

I have given very strong, very rational reasons to believe them. Just because you reject them simply because you don't want to believe them, it doesn't make them irrational. Yes, it still requires faith, but faith is not founded on irrationality, it is founded on rationality. Everyone makes a leap of faith at some point. You do so, in your rejection of these beliefs in favor of embracing a belief that things happened, the odds against which are so improbable, so immensely and infinitesimally small, that it is unreasonable. Some might call THAT irrational. So what's the name of your religion?

If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur.


"However, Quantum Mechanics gives us the best of answers, explaining how something can in fact come from nothing, without a causal agent. Spontaneous origin is the most likely reason we are here. It fits very well with the observations being made about the universe and its expansion. Your imagination just says God did it, without any evidence or mechanism for how he did it. Quantum Mechanics tells us God isn't needed."

Quantum cosmology doesn't give us any answers, it only deals with mathematical and imaginary abstractions rather than observable astronomy and physics. It deals with the physics of the universe at the earliest beginning when the universe was so tiny that it isn't known how gravity works. Thus, it has allowed theoretical physicists to play with the numbers. Physicists developed a wave function of the universe that might happen at the quantum level, that depends on quantum fluctuations which could produce a set of possible universes, one which could have been our own.


The problems with this universe wave theory in quantum cosmology are these:

1) It is still based on the singularity model understanding of the universe, thus there's still a singularity, thus a beginning that it doesn't account for. Thus, it is NOT showing that something came out of nothing. Oops.

2) It is math. Math doesn't cause things to come into existence. Math doesn't cause anything to happen, it is causally inert. It's a concept that exists in - yep, you guessed it - minds. In fact, one of the proponents of this very quantum cosmology that you're espousing, Alexander Vilenkin, even reflects on this fact, acknowledging that math indeed is a concept in the mind, so therefore he asks a rhetorical question - "Are we therefore saying that a mind predates the universe?" The other proponent of quantum cosmology, Stephen Hawking, said in his book A Brief History of Time - "What puts fire in the equations that gives us a universe to describe? The equations don't give us a universe to describe. Something else must do that." So even the proponents of quantum cosmology are acknowledging that they haven't really shown a non-causal origin of the universe.

3) To get the universal wave function in quantum cosmology that is needed to explain the origin of the universe, physicists need to solve the Wheeler-Dewitt equation. However, this equation yields an infinite number of solutions, therefore physicists have to consciously choose boundary constraints in this equation, with the purpose of ending up with a universe like ours!! So this only supports the idea of a mind behind a universe, i.e. intelligent design!!

You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold, and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause. Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin. You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism.

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"If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur."

Your sperm comparison is a complete and utter joke. Your ignorance is astounding. It demonstrates your complete failure at understanding the concept. You are not presenting a probability. A probability only exists if you are trying to land on a predetermined target of significance. You can't look at the result, and then say AFTER the fact what the odds were for that one particular sperm and egg, and how improbable that it happened. That would be like spinning a roulette wheel 100 times, and AFTER knowing the results, saying how improbable it was to get that particular combination of 100 numbers and colors, yet it happened. Yes, of course it happened. ANY combination of 100 numbers and colors would have happened, because you spun the wheel 100 times, and the marble always lands on a number and color. It wasn't improbable that a particular combination of 100 numbers and colors happened- it was destined to happen. It'd only had been improbable for a specific combination that you specified BEFOREHAND to happen. That's the ridiculous argument you are making about the sperm and egg.

A more apt comparison between sperm/egg and the improbability of our universe would be if only ONE out of the 500 billion sperm a man makes in his lifetime can successfully fertilize an egg, and it happens......trillions, quadrillions, octillions times in a row. And yet, these odds would STILL be absolutely dwarfed by the unfathomable improbability that all 26 universal constants and quantities would fall in the precise range so that we have a universe capable of forming life. Just the odds for the gravitational constant by itself, in order for the universe to be conducive to life, is ONE in 10 to the 60TH power. The cosmological constant - one in 10 to the 120TH power. The low entropy state at the beginning of the universe - ONE IN TEN TO THE TEN TO THE 123RD POWER. And none of this includes the odds against life forming through abiogenesis- that's a whole 'nother can of worms! Now imagine the odds against all 26 of these constants hitting the precise value - at the same time. This is unfathomable. You are simply clueless as to the scope.

And yet, just like the fertilized egg, for each person that has ever existed, no matter how improbable, here our universe is, because if it is possible for all of the required factors to be in place, then it will occur. How do you know that the laws governing this universe didn't come into existence with the formation of the universe? Quantum physics tells us that is possible. There may be other universes in a multiverse, each with there own separate governing laws.

"You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold.."

I quoted these people.
Out of context.

".....and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause."

Given that I debunked your "plausible mathematical explanation" by exposing its major weaknesses and holes, you still need to search for one. It must have went over your head, since you didn't even rebut a single point I made. You obviously don't know enough about this topic.
You didn't expose anything. I've given you explanations for why we're not in the perfect universe for life to exist.

"Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin."

