I find this line of thought very interesting because I think one should be worried about the broader implications of movements that target specific groups of people in society. In fairness, an atheist free thinker has to at least own up to the fact that he or she is targeting people in an attempt at targeting their mindsets, their world views, and their agendas. On that level I think you are right to be concerned. It isn’t like we humans have utilized this capacity for disagreement very well in the past, certainly not under the guise of a political or religious banner. I applaud your tenacity in this area because I believe one is warranted in maintaining a critical eye when viewing any such revolutionary movement. I think you should most definitely stay vigilant with this. Vigilant means participatory in my mind, however.

That said I think it is important to reemphasize what is at stake here, namely the desire most free thinkers have to limit the influence of religions on our daily lives. By “our” I mean those of us who don’t have the same beliefs as whatever the dominant religion might be within a particular context. This could most definitely include secular free thinkers as well, so there doesn’t have to be a necessarily closed system to all theists on these questions. It is not actually the people of any particular creed or ethnicity that free thinkers hone their efforts on, a marked difference to the contexts you refer to above. Instead it is the influence of religion itself that we want to fight and more specifically the ideas behind those of organized religions that continue to emanate from the major churches in the world and pour out onto our streets and into our secular institutions.

I believe the vast majority of free thinkers consider the ideas of inherited sin, obligatory worship, fear of wrath, and subjective labels of idolatry and heresy to be ideas outdated, unproductive, and murderous at the core, and all of the free thinkers I associate with would agree with the idea that this has to be isolated and named for the intolerance it is. All any of us have to do is point to the front page of a decent newspaper to show why this concern we have is accurate, not to mention a history book discussing the birth of any nation you can think of. The intolerance heaped upon us from religion is boundless it seems, and free thinkers in general want to pull this influence out at the roots and show the destructive underbelly for what it is. That will be a painful process for sure because it requires a change from the diplomatic language of the past and the conciliatory tone often granted to religious people who don’t deserve it. Yes, this movement requires a rhetoric of its own to counter the very influence of rhetoric we want to dispose of. Rhetoric is indeed dangerous if it doesn’t get back to the original core; it is dangerous if it is only rhetoric for rhetoric sake. The day that simplification happens to this free thinker’s movement is the day I stop being a free thinker so to speak.

In a way you could point to the earlier socialist or communist movements that met peacefully at first only to become as bad as what they claimed to be fighting against. I met many theists of a Catholic background in Slovakia when I worked there who had experienced the same type of abuse and second class treatment under communism that many of us free thinkers are trying to fight in the US and elsewhere. So yes, I think you are justified in being wary of a movement that shifts into this kind of abuse.

In my final year in Slovakia I noted something interesting taking place, however. Those same people who were abused under communism and now sat in positions of power in their new government began religion-based policies to bring the church back into politics in Slovakia. They began campaigning against abortion, for instance, despite an overwhelming desire for freedom by young people which included sexual choice and real equality in the workplace. I know this because many of these young people were my students and they voiced concern about what they saw as a reemergence of religious intolerance right on the heels of the exiting intolerance of communism.

The Catholic Church has been instrumental in trying to block a Slovak acknowledgement that under Tiso the Slovaks were the only European country to pay the Nazis for the removal of their Jews and Gypsies, a program overseen by many prominent figures in the Catholic Church during WWII, Tiso being one of them. They also wished to hide the fact that Catholic special interests in Bratislava used anti-Semitic feelings in the oppressed Catholic fold to allow for the 500 year old Jewish Synagogue to be destroyed for the “Novy Mesto” (new bridge) that was built while leaving the city’s Catholic Church still standing. This even though both buildings stood essentially on the same ground.

For me, I am not in the slightest bit interested in actually hurting people who maintain their religious beliefs. I do find these beliefs stupid, frankly, and I will continue to point out where they fail to measure up to common sense and to how they hinder what should be a real time of enlightenment for humanity. The soapbox discourse with them talking and me biting my tongue in disbelief is over, as I think it is for many free thinkers. This may come as a shock to some, yes. But that doesn’t make those of us voicing an opinion dangerous in a similar way to what we’ve seen with religious events of the same ilk.

This position of mine also has personal ramifications. The woman I love is of Catholic roots, though she isn’t much for the traditional line. Her family ranges from non-practicing to rabid bible basher. I will not have my children (assuming we have any) subjected to any of the crap associated with the Catholic lunacy I have come to understand. I will have to show this mythology for what it is as soon as the indoctrination process starts. I’m already fretting the idea of weekends with fundamentalist grandma, with her espousing the ugliness of penises and vaginas on 5 year olds. I won’t keep grandma from them, however. How could I? She will be family. I will have to mock her beliefs nonetheless in a damage control scenario and try to lovingly expose fundamentalist grandma for the simple thinking woman she is. I’m not going to win points with my girl or the family in doing this, I know, but “conciliatory” has its roots at home so to speak.

I find the dogma of all religions a sad reality that I will not allow to be hoisted upon me and especially my children. I see the devices of indoctrination used by religion to be philosophically speaking as vile as the candy toting pedophile who tries to swoon children into a parked car. That might sound a harsh comparison but this is how I feel about the dangerous hypocritical ideas associated with all organized religions. I believe that in the same way that this pedophile represents a clear danger to my child’s physical being so does the theist represent a danger to her mental being because he intrudes in her classroom, on her softball team, or even at our front door. Actually, the pedophile has the ability to damage my future daughter’s mental state through his actions as the theist can damage her physical health because of his bloody archaic ideas. Being nice and allowing this message to propagate more than it has is simply no longer an option.

I won’t ever ask that a theist be denied his or her right to vote, to assemble peacefully, to have a job, to pursue happiness, or to mourn his or her dead the way he chosses. But I will help in the process taking place now by other free thinkers to make this same theist start to respect these rights for others, whether she wants to or not. And the best way to do that in my eyes is to expose the very foundations upon which this intolerance and hypocrisy rest, particularly as these ideas relate to each other. That might seem like the beginnings of a lynch mob mentality brewing in secrecy as has happened so many times before, but I would counter that this fear the theist has of us at this point in time has much more to do with the fact that theists see the free thinking atheist movement as the catalyst for them losing the power they already unfairly wrest over others, a power they understandably want to hang on to. Cheers!

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I actually feel sorry for the creators of this site because they they only serve to make atheism look follish due to their ignorance in these areas. I highly advise that you people educate yourself. Here are some good places to start.

 HISTORICAL JESUS

http://www.christiancadre.org/topics/historicaljesus.php

JOSEPHUS PROVEN AUTHENTIC

http://www.geocities.com/metacrock2000/Jesus_pages/HistJesus3.htm

BOOKS ON HISTORICAL JESUS

 Barnett, Paul. Is the New Testament Reliable? A Look at the Historical Evidence.

 Bruce, F.F. Jesus & Christian Origins Outside the New Testament. Grand Rapids.

 Habermas, Gary R. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ.

NEW TESTAMENT DATING

http://www.christiancadre.org/topics/dating_nt.php

GOD EXISTS

http://www.christiancadre.org/topics/cosarg.php

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/existence.html

Theol0gic, you have presented nothing new. If you had even bothered to look at the contents of this site before your condescending post, you would have known this.

You gave us evidence that some scholars believe the Josephus post to be only partially spurious. What does that prove? There is no contemporary mention of Jesus. Even if the Testimonium Flavianum is not a complete interpolation, it only shows that Josephus knew of Christians and had heard the story. Given the many pages Josephus devoted to even minor figures, the fact that he only thought necessary to spend one paragraph on Jesus is a testament to his non-importance in the eyes of Josephus. That is not good for your case.

The rest of your "evidence" for God is the same stale arguments we have heard over and over, most of which are standard God of the Gaps arguments.

To assume that the universe does not require a creator because God does not require a creator is both philosophically and scientifically absurd. God is by definition transcendent to the time/space manifold. He is not subject to the laws of the physical universe. Also, I don't know of any scientist today who denies the universe had a beginning. Even Steven Hawking holds to the fact the universe had a definite starting point.

