Greydon Square vs. Jon James Debate
Offline Jon James (Youtube)
You say that God can't create a rule that He can't break. All this means is that God can't go against His nature. God is the definition of holy, He defines right and wrong, so anything He does will be in agreement with His own nature. Besides, the rules He gives us are a description of His nature. If we obey God's Law, we will be emulating Him. So no, God can't give a rule He can't break, bc the rules themselves are a description of His nature, and God can't go against His nature. This is logically impossible, and God is a logical being.
Creating something while not existing may be more impressive, but since it's logically impossible, it's irrelevant. God isn't in a contest to prove how amazing He is, He is amazing bc of the attributes He has, such as holiness.
You say that the Big Bang did happen, however, you weren't there, neither was I. No one was. Whether this explanation is accepted by no one or everyone has no bearing on its truthfulness. When you deal with events in the past, you must always make assumptions about what happened, and these are unprovable assumptions. I have an assumption, too, being that God exists and the Bible is His Word, however, proving our assumptions is impossible. They're axioms, something you assume to be true. Without them, we couldn't get anything done in science. Also, the expansion of the universe is not proof of the Big Bang, it may be consistent with it, but it is not proof. Science can't prove anything, the only way to prove something is to observe it, and then it becomes an observation. Proofs only exist in math.
You say you support the membrane theory. I haven't read about this, but I wonder where did the membranes come from?
You seem to have a bias against the Bible's account of Christ's resurrection bc it's described in the Bible. Why? Sir William Ramsay called Luke a historian of the first rank, after setting out to disprove him. The Bible has been shown to be accurate in such matters as archaeology, so why doubt it when it speaks of the resurrection? I'd like to talk more specifically on the resurrection if you're willing, but there's too much to say here.
You say that we're born atheists and taught religion. I ask something C.S. Lewis pondered before converting, which is “if the world is so bad, how did we come to attribute it to a loving Creator?” You didn't mention the argument of evil and pain in the video, however, the question is a valid one. How do you think we came up with the idea of a loving God, when all of these other beliefs, like those of the Mayans or Aztecs, typically portrayed angry gods who had to be pacified by sacrifice? If we did invent God, how did we invent a loving God, when the world is so obviously hard?
You say theists ignore the evidence, what evidence specifically does this refer to?
Jon James (Youtube)
Greydon SquareRational Response Squad Grand Unified Theory"The Best Cure For Christianity is the Bible."
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First of all you just killed your entire rebuttal but saying god cannot go against his nature, there implying something he CANNOT DO. Then in my eyes, and from a logical standpoint, he is not all-powerful. Thus negating his omnipotence.
Second, you claim things like creation from non-existence is not logically possible so it is irrelevant to bring up in debate, but i have pointed out many, many times that god is Logically impossible yet you refute that. So which is it? Are things logically impossible accepted or irrelevant? Wait don’t answer that; let me answer it for you. If your saying that since my position on the level of achievement is irrelevant because its logically impossible then god too is irrelevant for the same reasons of being logically impossible. Further more, Christians ignoring other logical impossibilities is nothing new to me, because they like to pick and choose which logical impossibilities they are going to accept as attributes of god and which they are not.
i.e. 1) a god who requires rest after works (those he is supposedly infinite, thus I’m assuming he has infinite energy....lol)
2) An intelligent god, but seeing as how he is suppose to exist before all, has no way to obtain intelligence because information did not exist before he created it.
3) Infinite regression, you speak of logical impossibilities but here's the ultimate one, a universe in which everything requires a creator, but a god encompassing existence does not. If god does not need a creator then why does the universe which has been proven to be self contained (which is part of the evidence theists ignore) need to have a creator? Even though matter/energy cannot be created yet destroyed.
These are just 3 of the logical impossibilities that theists ignore, so why bring up logical impossibilities unless you are going to acknowledge all of them?
Big bang-You are right in saying that the big bang is an axiom, this is because physical equation laws lose foundation because the equations at the quantum level use a certain amount of infinities. So let’s look at it more closely, and ill show you how theists ignore evidence. If you acknowledge that the universe is expanding, which i don’t see how a person cannot, since THIS IS PROVABLE IN MATH, you might ask the question "How do cosmologists know that the universe is expanding?" Well, how would anyone determine that the universe is expanding? If the objects, which make up the universe are moving away from you, then you would conclude that the universe is expanding. Not only that but the Hubble found proof that universe was expanding in 1929. This is why Hubble has a constant, and even his own law describing the effects of extragalactic red shift. So, we KNOW that the universe IS expanding...
NOW BEFORE I GO ANY FURTHER...if you chose not to acknowledge this logic, then it further shows that there is evidence that theists will simply not accept because its contrary to their world view, and core belief system. There would be no other way to describe it.