What they acknowledged was there was still room for a Causal force, as was demonstrated by their quotes.

What they all acknowledge is that no causal force is needed.


You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism."

The mathematics of improbability behind our universe is enough to point to an intelligent Cause to our universe. You, on the other hand, rely on this mathematically improbability happening in order to believe what you believe. What faith you have- what's the name of your religion? And note, you still have not produced a mathematical explanation for your beliefs, given I have debunked your appeal to authority.

Quantum theory gives you the mathematical explanations. You haven't given any mathematical theories to support your claim for a god pulling the strings behind the scenes.

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And yet, just like the fertilized egg, for each person that has ever existed, no matter how improbable, here our universe is, because if it is possible for all of the required factors to be in place, then it will occur.

A fertilized egg is not improbable. It is designed to happen and has happened frequently enough to form billions and billions of people. You obviously have no intent on addressing the more apt comparison I provided, where ONLY ONE sperm out of 500 billion made during a man's life can fertilize an egg, and for it to even come close to the improbability of our universe and the formation of life, successful fertilization with those odds has to happen millions, perhaps billions of times in row.

Keep trying to minimize the extreme, incomprehensible improbability of our universe that I have repeatedly expressed mathematically, to which there is NO comparison. Comparing it to the fertilization of an egg just makes you look desperate - or completely clueless.


Out of context.

Please, do share how those quotes regarding quantum cosmology (Vilenkin, Hawking) was taken out of context.


How do you know that the laws governing this universe didn't come into existence with the formation of the universe?

If what you're asking is how do we know that the universal constants and quantities did not arise by physical necessity, i.e. a grand unifying law that determined their values? We don't. But we have no scientific evidence for this. And if we did, where would that grand law come from?


Quantum physics tells us that is possible. There may be other universes in a multiverse, each with there own separate governing laws.

Ahh, the MULTIVERSE! There's your religion! You believe in something that we have absolutely NO observable scientific evidence for! Isn't that why you mock religion?

Tell you what- I'll tell you that yes, it is possible mathematically that a multiverse exists, if you tell me that yes, it is possible that the claims of Papias, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian are correct, that the authors of the gospels are indeed the ones who names are attached. Deal?


"You didn't expose anything. I've given you explanations for why we're not in the perfect universe for life to exist."

More like you didn't comprehend. Your explanation for why we're not in the "perfect universe" for life does NOTHING to disprove intelligent design, as a finite universe may have been precisely what God wanted.



What they all acknowledge is that no causal force is needed.

You mean the quantum cosmology explanation you offered, the one where they still did not eliminate a beginning to the universe, asserted math as the cause of physical reality when math is causally inert, and had to consciously choose boundaries to their equations in order to make it work for our universe, thus demonstrating the very act of INTENT and PURPOSE, i.e. intelligent design? I don't think you should hang your hat on that one.


Quantum theory gives you the mathematical explanations. You haven't given any mathematical theories to support your claim for a god pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Please show me exactly how quantum theory shows there is no God, or by extension, a non-cause for the universe (which, by the way, still doesn't prove there is no God).

You haven't given any mathematical theories to support your claim for a god pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Keep pretending that I haven't repeatedly illustrated the incomprehensible improbability that is this universe in mathematical terms, something that has led even top scientists to acknowledge the rationality behind the idea of intelligent design.

TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Quote:

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"In fact it is completely irrational to believe any of the Christian legends. That is why Christians require faith. I'll grant you there is a vested interest of Christian apologists who have made a profession and racket out of trying to rationalize the irrational over the years."

I have given very strong, very rational reasons to believe them. Just because you reject them simply because you don't want to believe them, it doesn't make them irrational. Yes, it still requires faith, but faith is not founded on irrationality, it is founded on rationality. Everyone makes a leap of faith at some point. You do so, in your rejection of these beliefs in favor of embracing a belief that things happened, the odds against which are so improbable, so immensely and infinitesimally small, that it is unreasonable. Some might call THAT irrational. So what's the name of your religion?

If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur.


"However, Quantum Mechanics gives us the best of answers, explaining how something can in fact come from nothing, without a causal agent. Spontaneous origin is the most likely reason we are here. It fits very well with the observations being made about the universe and its expansion. Your imagination just says God did it, without any evidence or mechanism for how he did it. Quantum Mechanics tells us God isn't needed."

Quantum cosmology doesn't give us any answers, it only deals with mathematical and imaginary abstractions rather than observable astronomy and physics. It deals with the physics of the universe at the earliest beginning when the universe was so tiny that it isn't known how gravity works. Thus, it has allowed theoretical physicists to play with the numbers. Physicists developed a wave function of the universe that might happen at the quantum level, that depends on quantum fluctuations which could produce a set of possible universes, one which could have been our own.


The problems with this universe wave theory in quantum cosmology are these:

1) It is still based on the singularity model understanding of the universe, thus there's still a singularity, thus a beginning that it doesn't account for. Thus, it is NOT showing that something came out of nothing. Oops.