I watched the debate. Cameron and his team did ok, but I want people to know that Cameron and that other individual he was with are not professional Christian philosophers and apologists. However, they still won the debate in terms of merit and debate points. If you want to hear from real theistic philosophers, read the works by William Lane Craig and the list below. Craig can be seen proving creation and theism at youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrS5lRLi0uI

Others:

J.P. Moreland

Gary Habermas

Greg Bahnsen (listen to his debate with atheist Gordon Stein).

Cornelius Vantil

 That's enough for beginners.

Many of us here are not beginners and are fully aware of Craig, Moreland, etc. Not only is God far from proven but the Judeo-Christian God is not even logically consistent. If you would like to discuss evidence for God, please start a dialogue. Otherwise, You might want to go do a bit of reading on this site and on The Secular Web to see how others have responded to your evidence.

Simply posting other people's "proof" does not get us anywhere.

No one is contesting that some people around the time of Josephus believed in Jesus. Even accepting the "recovered" statement, you have no valid argument for a historical Jesus based on the Testamonium Flavianum.

It does not invalidate the historicity of Jesus, but it makes your case much harder, especially given the miniscule amount of even non-contemporary extra-biblical information. Josephus wrote reams on other minor figures but you only have two insignificant mentions of Christ. All other extra-biblical references come from the 2nd century.

And the Book of Mormon is contemporary evidence of the Angel Moroni. You can't use a Holy Book to validate the contents of itself.

In the 2nd century and later. And those sources appear to universally confirm only the existence of Christians, not of Christ. Even the sources that mention Jesus almost certainly are reporting on the statements of Christ's followers.

We don't necessarily know who the founder was. You cannot assume it was a wandering carpenter.

Tuesday is evidence of the existence of the god Tiu, Wednesday is evidence of Woden, Thursday is evidence for Thor, Friday is evidence for Freya and Saturday is evidence for the god Saturn.

How do you explain the existence of Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism, Jainism, etc. The existence of a religion is neither evidence of it's truth nor of the existence or divinity of its namesake.

Clearly false since we know Joseph Smith lived in America in the 19th Century. Statements such as these discredit those making them.

Lay out the non-biblical evidence for Jesus and I'll lay out the evidence for Augustus. You will lose.

I know many historians and bible sholars who would not agree with that statement. But I have heard the assertion. You are being deceived.

Please feel free to post actual evidence when you have it. Statements of Christian historians and theologians don't carry a lot of weight around here. BTW, have you actually read the extra-biblical mentions of Jesus?

Same old atheist drivel. These people have not broken any newe ground within atheism. All these arguments were refuted centuries ago.

To me the debate proved to be the never ending stale mate that is a constant in christianity vs atheism debates. The belief of this website that they crushed Kirk & Ray is not entirely true. I believe that Kirk and Ray believed that they won the debate also. However neither side brought enough to change any minds. RR claims to believe evolution based on science and they denounced kirk and ray's attempt to inject faith into the conversation. However the idea that we human beings were created from nothing or a big bang is faith also...though not faith in God. Think about it:

RR redicules christians for beliveing in a God that they cannot see. To them a belief in such an invisible God is outrageous..bordering on the insane. RR claims that some person wrote the Bible (how anyone can be cunning enough to make up a whole religion that has spanned thousands of years is beyond me) and made it up to convince feeble minds. Yet the same can be said of evolution? We have never seen evolution in action. Nor are we sure that those that came up with the theory, whether scientist or someone producing it only to refute the existance of God, are cedible in any way

The fact of the matter is that just has Christians have faith in a God that they cannot see and has no beginning and end. Just as Christians rely on authors to substantiate the Bible's claims...is the same as Atheist believe (have faith) in a theory that they have never seen in action, and Atheist rely whole heartedly on the claims of some scientist of whom we have not background information so we cannot have any claim as to their authenticity.

Kelly at one point in the debate said that we are constantly transitioning. SOmeone please show me any transition in action. Is her claim enough for me to believe it? She said it is so...so what? On what authority does she make that claim. Well science of course...well then what science has made that claim and where did they get that fact. At the debate..just as kirk and ray used the bible to support their claims...brian and kelly also used the written works of men to support theirs. Brian nor Kelly are convinced based on what others have derived..they have never seen, nor ecperienced any of this for themselves so they are just as believeable as kirk and ray are.

 I would hate to believe that the debate was RR's "B" game...but there was not anymore for them to bring in order to bring an "A" game? What they presented has been passed down from generation to generation...there is really no new information that can further substantiate their claims. So the "B" games was in actuality their "A" game..that was actually the best they could have brought to the table. An if that was the best...if all could be brought were scientific names drummed up by men in history, if all they could bring was that they would want to go to hell anyway because God is a tyrant, if all they can bring is WHY they believe in evolution and why they don believe in God...not based on Fact because there was not fact, but based on their own personal preference not to believe in God then who were they trying to convince. Opinion is not enough to turn the tide of a debate and convince those in limbo...there has to be hard core evidence...and there is no hard core evidence to refute the existance of a GOd.

Kirk and Cameron are believers in God because they want to believe in GOd. Brian and his girlfiend as non believers because they want to be...not because facts has proven to them that there is no God. Evolution is NOT FACT is theory..Theory is an educated guess. And i stress educated. Since when has "guesses" been enough to make a factual claim. Some will say that theory is fact because it is a series of test hypothesis. But what is the definition of an Hypothesis. Theory is nothing more than accepted knowledge. Well just because it is accepted does not mean that is true and factual. Fact is if i see my dog run across the room I can go on a debate forum and say that my dog ran across the room..if they want to debate then i can pull out the video tape and show it to them. Thats fact...i do not see how evolution can be fact if we have never seen but rely on the testing of certain scientists to prove it happened.

 WHo do we believe? Both sides produce what they BELIEVE not what they concretely know to be true. This is the rational thought.

In actuality no one won that debate..and no one ever will until "that day". I was expecting more from RR because even before this debate they were sure that can provide evidence to refute the existance of God..but it was not there. THis websites claim to have squashed the other side was delusional at best..not factual. The arguments were not stong at all. To make such a claim it would have to be an "A" game everytime.

I cannot be convinced on opinion, and furthermore opinion that seems to stem from hatred towards the idea of a "God". Next time please try to bring the A game maybe i will be convinced

Cosmology and philosophy trace their roots to the wonder felt by the ancient Greeks as they contemplated the cosmos. According to Aristotle,
it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about the greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun and the stars, and about the origin of the universe.
The question of why the universe exists remains the ultimate mystery. Derek Parfit, a contemporary philosopher, declares that "No question is more sublime than why there is a Universe: why there is anything rather than nothing."

This question led the great German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to posit the existence of a metaphysically necessary being which carries within itself the sufficient reason for its own existence and which constitutes the sufficient reason for the existence of everything else in the world. Leibniz identified this being as God. Leibniz's critics, on the other hand, claimed that the space-time universe may itself be the necessary being demanded by Leibniz's argument. Thus, the Scottish sceptic David Hume queried, "Why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent Being . . . ?" Indeed, "How can anything, that exists from eternity, have a cause, since that relation implies a priority in time and a beginning of existence?" There is no warrant for going beyond the universe to posit a supernatural ground of its existence. As Bertrand Russell put it so succinctly in his BBC radio debate with Frederick Copleston, "The universe is just there, and that's all."

The Origin of the Universe
This stand-off persisted unaltered until 1917, the year in which Albert Einstein made a cosmological application of his newly discovered General Theory of Relativity.To his chagrin, he found that GTR would not permit a static model of the universe unless he introduced into his gravitational field equations a certain "fudge factor" L in order to counterbalance the gravitational effect of matter. Einstein's universe was balanced on a razor's edge, however, and the least perturbation would cause the universe either to implode or to expand. By taking this feature of Einstein's model seriously, Alexander Friedman and Georges Lemaitre were able to formulate independently in the 1920s solutions to the field equations which predicted an expanding universe.