Logic goes as such
1) If the universe is in the ACT of expanding then it has been expanding from some point in the linear past.
2) If the act of expansion requires time, then it HAS BEEN expanding for an undetermined amount of time (never mind scientists’ assumption of the universes age for right now.)
3)we have a mathematical proof (v = Hod) that the universe is expanding, and like all mathematical it can be inverted, thus reversing the process of expansion to contraction.
4) in this observation of the universe it will contract, all the way to infinite density and infinitely small size.
5) from this point in time (which is in the past), we simply invert the equation again and the universe will do what????? Go back in to an act of expansion. Which goes back to point 1. The universe is in the act of expansion, proven not only in this logical position, but from Hubble 87 years ago.
Oh, and one last thing, Newton’s laws of motion would come into play because the effect of expansion, would be caused by explosion, THIS IS WHY IT IS ACCEPTED as truth...but yea.... we’ll call it an axiom if you want...lol
M-theory
I assume since you said you haven’t read up on m-theory, that I should give you a brief overview of it, unfortunately I am not. Only because it is not relevant to this debate.(yes this is a debate) I want to point to something as simple as you saying (and I'm, quoting you...) "You say you support the membrane theory. I haven't read about this, but I wonder where did the membranes come from?"
This once again goes back to the question that begs the question. If we HAVE to ask where does the membrane come from (which I previously stated that it didn’t COME from anywhere and that the universe is self contained; 1st law of thermodynamics) then how is your god exempt from this question? We KNOW the universe is self contained, at least that’s what the constant is right now... but we have no way of observing your god, and even if we did, wouldn’t god be subject to the age old "if everything in existence requires a creator, then so does the creator" argument of infinite regression? So in response to that is simply a rhetorical question, where did your god come from? He is essentially the "ultimate 747" arriving from nothingness. (Take that Fred Hoyle)
Bible archaeological inaccuracies
While im not going to say that all historical accounts are wrong in the bible, i will say that from an archaeological standpoint, it is not a reliable source of information, at least any more reliable than any other religious doctrine (Vedas, Quran). Here is why...
In the beginning god created the earth in 6 days right? According to the account of genesis. We can also use the bible to supposedly determine the age of the earth, which is said to be roughly 7000 years old by creationist of Christian decent. We know that this is completely and utterly false based on potassium-argon dating, which is the ONLY method used to date extremely old archaeological artifacts. With a half life of 1.3 billion years and provable by math, this destroys pretty much every creation story that there is, with the exception of Hindu...for other reasons (they had concepts such as, the big bang, but their creation story has a creator which pretty much does them just as much good as Judaist creationists).
So if the very account of creation in the beginning is wrong, and then something as groundbreaking as the resurrection cannot be substantiated outside of believers of the faith, then how can it be a reliable source of information? It isn’t.
Oh and by the way, the sheer number biblical contradictions should be enough for people to question its validity. Check out evilbible.com or skepticsannotedbible.com for more contradictions and inconsistencies.
Loving gods
I think you answered your own question is asking how we created a loving god, in that the answer is simply BECAUSE WE CREATED HIM THAT WAY (don’t mind the caps I’m not yelling, just adding emphasis) Also your statement that other cultures did not have gods of love and only gods of anger is completely in accurate.
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Aine-God of love(Celtic)
Chalchiuhtlicue-God of Love(Aztec)
Cupid-God of love(Roman)
Tlazolteotl-God of love(Aztec)
Xtabay-God of Love(Mayan)
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These are just a few of the gods out of hundreds that were given the attribute of Love and compassion (These are strictly love...but hey who's counting)
Moreover, these gods and goddesses do not contradict their very nature in doing thing that are contrary to it. Like I don’t know, say...GENOCIDE! Infanticide! (You know, that whole, killing of first born, and ordering soldiers to slam babies into rocks.... Psalms 137:9, and if that’s love then I’m a hateful human being...lol)
So to answer your questions shortly, we created a loving god the same way other cultures did, with our imagination.
And finally, yes, I said that theist ignore the evidences that science provides that is contrary to their worldview. You can see this in creation stories that are still held today. In all religions not just Christianity. So in closing I hope these answers your questions to satisfaction, and feel free to debate some more if you like
Greydon Square
Grand Unified Theory
Rational Response Squad
Greydon SquareRational Response Squad Grand Unified Theory"The Best Cure For Christianity is the Bible."
Well said, Greydon! You rock, bro.
Great post Greydon. Awesome rebuttal!!
Kickin' ass and taking names!
Greydon, you're terrific! I wish you would post more often.
i will try to post a bit more too! ttyl
Also thanks for recommending the websites, I'm surely going to check them out.
Slimm,