2) It is math. Math doesn't cause things to come into existence. Math doesn't cause anything to happen, it is causally inert. It's a concept that exists in - yep, you guessed it - minds. In fact, one of the proponents of this very quantum cosmology that you're espousing, Alexander Vilenkin, even reflects on this fact, acknowledging that math indeed is a concept in the mind, so therefore he asks a rhetorical question - "Are we therefore saying that a mind predates the universe?" The other proponent of quantum cosmology, Stephen Hawking, said in his book A Brief History of Time - "What puts fire in the equations that gives us a universe to describe? The equations don't give us a universe to describe. Something else must do that." So even the proponents of quantum cosmology are acknowledging that they haven't really shown a non-causal origin of the universe.

3) To get the universal wave function in quantum cosmology that is needed to explain the origin of the universe, physicists need to solve the Wheeler-Dewitt equation. However, this equation yields an infinite number of solutions, therefore physicists have to consciously choose boundary constraints in this equation, with the purpose of ending up with a universe like ours!! So this only supports the idea of a mind behind a universe, i.e. intelligent design!!

You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold, and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause. Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin. You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism.

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"If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur."

Your sperm comparison is a complete and utter joke. Your ignorance is astounding. It demonstrates your complete failure at understanding the concept. You are not presenting a probability. A probability only exists if you are trying to land on a predetermined target of significance. You can't look at the result, and then say AFTER the fact what the odds were for that one particular sperm and egg, and how improbable that it happened. That would be like spinning a roulette wheel 100 times, and AFTER knowing the results, saying how improbable it was to get that particular combination of 100 numbers and colors, yet it happened. Yes, of course it happened. ANY combination of 100 numbers and colors would have happened, because you spun the wheel 100 times, and the marble always lands on a number and color. It wasn't improbable that a particular combination of 100 numbers and colors happened- it was destined to happen. It'd only had been improbable for a specific combination that you specified BEFOREHAND to happen. That's the ridiculous argument you are making about the sperm and egg.

A more apt comparison between sperm/egg and the improbability of our universe would be if only ONE out of the 500 billion sperm a man makes in his lifetime can successfully fertilize an egg, and it happens......trillions, quadrillions, octillions times in a row. And yet, these odds would STILL be absolutely dwarfed by the unfathomable improbability that all 26 universal constants and quantities would fall in the precise range so that we have a universe capable of forming life. Just the odds for the gravitational constant by itself, in order for the universe to be conducive to life, is ONE in 10 to the 60TH power. The cosmological constant - one in 10 to the 120TH power. The low entropy state at the beginning of the universe - ONE IN TEN TO THE TEN TO THE 123RD POWER. And none of this includes the odds against life forming through abiogenesis- that's a whole 'nother can of worms! Now imagine the odds against all 26 of these constants hitting the precise value - at the same time. This is unfathomable. You are simply clueless as to the scope.

And yet, just like the fertilized egg, for each person that has ever existed, no matter how improbable, here our universe is, because if it is possible for all of the required factors to be in place, then it will occur. How do you know that the laws governing this universe didn't come into existence with the formation of the universe? Quantum physics tells us that is possible. There may be other universes in a multiverse, each with there own separate governing laws.

"You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold.."

I quoted these people.
Out of context.

".....and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause."

Given that I debunked your "plausible mathematical explanation" by exposing its major weaknesses and holes, you still need to search for one. It must have went over your head, since you didn't even rebut a single point I made. You obviously don't know enough about this topic.
You didn't expose anything. I've given you explanations for why we're not in the perfect universe for life to exist.

"Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin."

What they acknowledged was there was still room for a Causal force, as was demonstrated by their quotes.

What they all acknowledge is that no causal force is needed.


You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism."

The mathematics of improbability behind our universe is enough to point to an intelligent Cause to our universe. You, on the other hand, rely on this mathematically improbability happening in order to believe what you believe. What faith you have- what's the name of your religion? And note, you still have not produced a mathematical explanation for your beliefs, given I have debunked your appeal to authority.

Quantum theory gives you the mathematical explanations. You haven't given any mathematical theories to support your claim for a god pulling the strings behind the scenes.

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Quote:

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"In fact it is completely irrational to believe any of the Christian legends. That is why Christians require faith. I'll grant you there is a vested interest of Christian apologists who have made a profession and racket out of trying to rationalize the irrational over the years."

I have given very strong, very rational reasons to believe them. Just because you reject them simply because you don't want to believe them, it doesn't make them irrational. Yes, it still requires faith, but faith is not founded on irrationality, it is founded on rationality. Everyone makes a leap of faith at some point. You do so, in your rejection of these beliefs in favor of embracing a belief that things happened, the odds against which are so improbable, so immensely and infinitesimally small, that it is unreasonable. Some might call THAT irrational. So what's the name of your religion?

If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur.


"However, Quantum Mechanics gives us the best of answers, explaining how something can in fact come from nothing, without a causal agent. Spontaneous origin is the most likely reason we are here. It fits very well with the observations being made about the universe and its expansion. Your imagination just says God did it, without any evidence or mechanism for how he did it. Quantum Mechanics tells us God isn't needed."