The monumental significance of the Friedman-Lemaitre model lay in its historization of the universe. As one commentator has remarked, up to this time the idea of the expansion of the universe "was absolutely beyond comprehension. Throughout all of human history the universe was regarded as fixed and immutable and the idea that it might actually be changing was inconceivable." But if the Friedman-Lemaitre model were correct, the universe could no longer be adequately treated as a static entity existing, in effect, timelessly. Rather the universe has a history, and time will not be matter of indifference for our investigation of the cosmos. In 1929 Edwin Hubble's measurements of the red-shift in the optical spectra of light from distant galaxies, which was taken to indicate a universal recessional motion of the light sources in the line of sight, provided a dramatic verification of the Friedman-Lemaitre model. Incredibly, what Hubble had discovered was the isotropic expansion of the universe predicted by Friedman and Lemaitre. It marked a veritable turning point in the history of science. "Of all the great predictions that science has ever made over the centuries," exclaims John Wheeler, "was there ever one greater than this, to predict, and predict correctly, and predict against all expectation a phenomenon so fantastic as the expansion of the universe?"

The Standard Big Bang Model
As a GTR-based theory, the Friedman-Lemaitre model does not describe the expansion of the material content of the universe into a pre-existing, empty, Newtonian space, but rather the expansion of space itself. This has the astonishing implication that as one reverses the expansion and extrapolates back in time, space-time curvature becomes progressively greater until one finally arrives at a singular state at which space-time curvature becomes infinite. This state therefore constitutes an edge or boundary to space-time itself. P. C. W. Davies comments,

An initial cosmological singularity . . . forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. . . . On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.
The popular expression "Big Bang," originally a derisive term coined by Fred Hoyle to characterize the beginning of the universe predicted by the Friedman-Lemaitre model, is thus potentially misleading, since the expansion cannot be visualized from the outside (there being no "outside," just as there is no "before" with respect to the Big Bang).

The standard Big Bang model thus describes a universe which is not eternal in the past, but which came into being a finite time ago. Moreover,--and this deserves underscoring--the origin it posits is an absolute origin ex nihilo. For not only all matter and energy, but space and time themselves come into being at the initial cosmological singularity. As Barrow and Tipler emphasize, "At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo." Thus, we may graphically represent space-time as a cone (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Conical Representation of Standard Model Space-Time. Space and time begin at the initial cosmological singularity, before which literally nothing exists.
On such a model the universe originates ex nihilo in the sense that at the initial singularity it is true that There is no earlier space-time point or it is false that Something existed prior to the singularity.

Now such a conclusion is profoundly disturbing for anyone who ponders it. For the question cannot be suppressed: Why does the universe exist rather than nothing? In light of the universe's origin ex nihilo, one can no longer dismiss this question with a shrug and a slogan, "The universe is just there and that's all." For the universe is not "just there;" rather it came into being. The beginning of the universe discloses that the universe is not, as Hume thought, a necessarily existing being but is contingent in its existence. Philosophers analyzing the concept of necessary existence agree that the essential properties of any necessarily existing entity include its being eternal, uncaused, incorruptible, and indestructible--for otherwise it would be capable of non-existence, which is self-contradictory. Thus, if the universe began to exist, its lacks at least one of the essential properties of necessary existence-eternality. Therefore, the reason for its existence cannot be immanent, but must in some mysterious way be ultra-mundane, or transcendent. Otherwise, one must say that the universe simply sprang into being uncaused out of absolutely nothing, which seems absurd. Sir Arthur Eddington, contemplating the beginning of the universe, opined that the expansion of the universe was so preposterous and incredible that "I feel almost an indignation that anyone should believe in it--except myself." He finally felt forced to conclude, "The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural."

I find that most scientists do not reflect philosophically upon the metaphysical implications of their theories. But, in the words of one astrophysical team, "The problem of the origin [of the universe] involves a certain metaphysical aspect which may be either appealing or revolting."

The Steady State Model
Revolted by the stark metaphysical alternatives presented us by an absolute beginning of the universe, certain theorists have been understandably eager to subvert the Standard Model and restore an eternal universe. Sir Fred Hoyle, for example, could countenance neither an uncaused nor a supernaturally caused origin of the universe. With respect to the first alternative, he wrote, "This most peculiar situation is taken by many astronomers to represent the origin of the universe. The universe is supposed to have begun at this particular time. From where? The usual answer, surely an unsatisfactory one, is: from nothing!" Equally unsatisfactory in Hoyle's mind was the postulation of a supernatural cause. Noting that some accept happily the universe's absolute beginning, Hoyle complained,

To many people this thought process seems highly satisfactory because a 'something' outside physics can then be introduced at t = 0. By a semantic manoeuvre, the word 'something' is then replaced by 'god,' except that the first letter becomes a capital, God, in order to warn us that we must not carry the enquiry any further.
To Hoyle's credit, he did carry the inquiry further by helping to formulate in 1948 the first competitor to the Standard Model, namely, the Steady State Model of the universe. According to this theory, the universe is in a state of isotropic cosmic expansion, but as the galaxies recede, new matter is drawn into being ex nihilo in the interstices of space created by the galactic recession (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2: Steady State Model. As the galaxies mutually recede, new matter comes into existence to replace them. The universe thus constantly renews itself and so never began to exist.
If one extrapolates the expansion of the universe back in time, the density of the universe never increases because the matter and energy simply vanish as the galaxies mutually approach!

The Steady State theory never secured a single piece of experimental verification; its appeal was purely metaphysical.The discovery of progressively more radio galaxies at ever greater distances undermined the theory by showing that the universe had an evolutionary history. But the decisive refutation of the Steady State Model came with two discoveries which constituted, in addition to the galactic red-shift, the most significant evidence for the Big Bang theory: the cosmogonic nucleosynthesis of the light elements and the microwave background radiation. As a result, in the words of Ivan King, "The steady-state theory has now been laid to rest, as a result of clear-cut observations of how things have changed with time."

Oscillating Models
The Standard Model was based on the assumptions of homogeneity and isotropy. Some cosmologists speculated that by denying homogeneity and isotropy, one might be able to craft an Oscillating Model of the universe.If the internal gravitational pull of the mass of the universe were able to overcome the force of its expansion, then the expansion could be reversed into a cosmic contraction, a Big Crunch. If the universe were not homogeneous and isotropic, then the collapsing universe might not coalesce at a point, but the material contents of the universe might pass each other by, so that the universe would appear to bounce back from the contraction into a new expansion phase. If this process of expansion and contraction could be repeated indefinitely, then an absolute beginning of the universe might be avoided (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3: Oscillating Model. Each expansion phase is preceded and succeeded by a contraction phase, so that the universe in concertina-like fashion exists beginninglessly and endlessly.
Such a theory is extraordinarily speculative, but again there were metaphysical motivations for adopting this model. The prospects of the Oscillating Model were severely dimmed in 1970, however, by Penrose and Hawking's formulation of the Singularity Theorems which bear their names. The theorems disclosed that under very generalized conditions an initial cosmological singularity is inevitable, even for inhomogeneous and non-isotropic universes. Reflecting on the impact of this discovery, Hawking notes that the Hawking-Penrose Singularity Theorems "led to the abandonment of attempts (mainly by the Russians) to argue that there was a previous contracting phase and a non-singular bounce into expansion. Instead almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang."

Despite the fact that the termini of a closed universe must be singularities and that no space-time trajectory can be extended through a singularity, the Oscillating Model exhibited a stubborn persistence. Three further strikes were lodged against it. First, there are no known physics which would cause a collapsing universe to bounce back to a new expansion. Second, the observational evidence indicates that the mean mass density of the universe is insufficient to generate enough gravitational attraction to halt and reverse the expansion. Third, since entropy is conserved from cycle to cycle in such a model, which has the effect of generating larger and longer oscillations with each successive cycle, the thermodynamic properties of an Oscillating Model imply the very beginning its proponents sought to avoid (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4: Oscillating Model with Entropy Increase. Due to the conservation of entropy each successive oscillation has a larger radius and longer expansion time.
Although these difficulties were well-known, proponents of the Oscillating Model tenaciously clung to it until a new alternative to the Standard Model emerged during the 1970s. The theory drew its life from its avoidance of an absolute beginning of the universe; but once other models became available claiming to offer the same benefit, the Oscillating Model sank under the weight of its own deficiencies.