Quantum cosmology doesn't give us any answers, it only deals with mathematical and imaginary abstractions rather than observable astronomy and physics. It deals with the physics of the universe at the earliest beginning when the universe was so tiny that it isn't known how gravity works. Thus, it has allowed theoretical physicists to play with the numbers. Physicists developed a wave function of the universe that might happen at the quantum level, that depends on quantum fluctuations which could produce a set of possible universes, one which could have been our own.


The problems with this universe wave theory in quantum cosmology are these:

1) It is still based on the singularity model understanding of the universe, thus there's still a singularity, thus a beginning that it doesn't account for. Thus, it is NOT showing that something came out of nothing. Oops.

2) It is math. Math doesn't cause things to come into existence. Math doesn't cause anything to happen, it is causally inert. It's a concept that exists in - yep, you guessed it - minds. In fact, one of the proponents of this very quantum cosmology that you're espousing, Alexander Vilenkin, even reflects on this fact, acknowledging that math indeed is a concept in the mind, so therefore he asks a rhetorical question - "Are we therefore saying that a mind predates the universe?" The other proponent of quantum cosmology, Stephen Hawking, said in his book A Brief History of Time - "What puts fire in the equations that gives us a universe to describe? The equations don't give us a universe to describe. Something else must do that." So even the proponents of quantum cosmology are acknowledging that they haven't really shown a non-causal origin of the universe.

3) To get the universal wave function in quantum cosmology that is needed to explain the origin of the universe, physicists need to solve the Wheeler-Dewitt equation. However, this equation yields an infinite number of solutions, therefore physicists have to consciously choose boundary constraints in this equation, with the purpose of ending up with a universe like ours!! So this only supports the idea of a mind behind a universe, i.e. intelligent design!!

You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold, and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause. Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin. You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism.

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"If what you say were true, no faith would be needed. The odds of a particular sperm uniting with particular egg in the chains of conceptions leading up to your conception is also infinitesimally small, yet probable. If something is probable, then at some point it may occur."

Your sperm comparison is a complete and utter joke. Your ignorance is astounding. It demonstrates your complete failure at understanding the concept. You are not presenting a probability. A probability only exists if you are trying to land on a predetermined target of significance. You can't look at the result, and then say AFTER the fact what the odds were for that one particular sperm and egg, and how improbable that it happened. That would be like spinning a roulette wheel 100 times, and AFTER knowing the results, saying how improbable it was to get that particular combination of 100 numbers and colors, yet it happened. Yes, of course it happened. ANY combination of 100 numbers and colors would have happened, because you spun the wheel 100 times, and the marble always lands on a number and color. It wasn't improbable that a particular combination of 100 numbers and colors happened- it was destined to happen. It'd only had been improbable for a specific combination that you specified BEFOREHAND to happen. That's the ridiculous argument you are making about the sperm and egg.

A more apt comparison between sperm/egg and the improbability of our universe would be if only ONE out of the 500 billion sperm a man makes in his lifetime can successfully fertilize an egg, and it happens......trillions, quadrillions, octillions times in a row. And yet, these odds would STILL be absolutely dwarfed by the unfathomable improbability that all 26 universal constants and quantities would fall in the precise range so that we have a universe capable of forming life. Just the odds for the gravitational constant by itself, in order for the universe to be conducive to life, is ONE in 10 to the 60TH power. The cosmological constant - one in 10 to the 120TH power. The low entropy state at the beginning of the universe - ONE IN TEN TO THE TEN TO THE 123RD POWER. And none of this includes the odds against life forming through abiogenesis- that's a whole 'nother can of worms! Now imagine the odds against all 26 of these constants hitting the precise value - at the same time. This is unfathomable. You are simply clueless as to the scope.

And yet, just like the fertilized egg, for each person that has ever existed, no matter how improbable, here our universe is, because if it is possible for all of the required factors to be in place, then it will occur. How do you know that the laws governing this universe didn't come into existence with the formation of the universe? Quantum physics tells us that is possible. There may be other universes in a multiverse, each with there own separate governing laws.

"You're off in the weeds trying to impart opinions to people that they don't hold.."

I quoted these people.
Out of context.

".....and ignoring that we have very plausible mathematical explanations of a spontaneous universe without cause."

Given that I debunked your "plausible mathematical explanation" by exposing its major weaknesses and holes, you still need to search for one. It must have went over your head, since you didn't even rebut a single point I made. You obviously don't know enough about this topic.
You didn't expose anything. I've given you explanations for why we're not in the perfect universe for life to exist.

"Hawking, Guth and many others acknowledge that, including Vilenkin."

What they acknowledged was there was still room for a Causal force, as was demonstrated by their quotes.

What they all acknowledge is that no causal force is needed.


You have no mathematical explanations for any of your mystical beliefs. Just mysticism."

The mathematics of improbability behind our universe is enough to point to an intelligent Cause to our universe. You, on the other hand, rely on this mathematically improbability happening in order to believe what you believe. What faith you have- what's the name of your religion? And note, you still have not produced a mathematical explanation for your beliefs, given I have debunked your appeal to authority.

Quantum theory gives you the mathematical explanations. You haven't given any mathematical theories to support your claim for a god pulling the strings behind the scenes.

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Here, don't listen to me. I found a good treatise for you by Victor Stenger that addresses virtually eveything you want to argue:

Evolution is Not the Whole Story
As the bankruptcy of creation "science" becomes increasingly recognized, a new catch phrase, intelligent design, has been adopted by those who persist in their attempts to inject creationism into the science curriculum (see, for example, Of Pandas and People, Davis 1993; Matsumura 1995 and Cole 1995 report on attempts to introduce Pandas into schools). Intelligent design is a more subtle term than creation science, one that has far broader implications than the genesis of life on a minor planet in the corner of a minor galaxy. The argument that the material universe resulted from conscious action outside itself can sound convincing, even to those who accept biological evolution as established fact. Many who agree that biblical creation is not an appropriate part of the science curriculum, because it is not science, may not object to including material that argues with greater sophistication that the universe as a whole shows evidence for design.
I can foresee proponents of intelligent design campaigning for science lessons to include statements of the sort we often read today in books and the popular press, that modern physics and cosmology have uncovered evidence for intelligence in the structure of the universe and this intelligence seems to act with us in mind (Rolston III, 1986; Wright, 1992; Begley, 1994). In fact, science has done no such thing. Just as we must continue to educate parents and teachers on the facts of evolution, we must also inform them that science has by no means confirmed the traditional belief in a created universe with humanity at its center.
Indeed, if anything science indicates quite the opposite. Astronomical observations continue to demonstrate that the earth is no more significant than a single grain of sand on a vast beach. While a created, human-centered universe can probably never be ruled out, nothing in our current understanding of cosmology and physics requires it. Furthermore, we are beginning to understand the possible physical mechanisms for the appearance of matter from nothing, and for organization without design.
Evolutionists have successfully refuted the usual argument for design that is grounded on the intricacy of biological life. They have convincingly demonstrated, to any rational person, that complexity sufficient for life could readily have emerged naturally in the primeval chemical stew. However, the processes of biological evolution on earth still depended on the pre-existence, billions of years ago, of the particles and "laws" of physics.
For example, consider the calculation by astronomer Fred Hoyle, often referred to by creationists, that the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 1040,000 to one (Hoyle, 1981). This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics.
Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.
These forces must have been in operation within seconds of the start of the big bang, 10-15 billion years ago, to allow for the formation of protons and neutrons out of quarks and their storage in stable hydrogen and deuterium atoms. Free neutrons disintegrate in minutes. To be able to hang around for billions of years so that they could later join with protons in making chemical elements in stars, neutrons had to be bound in deuterons and other light nuclei where energetics prevented their decay.
Gravity was needed to gather atoms together into stars and to compress stellar cores, raising the core temperatures to tens of millions of degrees. These high temperatures made nuclear reactions possible, and over billions of years the elements of the chemical periodic table were synthesized as the by-product.
When the nuclear fuel in the more massive, faster-burning stars was spent, the laws of physics called for them to explode as supernovae, sending into space the elements manufactured in their cores. In space, gravity could gather these elements into planets circling the smaller, longer-lived stars. Finally, after about ten billion years, the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements on a small planet attached to a small, stable star could begin the process of evolution toward the complex structures we call life.
In recent years, creationist theologians, and even a few physicists, have heavily promoted what they claim is a remarkable fine-tuning of the basic laws and constants of physics, without which life as we know it would never have developed (Barrow, 1986; Rolston III). If the universe had appeared with slight variations in the strengths of the fundamental forces or the masses of elementary particles, that universe would be pure hydrogen at one extreme, or pure helium at the other. Neither would have allowed for the eventual production of heavy elements, such as carbon, necessary for life.
Similarly, if gravity had not been many orders of magnitude weaker than electromagnetism, stars would not have lived long enough to produce the elements of life. Long before they could fabricate heavy chemical elements, stars would have collapsed. Only the fact that the gravitational force was forty orders of magnitude weaker prevented this from happening.
In a calculation similar to Hoyle's, mathematician Roger Penrose has estimated that the probability of a universe with our particular set of physical properties is one part in 1010123 (Penrose 1989: 343). However, neither Penrose nor anyone else can say how many of the other possible universes formed with different properties could still have lead to some form of life. If it is half, then the probability for life is fifty percent.
Ignoring this absent link in their chain of logic, promoters of intelligent design put forward the so-called anthropic coincidences as evidence for a universe that was created with humans in mind. I have heard Christian philosopher William Lane Craig make this claim in a debate on the existence of God. In the same debate, Craig contended that the great age of the universe, which dwarfs human history, is in fact a sign of God's plan for humanity because billions of years were needed to allow life to evolve. (Craig evidently accepts evolution). You would have thought God could be a lot more efficient. And Craig did not rationalize why humanity rather than cockroaches was the goal God had in mind.
So as you see, we have a lot more explaining to do after we explain how life developed on earth by natural processes. Even if life evolved naturally on earth with no outside interference, the existence of stars and planets, quarks and electrons, and the very laws of physics themselves can be presented as evidence for intelligent design to the universe. Furthermore, given the egocentrism that seems to characterize the human race, convincing people that the universe was designed with them in mind is as easy as convincing a child that candy is good for him.
Perhaps the universe was created for the sole purpose of producing you and me. I have no objection to discussing the possibility, as long as the discussion is critical, rational, and objective. The most common argument that is still given by believers when they are asked to present scientific evidence for a creator is: "How can all of this (gesturing to the world around us) have happened by chance?" As we have seen, the most brilliant exposition of the case for evolution will not answer this question, because it still presumes the pre-existence of laws of physics and values of physical constants that had to be delicately balanced for human (and cockroach) life to evolve.