Vacuum Fluctuation Models
Cosmologists realized that a physical description of the universe prior to the Planck time would require the introduction of quantum physics in addition to GTR. In 1973 Edward Tryon speculated whether the universe might not be a long-lived virtual particle, whose total energy is zero, born out of the primordial vacuum.This seemingly bizarre speculation gave rise to a new generation of cosmogonic theories which we may call Vacuum Fluctuation Models. In such models, it is hypothesized that prior to some inflationary era the Universe-as-a-whole is a primordial vacuum which exists, not in a state of expansion, but eternally in a steady state. Throughout this vacuum sub-atomic energy fluctuations constantly occur, by means of which matter is created and mini-universes are born (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5: Vacuum Fluctuation Models. Within the vacuum of the wider Universe, fluctuations occur which grow into mini-universes. Ours is but one of these, and its relative beginning does not imply a beginning for the Universe-as-a-whole.
Our expanding universe is but one of an indefinite number of mini-universes conceived within the womb of the greater Universe-as-a-whole. Thus, the beginning of our universe does not represent an absolute beginning, but merely a change in the eternal, uncaused Universe-as-a-whole.

Vacuum Fluctuation Models did not outlive the decade of the 1980s. Not only were there theoretical problems with the production mechanisms of matter, but these models faced a deep internal incoherence. According to such models, it is impossible to specify precisely when and where a fluctuation will occur in the primordial vacuum which will then grow into a universe. Within any finite interval of time there is a positive probability of such a fluctuation occurring at any point in space. Thus, given infinite past time, universes will eventually be spawned at every point in the primordial vacuum, and, as they expand, they will begin to collide and coalesce with one another. Thus, given infinite past time, we should by now be observing an infinitely old universe, not a relatively young one. About the only way to avert the problem would be to postulate an expansion of the primordial vacuum itself; but then we are right back to the absolute origin implied by the Standard Model. According to Isham this problem proved to be "fairly lethal" to Vacuum Fluctuation Models; hence, these models were "jettisoned twenty years ago" and "nothing much" has been done with them since.

Chaotic Inflationary Model
Inflation also forms the context for the next alternative to arise: the Chaotic Inflationary Model. One of the most fertile of the inflation theorists has been the Russian cosmologist Andrei Linde. In Linde's model inflation never ends: each inflating domain of the universe when it reaches a certain volume gives rise via inflation to another domain, and so on, ad infinitum (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6: Chaotic Inflationary Model. The wider universe produces via inflation separate domains which continue to recede from one another. Since these "bubbles" do not interact, they cannot collide and coalesce as the mini-universes postulated by Vacuum Fluctuation Models could.
Linde's model thus has an infinite future. But Linde is troubled at the prospect of an absolute beginning. He writes, "The most difficult aspect of this problem is not the existence of the singularity itself, but the question of what was before the singularity . . . . This problem lies somewhere at the boundary between physics and metaphysics." Linde therefore proposes that chaotic inflation is not only endless, but beginningless. Every domain in the universe is the product of inflation in another domain, so that the singularity is averted and with it as well the question of what came before (or, more accurately, what caused it).

In 1994, however, Arvind Borde and Alexander Vilenkin showed that a universe eternally inflating toward the future cannot be geodesically complete in the past, so that there must have existed at some point in the indefinite past an initial singularity. They write,

A model in which the inflationary phase has no end . . . naturally leads to this question: Can this model also be extended to the infinite past, avoiding in this way the problem of the initial singularity?
. . . this is in fact not possible in future-eternal inflationary spacetimes as long as they obey some reasonable physical conditions: such models must necessarily possess initial singularities.
. . . the fact that inflationary spacetimes are past incomplete forces one to address the question of what, if anything, came before.
In response, Linde reluctantly concurs with the conclusion of Borde and Vilenkin: there must have been a Big Bang singularity at some point in the pas

Quantum Gravity Models
At the close of their analysis of Linde's Chaotic Inflationary Model, Borde and Vilenkin say with respect to Linde's metaphysical question, "The most promising way to deal with this problem is probably to treat the Universe quantum mechanically and describe it by a wave function rather than by a classical spacetime." They thereby allude to the last class of models attempting to avoid the initial cosmological singularity which we shall consider, namely, Quantum Gravity Models. Vilenkin and, more famously, James Hartle and Stephen Hawking have proposed models of the universe which Vilenkin candidly calls exercises in "metaphysical cosmology." In his best-selling popularization of his theory, Hawking even reveals an explicitly theological orientation. He concedes that on the Standard Model one could legitimately identify the Big Bang singularity as the instant at which God created the universe. Indeed, he thinks that a number of attempts to avoid the Big Bang were probably motivated by the feeling that a beginning of time "smacks of divine intervention." He sees his own model as preferable to the Standard Model because there would be no edge of space-time at which one "would have to appeal to God or some new law."

Both the Hartle-Hawking and the Vilenkin models eliminate the initial singularity by transforming the conical hyper-surface of classical space-time into a smooth, curved hyper-surface having no edge.

Fig. 7: Quantum Gravity Model. In the Hartle-Hawking version, space-time is "rounded off" prior to the Planck time, so that although the past is finite, there is no edge or beginning point.
This is accomplished by the introduction of imaginary numbers for the time variable in Einstein's gravitational equations, which effectively eliminates the singularity. Hawking sees profound theological implications in the model:

The idea that space and time may form a closed surface without boundary . . . has profound implications for the role of God in the affairs of the universe . . . . So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator. But if the universe is really completely self-contained, having no boundary or edge, it would have neither beginning nor end. What place, then, for a creator?
Hawking does not deny the existence of God, but he does think his model eliminates the need for a Creator.

The key to assessing this theological claim is the physical interpretation of Quantum Gravity Models. By positing a finite (imaginary) time on a closed surface prior the Planck time rather than an infinite time on an open surface, such models actually seem to support, rather than undercut, the idea that time had a beginning. Such theories, if successful, enable us to model the origin of the universe without an initial singularity involving infinite density, temperature, pressure, and so on. As Barrow points out, "This type of quantum universe has not always existed; it comes into being just as the classical cosmologies could, but it does not start at a Big Bang where physical quantities are infinite . . . ." Barrow points out that such models are "often described as giving a picture of 'creation out of nothing,'" the only caveat being that in this case "there is no definite . . . point of creation." Hartle-Hawking themselves construe their model as giving "the amplitude for the Universe to appear from nothing," and Hawking has asserted that according to the model the universe "would quite literally be created out of nothing: not just out of the vacuum, but out of absolutely nothing at all, because there is nothing outside the universe." Taken at face value, these statements entail the beginning of the universe. Hawking's claim quoted above concerning the theological implications of his model must therefore be understood to mean that on such models there are no beginning or ending points, and, hence, no need for a Creator. But having a beginning does not entail having a beginning point. Even in the Standard Model, theorists sometimes "cut out" the initial singular point without thinking that therefore space-time no longer begins to exist and that the problem of the origin of the universe is thereby resolved. Time begins to exist just in case for any finite temporal interval, there are only a finite number of equal temporal intervals earlier than it. That condition is fulfilled for Quantum Gravity Models as well as for the Standard Model. Nor should we think that by giving the amplitude for the universe to appear from nothing quantum cosmologists have eliminated the need for a Creator, for that probability is conditional upon several choices which only the Creator could make (such as selecting the wave function of the universe) and is dubiously applied to absolute nothingness.

Perhaps it will be said that such an interpretation of Quantum Gravity Models fails to take seriously the notion of "imaginary time." Introducing imaginary numbers for the time variable in Einstein's equation has the peculiar effect of making the time dimension indistinguishable from space. But in that case, the imaginary time regime prior to the Planck time is not a space-time at all, but a Euclidean four-dimensional space. Construed realistically, such a four-space would be evacuated of all temporal becoming and would simply exist timelessly. Thus, Hawking describes it as "completely self-contained and not affected by anything outside itself. It would be neither created nor destroyed. It would just BE."

The question which arises for this construal of the model is whether such an interpretation is meant to be taken realistically or instrumentally. On this score, there can be little doubt that the use of imaginary quantities for time is a mere mathematical device without ontological significance. Barrow observes, "physicists have often carried out this 'change time into space' procedure as a useful trick for doing certain problems in ordinary quantum mechanics, although they did not imagine that time was really like space. At the end of the calculation, they just swop [sic] back into the usual interpretation of there being one dimension of time and three . . . dimensions of . . . space." In his model, Hawking simply declines to re-convert to real numbers. If we do, then the singularity re-appears. Hawking admits, "Only if we could picture the universe in terms of imaginary time would there be no singularities . . . . When one goes back to the real time in which we live, however, there will still appear to be singularities." Hawking's model is thus a way of re-describing a universe with a singular beginning point in such a way that that singularity is transformed away; but such a re-description is not realist in character.