The Argument from Probability
Before addressing the question of how the laws of physics can have come about in the absence of intelligent design, let me provide a response to the arguments from probability outlined above.
If we properly compute, according to statistical theory, the probability for the universe existing with the properties it has, the result is unity! The universe exists with one hundred percent probability (unless you are an idealist who believes everything exists only in your own mind). On the other hand, the probability for one of a random set of universes being our particular universe is a different question. And the probability that one of a random set of universes is a universe that supports some form of life is a third question. I submit it is this last question that is the important one and that we have no reason to be sure that this probability is small.
I have made some estimates of the probability that a chance distribution of physical constants can produce a universe with properties sufficient that some form of life would have likely had sufficient time to evolve. In this study, I randomly varied the constants of physics (I assume the same laws of physics as exist in our universe, since I know no other) over a range of ten orders of magnitude around their existing values. For each resulting "toy" universe, I computed various quantities such as the size of atoms and the lifetimes of stars. I found that almost all combinations of physical constants lead to universes, albeit strange ones, that would live long enough for some type of complexity to form (Stenger 1995: chapter 8). This is illustrated in figure 1.

Every shuffle of a deck of cards leads to a 52-card sequence that has low a priori probability, but has unit probability once the cards are all on the table. Similarly, the "fine-tuning" of the constants of physics, said to be so unlikely, could very well have been random; we just happen to be in the universe that turned up in that particular deal of the cards.
Note that my thesis does not require more than one universe to exist, although some cosmological theories propose this. Even if ours is the only universe, and that universe happened by chance, we have no basis to conclude that a universe without some form of life was so unlikely as to have required a miracle.

Simplicity and Physical Law
So the argument from probability fails. Many sets of physical constants could have produced a universe with life, albeit life very unlike our own. But what about the laws of physics themselves? Can we take their mere existence as evidence for intelligent design?
Let me begin by addressing two commonsense notions: (1) you cannot get something from nothing, and (2) the order of the universe requires the pre-existence of an active intelligence to do the ordering. I will leave it to the theologians to explain how the postulate of a creator God solves the problem of creation ex nihilo, since God is something that, itself, must have come, uncreated, from nothing. Instead I will address the physics issues implied by the creation of the universe from nothing. In physics terms, creation ex nihilo appears to violate both the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
The first law of thermodynamics is equivalent to the principle of conservation of energy: the total energy of a closed system is constant; any energy change must be compensated by a corresponding inflow or outflow from the system.
Einstein showed that mass and energy are equivalent, by E=mc2. So, if the universe started from "nothing," energy conservation would seem to have been violated by the creation of matter. Some energy from outside is apparently required.
However, our best estimate today is that the total energy of the universe is zero (within a small zero point energy that results from quantum fluctuations), with the positive energy of matter balanced by the negative potential energy of gravity. Since the total energy is zero, no energy was needed to produce the universe and the first law was not violated.
The second law of thermodynamics requires that the entropy, or disorder, of the universe must increase or at least stay constant with time. This would seem to imply that the universe started out in a greater state of order than it has today, and so must have been designed.
However, this argument holds only for a universe of constant volume. The maximum entropy of any object is that of a black hole of the same volume. In an expanding universe, the maximum allowable entropy of the universe is continually increasing, allowing more and more room for order to form as time goes by. If we extrapolate the big bang back to the earliest definable time, the so-called Planck time (10-43 second), we find that universe started out in a condition of maximum entropy -- total chaos. The universe had no order at the earliest definable instant. If there was a creator, it had nothing to create.
Note also that one cannot ask, much less answer, "What happened before the big bang?" Since no time earlier than the Planck time can be logically defined, the whole notion of time before the big bang is meaningless.
Furthermore, within the framework of Einstein's relativity, time is the fourth dimension of spacetime. Defining this fourth dimension as ict, where t is what you read on a clock, i = sqrt(-1), and c is the speed of light, the coordinates of time and space are interchangeable. In short, time is inextricably intertwined with space and came into being "when" or "where" (language is inadequate to mathematics here) spacetime came into being.

Spontaneous Order
So, where did the order of the universe come from, if it did not exist at the "beginning"? Where did the laws of physics come from, if not from some great lawgiver? We are now beginning to grasp how the laws of physics could have come about naturally, as the universe spontaneously exploded in the big bang.
To understand this, we first have to recognize the prejudice that is built into the whole concept of physical law. When Newton developed mechanics and gravity, the Judeo-Christian notion of God-given law was already deeply engraved in his thinking, by his culture. Even today, science is interpreted by public, media, and scientists alike as the process of learning the "mind of God." [1]
However, the laws of physics, at least in their formal expressions, are no less human inventions than the laws by which we govern ourselves. They represent our imperfect attempts at economical and useful descriptions of the observations we make with our senses and instruments. This is not to say we subjectively determine how the universe behaves, or that it has no orderly behavior. Few scientists deny that an objective, ordered reality exists that is independent of human life and experience. We simply have to recognize that the concept of "natural law" carries with it certain metaphysical baggage that is tied to our traditional, pre-scientific modes of thought. We are going a step beyond logic to conclude that the existence in the universe of order, which we conventionally label as the laws of nature, implies a cosmic lawgiver.
We are gradually learning that several of the laws of physics, those that seem the most universal and profound, are in fact little more than statements about the simplicity of nature that can almost go unsaid. The "laws" of energy, momentum, and angular momentum conservation have been shown to be statements about the homogeneity of space and time. The first law of thermodynamics, conservation of energy, results from there being no unique moment in time. [2] Conservation of momentum follows from the Copernican principle that there is no preferred position in space. Other conservation laws, such as charge and nucleon number, also arise from analogous assumptions of simplicity.
For the mathematically inclined, the conserved quantities are generators of the symmetry transformations involved. A homogeneous universe, one with a high level of symmetry, is the simplest of all possible universes, just the kind we would expect to happen by accident. In such a universe, many conservation laws will automatically exist.
In general, the conservation laws need no explanation beyond the mathematical symbols used to represent the corresponding symmetry. On the other hand, an observed violation of a conservation law would demand an explanation, for then we would have evidence for a deviation from simplicity and homogeneity. To explain this deviation, we have to go beyond the assumptions that require the fewest parameters, that is, are the most economical.
By an equally simple but somewhat different argument, the second law of thermodynamics is found not to be some underlying principle of the universe, but rather an arbitrary convention we humans make in defining the direction of time. Nothing in known fundamental physics forbids the violation of the second law. No mechanical principle prevents the air emptying from a room when you open the door, killing everyone inside. Physics does not forbid a human from growing younger or the dead rising! All that has to happen for these "miraculous" events is that the molecules involved are accidentally moving in the right direction at the right instant. Of course these miracles are not observed to happen except in fantasies, but only because they are so highly unlikely.
We introduce the second "law" to codify what all of human experience testifies, that air does not empty from a room, people do not grow younger, and the dead do not rise. But these events are not impossible, just highly improbable. Influenced, like Newton, by our culture, we falsely state that these unlikely events cannot happen because the second law "forbids" them from doing so.
The second law of thermodynamics, along with the arrow of time and the notions of causality and determinism, arise as statistical statements about the likelihood of events that emerge as principles we invent to describe the world of everyday experiences.
Other, more complex and less universal laws of physics appear to arise from spontaneously broken symmetries. When a quantity such as momentum is observed not to be conserved, we introduce the notion of a "force" to break the corresponding spatial symmetry. By this means, the force laws and other principles that give structure to the universe arise as spontaneously broken symmetries--accidental, uncaused events that occurred in the first fraction of a second of the big bang as the expanding universe cooled. The process can be likened to the formation of structure in a snowflake from water vapor, or the magnetizing of a bar of iron cooled below the Curie temperature.

The Appearance of Structure
While the details of the symmetry-breaking mechanism referred to here are not fully developed, and further work may negate this picture, we have at least one highly successful example of how the process of spontaneous structure formation from underlying symmetry and chaos can have come about. The current theory of elementary particles, the so-called Standard Model of quarks and leptons (the electron and neutrino are examples of leptons), agrees with all existing observations about the material world. In two decades since its inception, no violation of the Standard Model has been observed.
Within the framework of this model, electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces are viewed as low-energy manifestations of a single, unified electroweak force that applies at higher energies and smaller distances. At the level of most observations, these forces are vastly different. The electromagnetic force acts over macroscopic distances, while the electroweak force is confined to the atomic nucleus. The two forces differ enormously in strength. Yet the Standard Model treats them in a unified fashion at high energies, and explains their differing structure by means of spontaneous symmetry breaking that occurs at lower energies.
Further progress in understanding these fundamental mechanisms has been slowed by the canceling of the Superconducting Supercollider that would have probed beyond the Standard Model. A less ambitious (although still gigantic) project is going ahead in Europe, but it will be a new millennium before physicists have the data they will need to determine whether spontaneous symmetry breaking is indeed the process by which the laws of physics evolved in the first fraction of a second of the big bang. Currently, all we can say is that we have one firm example, and many theoretical suggestions, that will not be tested experimentally for another decade. Even if they all fail these tests, it seems highly unlikely that the process will yield evidence for the creator of Judeo-Christian-Islamic theology.