Hawking has recently stated explicitly that he interprets the Hartle-Hawking model non-realistically. He confesses, "I'm a positivist . . . I don't demand that a theory correspond to reality because I don't know what it is." Still more extreme, "I take the positivist viewpoint that a physical theory is just a mathematical model and that it is meaningless to ask whether it corresponds to reality."In assessing the worth of a theory, "All I'm concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements.' The clearest example of Hawking's instrumentalism is his analysis of particle pair creation in terms of an electron quantum tunneling in Euclidean space (with time being imaginary) and an electron/positron pair accelerating away from each other in Minkowski space-time. This analysis is directly analogous to the Hartle-Hawking cosmological model; and yet no one would construe particle pair creation as literally the result of an electron's transitioning out of a timelessly existing four-space into our classical space-time. It is just an alternative description employing imaginary numbers rather than real numbers.

Significantly, the use of imaginary quantities for time is an inherent feature of all Quantum Gravity Models. This precludes their being construed realistically as accounts of the origin of the space-time universe in a timelessly existing four-space. Rather they are ways of modeling the real beginning of the universe ex nihilo in such a way as to not involve a singularity. What brought the universe into being remains unexplained on such accounts.

Summary
With each successive failure of alternative cosmogonic theories, the Standard Model has been corroborated. It can be confidently said that no cosmogonic model has been as repeatedly verified in its predictions and as corroborated by attempts at its falsification, or as concordant with empirical discoveries and as philosophically coherent, as the Standard Big Bang Model. This does not prove that it is correct, but it does show that it is the best explanation of the evidence which we have and therefore merits our provisional acceptance.

Beyond the Big Bang
The discovery that the universe is not eternal in the past but had a beginning has profound metaphysical implications. For it implies that the universe is not necessary in its existence but rather has its ground in a transcendent, metaphysically necessary being. The only way of avoiding this conclusion would be to deny Leibniz's conviction that anything that exists must have a reason for its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or else in an external ground. Reflecting upon the current situation, P. C. W. Davies muses,

'What caused the big bang?' . . . One might consider some supernatural force, some agency beyond space and time as being responsible for the big bang, or one might prefer to regard the big bang as an event without a cause. It seems to me that we don't have too much choice. Either . . . something outside of the physical world . . . or . . . an event without a cause.
The problem with saying that the Big Bang is an event without a cause is that it entails that the universe came into being uncaused out of nothing, which seems metaphysically absurd. Philosopher of science Bernulf Kanitscheider remonstrates, "If taken seriously, the initial singularity is in head-on collision with the most successful ontological commitment that was a guiding line of research since Epicurus and Lucretius," namely, out of nothing nothing comes, which Kanitscheider calls "a metaphysical hypothesis which has proved so fruitful in every corner of science that we are surely well-advised to try as hard as we can to eschew processes of absolute origin." But if the universe began to exist, we are therefore driven to the second alternative: a supernatural agency beyond space and time.

The Supernaturalist Alternative
If we go the route of postulating some causal agency beyond space and time as being responsible for the origin of the universe, then conceptual analysis enables us to recover a number of striking properties which must be possessed by such an ultra-mundane being. For as the cause of space and time, this entity must transcend space and time and therefore exist atemporally and non-spatially, at least sans the universe. This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial, since timelessness entails changelessness, and changelessness implies immateriality. Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused, at least in the sense of lacking any antecedent causal conditions. Ockham's Razor will shave away further causes, since we should not multiply causes beyond necessity. This entity must be unimaginably powerful, since it created the universe without any material cause.

Finally, and most remarkably, such a transcendent cause is plausibly to be taken to be personal. As Oxford philosopher Richard Swinburne points out, there are two types of causal explanation: scientific explanations in terms of laws and initial conditions and personal explanations in terms of agents and their volitions. A first state of the universe cannot have a scientific explanation, since there is nothing before it, and therefore it can be accounted for only in terms of a personal explanation. Moreover, the personhood of the cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality, since the only entities we know of which can possess such properties are either minds or abstract objects, and abstract objects do not stand in causal relations. Therefore, the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe must be of the order of mind. This same conclusion is also implied by the fact that we have in this case the origin of a temporal effect from a timeless cause. If the cause of the origin of the universe were an impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, it would be impossible for the cause to exist without its effect. For if the necessary and sufficient conditions of the effect are timelessly given, then their effect must be given as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and changeless but for its effect to originate de novo a finite time ago is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to bring about an effect without antecedent determining conditions. Thus, we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its personal creator.

Naturalistic Objections
Many persons will, of course, be reluctant to take on board such metaphysical baggage. But what objection is there to the postulate of a personal, causal agency beyond the universe? Some critiques may be easily dismissed. For example, metaphysician John Post obviously begs the question when he claims that there cannot be a cause of the origin of the universe, since "by definition the universe contains everything there is or ever was or will be." Again it is an obvious non-sequitur when he infers that because "the singularity cannot be caused by some earlier natural event or process," therefore "contemporary physical cosmology cannot be cited in support of the idea of a divine cause or creator of the universe."

On the other hand, Smith realizes that the metaphysician must take seriously the "more difficult question" of "whether or not the singularity or the Big Bang probably is an effect of a supernatural cause." What problem, then, is there with a supernaturalist perspective? Adolf Grünbaum has argued vigorously against what he styles "the New Creation Argument" for a supernatural cause of the origin of the universe. His basic Ansatz is based on the assumption that causal priority implies temporal priority. Since there were no instants of time prior to the Big Bang, it follows that the Big Bang cannot have a cause.

It seems to me that there are a number of options for dealing with this objection, one of which is to hold that the Creator of the universe is causally, but not temporally, prior to the Big Bang singularity, such that His act of causing the universe to begin to exist is simultaneous, or co-incident, with its beginning to exist. Grünbaum provides no justification for his assumption that causal priority implies temporal priority. Discussions of causal directionality deal routinely with cases in which cause and effect are simultaneous. One could hold that the Creator sans the universe exists changelessly and, hence, timelessly and at the Big Bang singularity created the universe along with time and space. For the Creator sans the universe, there simply is no time because there are no events of any sort; time begins with the first event, at the moment of creation.

The time of the first event would be not only the first time at which the universe exists, but also, technically, the first time at which the Creator exists, since sans the universe the Creator is timeless. The act of creation is thus simultaneous with the origination of the universe.

The scenario I have sketched of the Creator's status sans the universe requires that the Creator be both a timeless and personal agent. But some philosophers have argued that such a notion is self-contradictory. For it is a necessary condition of personhood that an individual be capable of remembering, anticipating, reflecting, deliberating, deciding, and so forth. But these are inherently temporal activities. Therefore, there can be no atemporal persons.

The weakness in this reasoning is that it conflates common properties of persons with essential properties of persons. The sorts of activities delineated above are certainly common properties of temporal persons. But that does not imply that such properties are essential to personhood. Arguably, what is necessary and sufficient for personhood is self-consciousness and free volition, and these are not inherently temporal notions. In his study of divine timelessness, John Yates writes,

The classical theist may immediately grant that concepts such as reflection, memory, and anticipation could not apply to a timeless being (nor to any omniscient being), but this is not to admit that the key concepts of consciousness and knowledge are inapplicable to such a deity . . . . there does not seem to be any essential temporal element in words like . . . 'understand,' to 'be aware,' to 'know,' and so on . . . . an atemporal deity could possess maximal understanding, awareness, and knowledge in a single, all-embracing vision of himself and the sum of reality.
Similarly, the Creator could possess a free, changeless intention of the will to create a universe with a temporal beginning. Thus, it seems that neither self-consciousness nor free volition entail temporality. But since these are plausibly sufficient for personhood, there is no incoherence in the notion of a timeless, personal Creator of the universe.