Implications for Education
In critically examining evidence for or against intelligent design to the universe, it must be understood that we are following the traditional practice of science, seeking a scientific explanation for observations about the universe that have been previously attributed to the action of supernatural deity. Believers will call us nasty names, like "atheist" and "secular humanist," and accuse us of undermining faith and morality.
Certainly we cannot be dogmatic in our approach, or appear to be preaching a religion of "scientism." If we do, then we have no more right to a piece of the science curriculum than the religionists.
As in any scientific investigation, we must emphasize our commitment to the scientific process and agree to accept whatever the conclusion of that process may be. If that conclusion is evidence for supernatural intelligent design, then so be it. But if we cannot find such evidence, then we should not feel compelled to soothe the sensitivities of believers by leaving unchallenged the assertion that their sectarian prejudices have scientific merit. We must speak out forcefully whenever anyone claims scientific authority for beliefs that fail the objective tests of scientific method.
I realize that the ideas I have covered in this essay will be very difficult to explain in the classroom, even at the university level where few students study physics at anything more than a minimal, descriptive level--if they study it at all. Nevertheless, we should not leave the field open to those who demonstrate no commitment to scientific truth.
If teachers cannot understand or explain the developments in modern physics I have outlined above, they can at least emphasize the need to pursue these issues in an open, objective, and rational fashion. They should point out the logical flaws in the anthropic probability argument, that we must count all the possible ways that life may have developed. And they can question the claim thatcreation ex nihilo violates the laws of physics, that science requires a miracle to produce the universe.
At the least, teachers should be made aware of the fact that modern physics and cosmology provide no compulsion to introduce the uneconomical hypothesis of a biblical creator. They must resist those who would attempt to force their personal beliefs into the classroom through the back door of "intelligent design."
The process in which we are engaged is the search for rational evidence for or against intelligent design. It does not suffice to say that intelligent design is possible, and proponents of intelligent design have no right to re-cast the question as one in which the non-existence of intelligent design must be proven. Within the framework of Occam's razor, intelligent design is an added hypothesis and the proponent's burden is to demonstrate why it is necessary to make this hypothesis. I have argued that no evidence or rational argument for intelligent design can be found in either the data or the theories of modern physics and cosmology. If the hypothesis of intelligent design is to be discussed in science classrooms, then good science methodology demands that we make clear that this is an uneconomical hypothesis that is not required by existing scientific knowledge.

Victor J. Stenger is professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii.

References
Barrow, John D. and Frank J. Tipler 1986.
Begley, Sharon 1994. "Science and the Sacred" Newsweek November 28: 56.
Cole, John 1995. NCSE Reports 15, 1:2
Davies, Paul 1992. The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Davis, Percival and Dean H. Keaton 1993. Of Pandas and People. Haughton.
Hawking, Stephen 1988. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. New York: Bantam.
Hoyle, F. and C. Wickramasinghe 1981. Evolution from Space. J. M. Dent.
Matsumura, Molleen 1995. NCSE Reports 15, 1: 7.
Penrose, Roger 1989. The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rolston III, Holmes 1986. "Shaken Atheism: A Look at the Fine-Tuned Universe." The Christian Century, December 3.
Stenger, Victor J. 1995. The Unconscious Quantum: Metaphysics in Modern Physics and Cosmology. Amherst, N. Y.: Prometheus Books.
Wright, Robert 1992. "What Does Science Tell Us About God?" Time December 28: 38.

Notes
[1] The "mind of God" were the final words of Stephen Hawking's remarkable best-seller, A Brief History of Time (Hawking, 1988). This catchy phrase was absconded by Paul Davies for the title his book, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (Davies, 1992). Physicist Davies has won a million dollar prize for his writings on religion and science.
[2] Admittedly, the first moment of the universe was unique, but the implied violation of conservation of energy is exactly what gives us the zero point energy mentioned earlier in the text.

Ah. Back to the theory of 'I posted more words so I win'.

Oldbear83 said:

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Ah. Back to the theory of 'I posted more words so I win'.

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Read it. You might learn something.

TexasScientist said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Ah. Back to the theory of 'I posted more words so I win'.

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Read it. You might learn something.

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Read it, especially paid attention to the sources.

Nothing new, certainly not proving anything.

Oldbear83 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Ah. Back to the theory of 'I posted more words so I win'.

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Read it. You might learn something.

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Read it, especially paid attention to the sources.

Nothing new, certainly not proving anything.

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Not to anyone encumbered with fictional beliefs.

tl;dr

If you think this somehow rebuts my argument, please explain in your own words how. You wouldn't want me to upload Hugh Ross' and Stephen Meyer's book as my answers to your arguments.

If you don't summarize for yourself, it means you didn't really process the argument for yourself. At least cite the parts relevant to my argument.

TexasScientist said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Ah. Back to the theory of 'I posted more words so I win'.

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Read it. You might learn something.

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Read it, especially paid attention to the sources.

Nothing new, certainly not proving anything.

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Not to anyone encumbered with fictional beliefs.

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Real scientists keep their mind open.

TS, not so much.

It's a long video but really interesting stuff

Is it the mind, the soul, self???