All of the above objections have been offered as attempted justification of the apparently incredible position that the universe sprang into being uncaused out of nothing. But I, for one, find the premisses of those objections far less perspicuous than the proposition that whatever begins to exist has a cause. It is far more plausible to deny one of those premisses than to affirm what Hume called the "absurd Proposition" that something might arise without a cause, that the universe, in this case, should pop into existence uncaused out of nothing.

Conclusion
We can summarize the argument as follows:

1. Whatever exists has a reason for its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external ground.
2. Whatever begins to exist is not necessary in its existence.
3. If the universe has an external ground of its existence, then there exists a Personal Creator of the universe, who, sans the universe, is timeless, spaceless, beginningless, changeless, necessary, uncaused, and enormously powerful.
4. The universe began to exist.
From (2) and (4) it follows that

5. Therefore, the universe is not necessary in its existence.
From (1) and (5) it follows further that

6. Therefore, the universe has an external ground of its existence.
From (3) and (6) it we can conclude that

Therefore, there exists a Personal Creator of the universe, who, sans the universe, is timeless, spaceless, beginningless, changeless, necessary, uncaused, and enormously powerful.
And this, as Thomas Aquinas laconically remarked, is what everybody means by God.

Kinnith, do you have *any* argument other than "Waaahhh! You are picking on me!"? You ought to read what your Lord and Savior had taught in his Sermon on the Mount about responding to nasty things. He didn't say that "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" does not go far enough, he said that you ought to love your enemies, bless those who persecute you, turn the other cheek, etc.
And Kinnith, I don't deny that you have had the experiences that you claim to have had -- given the variety of hallucinations that many people have had, I would not be surprised. And please don't cry over me suspecting that your experiences are hallucinations; I don't want to put you down because of that. And consider what you think of the experiences of people who believe in other religions, and the experiences of people who take hallucinogenic drugs, do sensory deprivation, etc. 
Also, Kinnith, I've seen lots and lots of drive-by preachers over at the Internet Infidels Discussion Board who have whined that they have no time to respond to critical questions, even though they have a LOT of time to compose and post their preachings. So your claiming that you don't have much time seems rather suspicious to me. You've had plenty of time to preach at us, yet you cannot find time to respond to critical questions?

I read the Bahnsen/Stein debate. Nothing new there. There is certainly no proof of God. Please explain to me in your own words what you mean by "the necessary foundation for the principle of induction".

If Christianity is so rational, please explain why an all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful God would cause the vast majority of his beloved animals to die in agony. Unless animals have souls and thus need freewill, there is no rational argument. And don't give me "the fall" garbage because an all-powerful God would be in complete control of how far his world would fall.

You have obviously read a lot of Christian apologetics. Great, that's covered. Now head on over to infidels.org to hear the other side. I've already read the apologetics. Have you studied the atheist counter arguments?

And please stop pasting into the board.

Many of us are already familiar with these arguments.  Are you familiar with the rebuttals?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/henke/krh-floodnonsense.html

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodmorappe-review.html  (In Woodmorappe's reply, he loses his shit and pulls a JP Holding style defense of his rage!)

Theol0gic 

You give us a long list of names we should read, but it really seems that you are the one who needs to do the reading. Scottmax is right. You seem to be parroting old arguments from yore, which is rather telling since you claim this is what atheists do with their arguments. Old hat really… if you can drag your opponents into your own neurosis, perhaps you can claim a stalemate and keep believing in peace. Good luck with that.  

I’ll post on one of your source “citations”:

So in other words you uncritically rely on Bahnsen and the Pauline tradition that human reason must be tied inescapably to god. And like your mentor you presuppose as “true” Christian claims of uniformity as well as assert that “everyone else is wrong.” Talk about outdated arguments! This “I’m right and you’re wrong” ipsit dixit approach is quite pathetic given that you are the one who has no actual evidence. Why else would you hitch your horse to "induction"? This strategy hasn’t ever worked when thought has been applied to the specifics in the argument.

Since you cited your sources, or better leaned on them like crutches, I’ll provide one that refutes your stance, one that has a bit of explication.

Michael Martin utterly shreds all of Bahnsen’s assertions in his analysis of TAG (Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God)back in 1996. Two of his essays (cited below) show what faulty logic must be used in order to make the "presuppositions" necessary to give Bahnsen (and you it seems) even a starting point on this issue.

The entire purpose of TAG is to take concepts held as fact by atheists and other theists of a moderate or secular mindset and claim that these can only be true if connected to the Christian god. As Martin points out, the strategy takes these asserted premises of induction as truth in the case for the Christian god despite these assertions not being all that sound from their inception.

Martin points out what the induction argument tries to hijack:

As Martin explains, the Christian makes the argument for TAG and then waits for the atheist or free thinking theist to use science, logic, or reason to refute it. Then all he has to do is assert that the critical thinker is “implicitly assuming God's existence” by using these human tools that must by virtue of the premises he's offered be the product of HIS god.

That anyone with a degree of common sense could fall for this is beyond me, but we are dealing with dogma and that tends not to need more than special pleading to make theists feel warm and fuzzy all over. In this case, the Christian gets to kill two birds with one stone, the skeptical atheist and all the other believers in the theistic world in one fell swoop. How convenient and how ironically telling of the lack of logic, reason, and understanding of science that many of these fundamentalists rely on.

I’ll allow Martin to speak for himself here:

To add to this, Martin also shows how Bahnsen uses only partial interpretations of science, logic and ethics to make this case. In doing so, he conveniently leaves out other ways of collecting data, for instance “non-inductive” conceptions in science, a point that Kelly states in the debate with Cameron and Comfort in the opening negative constructive. One needs to use all the tools available for such questions so that evidence and outcomes can be tested in more than one way, something Richard Dawkins has said repeatedly with regard to testing for evolution and the obvious lack thereof for religious premises in (cough) "theories" such as ID.

Martin continues to show how metaphysical interpretations of logic do not exist in a vacuum as Bahnsen would have us beleive. Logic can be used as a tool or instrument in the real word for instance, which would mean that metaphysics need not be the only lens to look through when examining the human condition. This is so painfully obvious really. Though humans can certainly dabble in metaphysical mind experiments, we do tend to shelve that when navigating the real world by driving to work in the morning. Martin also explains that the fatalistic, black and white view of ethics Bahnsen needs for both his premise and his foregone conclusion about god (basically the Christian way or anarchy) is absolutely a false dichotomy and not really tied to the same real world.

To this end then, Martin shows that even if the TAG hypothesis is true in its foundational language, it can’t be used to validate Christianity anyway because too many factors are assumed, which is the Achilles heel of every Christian argument in the end, many of which are present right here in this thread.

The best example of Bahnsen’s failure in this approach is that we humans in the contemporary world use deductive reasoning as well as inductive reasoning in creating plausible scenarios and then try to prove these scenarios relative to each other over time. This fact of science is not only valid as Martin points out but it is used quite extensively in the “proving” of anything worhtwhile in the long run. Inductive reasoning is used to postulate a number of mythological whims for example, in fact where religious gods are concerned every conceivable possible whim ad infinitum, much to the detriment of Bahnsen's flights of fancy.

Solid deductive proof in the long run, Theol0gic, is more attributable to actual logic, reason and science because of its restrictive nature. Using Martin’s example, the premise “Fido has four legs” can be tested deductively against all dogs in nature and therefore the testing can provide an observation that supports both the premise and the conclusion, not to mention being repeatable regardless of where one is on the planet. This is most definitely not the case with gods and their respective inductive proof run through mythological and cultural lenses. As Martin shows, “[N]o inductive argument is any stronger than any other” because the premises in each case all carry the same truth value, wistful Christian apologetics notwithstanding. 

This kills Bahnsen’s assertion about the basis for Christianity being any more viable than any other religion’s waxing of entities, which then means that your piggybacking through appeal to authority is just as impudent as Bahnsen is. Well, I hold out hope, I guess. You aren't dead yet. There remains the chance for you at least, which can't be said for Bahnsen.

Martin explains Bahnsen’s key mistake very well here:

And as we can see, the outcome of quality in terms of god constructs and their connection to the natural world and our human capacity to understand it with tools of reason are no more reliant on the Christian god than they are on IPUs, Mithra, Thor, etc. Which brings us right back to where we always are; no religious pundit with delusions of one-and-only, monotheistic flights of fancy has any legitimacy over anyone else’s god claims. And the beat goes on.

What supports everything supports nothing of any real value to the human condition.

Bahnsen’s oversimplification based on faith and your reliance on him for the same reasons shows why theists are beginning to lose the grip they have enjoyed for so many years. It may seem that we are fighting a losing battle in your eyes, but I do not see it that way at all. Unlike you and your Christian view of humanity as sinners and unworthy of god’s grace, I see humans as an increasingly intelligent community that stands to gain as its members begin to leave nonsense behind and see that gods haven't earned the grace we have given them.

It will happen. It is just a matter of time and dedication, like anything worthwhile. The gaps gods hide in grow smaller every year. The secular theist is a transitional form of the evolutionary scale of things to come. They are the proverbial missing link. Only they don’t know it yet. You, it seems, haven’t quite acquired that stasis as yet. I suggest you not wait as long as Bahnsen did.

Cheers!.

Anyone who is interested in seeing just how badly Bahnsen is wrong, please read Martin’s arguments on this point related to prima facie failure and the Christian world view and its ability to answer skeptic’s questions on this point. Then you can decide for yourself.

Michael Martin’s essays on this topic (There are links to his other work as well).

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/induction.html

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/logic.html#1

Cheers!

To assume that there is a God is both philosophically and scientifically absurd. Let's stop assuming anything and base our beliefs on evidence.

Fine. Then you can know nothing about him. He lacks the identity, characteristics and boundaries that we associate with real entities. So enjoy your make-believe God.

The question is whether anything existed before that starting point. Maybe you should educate yourself on cosmology before trying to come in here lecturing about it.

These people are hacks with presupposed acceptance of God smeared all over everything they do. Don't come in here trying to sell theology as if it's real science. 

You try to lecture us about cosmology then post a link to William Land Craig's website? Please list Craig's accomplishments in the field of astrophysics.

It is probably inaccurate to talk about the universe having a beginning, in the sense of a linear progression from not being there to being there. In any event, the most that modern cosmology will say on the matter is that we don't know. 

Veils of Maya wrote:

Yes, you're right Theists do give more attributes. But my first post addressing this shows how I could derive those attributes from looking at the natural world and it's contents without appealing to the bible.

The point was, if the 2nd law does not apply to a multiverse, then it would be supernatural (since it is not subject to natural laws) and the creator of what we perceive as good, evil, intelligence, and everything else. The only difference being that Atheist's do not ascribe intelligence to a multiverse.

But my point was that I see a similarity in the universal laws and those invented by human intelligence (as in the case of developing computer programs). That is the issue.

Purpose is related just as a programmer purposes to create a program and sets the parameters to a certain specificity so that it works according to his will. I believe God did the same with the universe.

Exactly. Math is a concept that is used to describe universal properties. But where the connection is missing is in seeing how those universal properties imply a Designer (think again about the computer programmer analogy.)

Forming an association and finding ultimate significance are two different things. For example, Gato used the example of having an a positive and negative association with a dog and then going on to assign a value to all dogs based on that experience. But this is quite different from seeing a dog as having significance in and of itself. I can make a surface statement that I like or do not like dogs, but to say that dogs do or do not have intrinsic value is pointless. In an evolutionary framework, there is no need for such an evaluation.

Just like my relationships with my loved ones, I can have positive or negative associations with them. But according to evolution, I simply call the positive association "love" and the negative association "dislike" and there is no ultimate significance in my relationship with them. So as much as you all want to have your cake and eat it too, you cannot say that life overall is meaningless and then say your experience shows that life has "local" meaning.

Experiencing physical pleasure is obviously real, but I am speaking more along the lines of emotional and mental experiences and whether or not they have any ultimate intrinsic value from an evolutionary standpoint. If a “love” center was discovered in some portion of our brains that was pre-wired to either like or dislike certain personalities, then you better believe this would be disturbing. But this is exactly what “evolution” would predict. Since all our emotions are merely products of a brain, then we would have no control over what or who we love or don’t love.

Appealing to the idea that since we’ve somehow developed a consciousness that can “override” an evolutionary predisposition presents two problems for the materialist. First, this suggestion seems to be admitting that a mind exists separately from the hardwired brain, since the mind is able to resist its genetically motivated impulses. Second, if the consciousness arose from the brain, then any overriding would essentially mean the brain is resisting its own impulses. This does not seem to be an efficient use of energy, nor does it seem logical.

He does allow it to occur because the potential of committing evil must be allowed in order for free will to exist.

To illustrate, think of the person with whom you have the closest relationship and know the best. Given a certain scenario you can probably predict with great accuracy how your friend or loved one will react. Now, if you know what the outcome will be, does that mean you caused it? Absolutely not.

So accusing God of causing a person to commit evil and be damned eternally because He wills it to be so is not only unsupported biblically, but is entirely against His nature. On the contrary, it is His will that everyone be saved (1 Timothy 2:3-4). The fact that people do not follow the will of God and choose salvation shows that people DO have free will.

Also, how does your skepticism help others to believe?

That is an interesting train of logic. But there are some problems. First, we experience evil because this world is fallen and full of evil so we really have no choice but to have encounters with it. God can use it to bring good in many cases, but I don’t see experiencing evil as being “critically important” to our eternal life. What seems to be more important, according to the bible, is being obedient to Christ and being conformed to His likeness in the face of evil and overcoming evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Children who die before being born do not need to experience evil to learn how to live in eternity. Being in the presence of God, they will experience the reality of perfection and goodness, just as all believers will. They will experience the life that all of us should have had from the beginning, before evil entered into the world.

So this seems to argue against your previous statement that we have a consciousness. If notions of morality are an illusion, how do you know your consciousness isn’t?

If you are referring to the Canaanite extinguishment, then I think you’ve made a serious oversimplification. God is omniscient and knows the hearts of all men so He alone is qualified to make such a determination. We know from historical records (outside the bible) that the Canaanite peoples were very violent, murderous, and practiced infanticide. So these were hardly nice, innocent people.

Yes, you’re right, I forgot to mention mutations as being the main RANDOM component behind evolution. But the forces behind natural selection are also equally random. How the organism deals with those forces in regard to their survival are obviously not random, but apart of their inherent ability or lack thereof to survive.

Yes, but isn’t this really a random circumstance? I mean did the animal have any control over reproductive isolationism due to geographic boundaries??? No. Did the Earth decide to create such a boundary??? No. So my point is that evolution is random or chance events (i.e. environmental and genetic changes) acting on matter (genes) to make a microbe into a man.

But the main argument of the other poster (I think it was Gato), was that this process of random events causes efficiency. That’s not true.

I cannot answer “how” that anymore than you can answer “how” the first molecules on this planet formed life. But if He is able to create a physical realm in the first place, then He would have the ability to interact with it.

Scottmax wrote:

I think you are trying to equate perceptions with meaning. While I admit they are related, they are not equivalents. Meaning is finding the reason or purpose for something that is not dependent on perceptions which can err. According to evolution there is no reason or purpose for human existence. It just happened due to the interaction of certain natural forces. In essence it was a chance happenstance. That means that whatever feelings, observations, or perceptions we may experience are ultimately without meaning since our very existence is without meaning.

The fact that people no longer adhere to certain moral laws does not mean that they have been “trumped” by “enlightened society”. Blasphemy, homosexuality, fornication, and the like are still wrong whether or not people choose to recognize it. It’s just that the penalty for committing a moral crime is either paid for or deferred until a later date depending on whether or not you put your trust in Christ.

The real problem is, though, that if God has spoken and His words are recorded in that antiquated “book from the dawn of civilization”, what He said has not changed. Truth remains truth no matter how much time passes or how much people choose to deny it.

I have to disagree with your statement. There really is a difference between what Buddha and Confucius said and what Jesus said. The Eastern Religions teach that you should NOT do anything you wouldn’t want people to do unto you, while Jesus said to DO unto people what you would have them do unto you. There’s a big difference between not harming someone and actually being proactive and helping someone.

well, i have been looking over the arguments used in the debate on abc and i have some questions.

how exactly do you win a debate without bringing any evidence to the table?

from what I saw all you did was respond to the christians cliams without really brninging anything from yer own side to the table.

thermodynamic laws? how does this even come close to proving God does not exist? Matter not being able to be created nor destroyed does not prove anything, it is a law of the universe and if claiming that the universe is infinite and uncreated? It seems your talking more about a God than the universe.

logic points us to beggining and ends, for all procceses in the known universe their is a beggining and an end, so why would the universne not have a beggining and an end through logical reasoning?

On to my point, what exaclty is your evidence for proving that only nature exists and nothing outside this known universe, such as God, doesnt exist? Scientifically I might add?

I mean, I see all this rhetoric and this big charade that you have going but where is your scientific evidence and your facts that support your claims, becasue I have failed to see anything to convince me to believe anything that you state.

You can not claim to be right merely by proving someone elses theory wrong, and thats what these are, theories. Your theory has no support whatsoever for the non existance of God, and If you have some facts or scientific proof I would much like to see them.

Otherwise you are no better or intectually smarter or more reasonable than the people that you attack.

- Theist

Alright, for the ten-thousandth time--we cannot prove that "god" does not exist. If you expect me to be able to prove that NO supernatural entitites exist or can exist, then I expect you to prove that Santa Claus does not exist. We can use logic to say that the god of the Bible cannot exist due to the specific attributes that he supposedly has, but there is no "evidence" for any particular thing's non-existence. It is up to you people to prove that he does exist. Not the other way around. Unless you can provide evidence that your particular god exists, then there is no reason to believe it. I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp. I would really love to not have to say this another twenty times in this thread, so try to read before you post.

How, indeed! Kirk & Ray challenged Brian, and said they'd show evidence for the existence of God, without using the bible or faith. They failed, miserably, and within the first few minutes. They are the ones making extraordinary claims, so the onus is upon them to show us extraordinary evidence of this invisible superbeing they claim exists but is utterly unsupported by any physical evidence whatsoever.

 "Our theory" also has no supporting evidence for the existence of the IPU, FSM, Thor, Hermes or Quetzalcoatl - but I believe they're real anyway.  Would you care to show me evidence that they don't exist??? I'll be waiting with bated breath....

I am an atheist  -  so I suppose I should've prefaced "but I believe..." with "Let's say..." or "Hypothetically speaking."

Regardless of my ACTUAL thoughts about invisible beings, please answer: Can you show me evidence that  the IPU, FSM, Thor, Hermes or Quetzalcoatl do not and have never existed? In our conversation here, it is YOU who are making the claim that my gods don't exist. Like a good Christian, I'm asking you to prove that they DON'T.

peoples religious belief systems are personalized to each group of people using that set of beliefs to teach the eternal truths of the world, wether it is a physical person, immaterial God or a perception only communicated by myths. their is no need for me to disprove anyones Gods, I know that people believe in differant things for differant reasons, not always becasue they are physically true in the universe.

you on the otherhand claim to know that God does not exist, you must support your claim, you say the christian idea of God is false, prove it.

I am mearely mediating right now, i have made contentions and opinions, i have not claimed anything so their is nothing for me to prove.

The burden of proof is on you athiests, i am an agnostic, becasue I do not know the truth, truth is fleeting for all human beings, i merely have conjectures and opinions, my contentions do not have to be supported by facts, your claims are that you possess knowledge, so prove it.

so athiests, prove your claims.

Hi Sara, glad you continued here... 

The experiment was "tainted?"  What they showed was that it was not sound to begin with, because, if you read it through, (and obviously you didn't), even random proccesses have a tendency to multiply order exponentially.  This is why, as Mark Perakh showed in "Unintelligent Design," that we can find all kinds of "order" in random strings of numbers, and/or "codes," and "meaning" in random strings of letters ( or even non-random strings [e.g. Moby Dick]).  I'm assuming that you propose that when a computer- or whatever (flip coins, cards, etc.) creates a random string of numbers, that when we find 1,2,3 in there or 5,5,5, that that is God amongst the chaos?

 We have meaning in our lives without theology- THAT is what is really quite simple.

Because God is omniscient and I am not.  You are ignoring the fact that the bible proclaims that God did not learn anything vicariously through humans as you suggest ("Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor has informed Him? With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge, and informed Him of the way of understanding?" (Is. 40:13-14).  Are you saying that God learned something from the sins of humans/Satan/whoever?  That is not eternal omniscience.  I agree with you that humans can learn something about evil vicariously, but even still, only to a limited extent without the experience of actually committing the act.  Knowing some act is wrong is not complete knowledge of the act.  Are you saying that there is no knowledge in experience?

Assumptions of personhood.  Next...

Generally?  Explain why you chose "generally."

You're missing the point- several actually.  The relationships proposed in the OT for how "the crime fits the punishment" is un unavoidable qualification.  Aren't some sins more offensive to God than others?  If they were all the same (I'm not talking about the smallest sin is enough for damnation- I'll concede that for now) why are there different punishments?  For example, God decided that working on Sabbath was more evil (requiring death) than if a slave is beaten, but lives for a few days before he dies (requiring a fine- Ex. 20:20-21), and so on.  These qualifications have been deemed injust over time (that you disagree has frightening implications for the world you think should exist).  The Law in itself is not perfect (though Psalm 19:7 disagrees)- it is not even humane in many instances (e.g. requiring death for more trivial crimes, instead of fines) and the requalifications of the relationship between the crime fitting (or not fitting) the punishment are evidence enough of that.

I am well aware of Paul's harmonization of how the law should be viewed.  It was just a trial run to show us that we couldn't do it.  It escapes me why for thousands of years, "righteous" OT characters were without a functional salvation plan (why were some of the OT characters even considered righteous?  Did they go to heaven?  I know "there are none righteous, no not one" blahblahblah- but they were also called righteous) in order to teach future generations something.  Why did it take so long?  In fact, why didn't omniscient God create a "Jesus plan" for the original perpetrators, Adam and Eve, right then and there (or shortly thereafter)?  Again, the more important issue is that these laws were put in place because these particular acts are offensive to an unchanging God and to Jesus who was right there with Him since the beginning (and on the flip side, the smell of burning bullocks will forever create a pleasing smell unto the Lord).  The qualification of the supposed evil inherent in some of these "sins" is what is at issue, not whether or not they are binding for salvation.  

You've left quite a few other questions unanswered there... such as epistemological qualifications as to which laws are rituals and which are moral and why a ritual law is not in itself pleasing or displeasing to God.  Why is the Sabbath Commandment in the so called "Ethical" Decalogue if it is a ritual made for man?

This is a non-sequiter.  The birth of consciousness introduces elements (like empathy) that affect our decisions.  That a car has limits on the speed it can go, does not determine how fast (or how reckless) the driver will drive the car within those limits. 

Age or origin does not negate the usefulness of the refining methods of social science. 

LOL.  Okay, if you cannot see the requalification of who is and who isn't innocent that you made inherent in your very post ("now when I say murder...&quot, there's nothing more I can say...

 I just knew you would say that about gerbils!  I don't have to tell you that this is just one piece of evidence from a much larger group of evidence- you know that, but you said that anyway... You would not go on one piece of evidence either, so mentioning the shark/camel issue belies the rest of the evidence of why these issues do not equally apply to both examples.  No one makes claims based on one piece of evidence.  The fact is that that broken gene is exactly the kind of thing that we would expect to see if humans and chimps share a common anscestor in their (anthropologically) recent lineage.  You may choose to rule out inductive reasoning, but given your theological position, I would doubt it.  Now in relation to Christian theology, God creating humans with a broken Vit. C gene does not make sense.  Why should humans, monkeys (and gerbils) not be able to synthesize Vit. C, yet the rest of the animals can?  Are we well designed?  There are many examples of bizarre genetic predispositions in animals that make no sense from the standpoint of creationism: horses with the gentic ability to make toes, chickens with teeth, etc.  Why would God put this info in the DNA Sara?  Seriously, you have to step back and consider this.

Order is multiplied exponentially within randomness when energy is present. 

I'm saying why not eliminate the mystery element.  What purpose does it serve in a salvation plan based on moral choice?  Your view of what is "enough" evidence is not enough for me- but that doesn't even matter, because God knows exactly how much evidence each one of us needs and could present that while keeping a salvation plan based on moral choice still in tact.

Thanks for your time...

http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/dict_standard.htm