My philosophy never tried to explain the 'why' in 'why we are here'. It does on the other hand explain how. Looking for 'why?' in evolution is like looking for 'how' through god. One doesn't try to give an answer... the other doesn't have an answer to give.

You seem to be enslaved in the search for 'why?' when your dogma should have the answer for you. Some of us don't need to know the 'why?' because such a search would lead no where. We are happy knowing we can give ourselves the answers we need from nothing but ourselves. Why does a dog live? Because it's alive. Why do we live? Because we're alive. Looking farther than that will just lead you down a road of lies.

It's almost like we're arguing with a recorded message that is miraculously on loop in perfect timing to our responses.

I'm sorry I offended you guys.

I came here to discuss evolution and learn from those discussions. You cornered me into a theological debate.

Bucket,

You are right... it isn't wrong to not know or not understand. But know this... that the best logical information is pointing to God now. And you'll never understand everything about God. He is God... and we aren't. He created our minds. They just won't measure up to His own. This isn't a cop out, or a creation to make me feel good. This is where the logic points. I'm sorry, Opiate, that I sound like a broken record, but neither of you have offered a better theory to explain our present circumstance of existence... not from nothing, not infinite... now you say "not God." What is the better model to fit these circumstances?

This argument that we are discussing (nothing from nothing) is logically sound and has been since it was first recorded over 1000 years ago by a Muslim thinker. Known as the kalam argument it has stood the test of time and has yet to be refuted. Actually it has been supported by science in discoveries and theories on the Big Bang and models of singularity.

That is why "science" is trying to come up with a way to explain the universe as infinite. That way they can hide from the overwhelming burden of truth that is pointing to a beginning and a beginner. But the trap of the infinite, coupled with inexcapable singularity, is doing nothing but supporting the kalam argument and its end result... acknowledgement of God.

Lies. You did not come here to discuss you came here to post rediculous theistic propaganda.

Yes, we did corner you into a theistic debate, because it has become clear from your correspondence that you are not interested in reality, you are exclusively interested in defending your religion with ANY argument as long as it serves your purpose, with complete disregard for the rationality and/or validity of both your arguments and your evidence.

I think it was Mr Hemmingway who said 'All thinking men are atheists' ...
You have to remember most of us are ex-christians. We've been there, done that...

If you are here to change minds you are wasting your time, and ours.

(BTW if the powers that be are reading this is still think Nacker should be banned...)

For what offense?

We have no set rules here yet, however we err on the side of excessive free speech. I was called irrational by King David 3 times with no logical defense behind his argument, and that twats still here, so obviously we're being lenient. Anywho... what do you think Nacker should be banned for?

Actually I've been enjoying flexing my muscles in attempts to bring rationality to the discussion. If anything Nacker is a natural resource we should come to love... we just have to lie to ourselves that something, just something, might get through to him.

We're here because we can ignore the follies of theist doctrine so his attempt to spread any faith shouldn't be feared.

I'm not lying. You don't know why I'm here. I didn't jump in the "defend God" forum. I jumped into the evolution forum b/c that is what I was interested in. You pressed the issue of God.

You and I both know these arguments are valid and rational. What is irrational is your ducking the issue that you must believe that reality stems from the irrational. Either from an irrational nothing... or an irrational infinite.

I'm not the one on defending my beliefs here. You asked for my beliefs and I offered them. I'm not even trying to "change your mind." If that was my goal then I would have opened up with the discussion we are having now when I first came to this forum. I've presented my argument and after 7 pages, i'm still waiting for a propper response to it.

Wrong question to ask. The law is a description of phenomen, not something physical.

I don't see how.

Why don't you start by defining time for us, nacker. What is this thing you keep insisting cannot be inifite?

No, all of that is a strawman.

Read my argument on page 3, again.

Define time for us, nacker.

It makes me think we need some sort of enter the darkness forum. I wonder if we should come up with a policy of breaking certain types of posts off into threads of darkness while leaving the original thread in tact. And where that policy should be instituted. Got ideas?

I've got it! How about we call the forum:

"Evidence for the Theory of Inherent Dishonesty in Theism"

???

We could split off posts from topics in which extreme dishonesty and ignorance was spotted.

severe chronic irrationality disorder quarantine

cute.

time: b : a nonspatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future

These events in the universe cannot be infinite. The universe cannot just have always been, b/c the universe exists in time... It exists in a nonspatial continuum with a number of events which succeed one another from past, through present, to future.

If all of those past events are infinite, then the past should be never ending and we could never reach the present.

The continuum that is time had to have a beginning. That calls for a beginner. That is why the theory of the infinite universe is boo boo, and a God is logically necessary to exist outside the continuum of time to create it and everything else.

He didn't stem from anything and only God would have the power to exist in His own essence. That is the very nature and definition of what God would be, should be, and is.

So, IOW, cause and effect. This is addressed in my original argument. Please read it.

It is actually more apropos to view time as space-time, a coordinate system, however even if you do not, time only began to exist as we know it after the singularity of the Big Bang.

No, this isn't quite true. Time is NOT an entity independent of the universe. Either it is part of a spatial coordinate system or it is a word we use to describe a progression of events - IOW cause and effect. You are are really doing nothing more than making an underhanded First Cause argument - an argument I've already address on page 3.

BTW, how can the universe exist in time if time is as you said simply a progression or measure of events?

How could God magically exist outside of time, unless He participated in no events at all? For God to be "timeless" he cannot have volition.

Wait, I though that something couldn't come from nothing? Or is God the only magical exception to what we've agreed upon?

Right, because something existing outside of time really makes logical and scientific sense :roll:

Making up an answer, like "god exists outside of time", then ranting about it for 6 pages is the only real booboo here.

So I was right. Something cannot come from nothing, unless it's God. God is super magical, becuase he's friggin' God :roll:

Pure special pleading garbage.

Speaking of time, nacker, stop wasting yours and ours. Thanks.

time does exist as its own continuum. We may measure it by our unverse, rotation and orbit of earth, or atomic clocks, but the time exists on its own to be measured by means of the universe it operates over.

If God is going to be God, then he necesarrily must be above all things... including time. The nothing/infinite argument supports the definition of what God must be.

Don't write God off just b/c you don't understand Him. It is a rational belief. The most rational. The alternative is to believe that we came from nothing, or an infinite universe. The universe has no intelligence and can therefore not operate outside of the laws of reality (whether we fully understand these laws or not). One of those laws is time. It is bound by time. Time cannot be infinite. If God has intelligence, then He can exist in His own essence and operate from a will and an intelligent, creative power to move time and reality as we know it into existence.

Yes this is a big concept. A life changing concept. But it is better than nothing. (emphasis on the pun). And it is better than the infinite. B/c both are irrational. Your beleifs are on the unknown. How silly to belief that we came from nothing. How silly to speculate on how the universe could may have been always there with no intelligence and the irrationality of infinite time. Our best cosmological models, singularity, and the big bang deny such a speculation. It is much more logical to infer a God from the obviousness of our present situation of existence from something beyond being created and beyond time. It is a necessary premise. To deny it is to have faith in nothing or speculation on the infinite... no matter how you dress it up. What an empty faith.

Dude seriously... you've made no points.

You said, "in fact I said quite literally that time was not independent of the universe. "

And I said that it is independent of the universe. We use the universe to measure time, but time is not dependent on the unverse for its existence... it ticks on its own. We just measure the ticks by the best means we can find in the universe.

You've tried to dress up an infinte amount of time with some pointless speculations. Time is all the universe has ever known. There is a finite time between now and singularity. If singularity wasn't the absolute beginning of the universe, then there was a finite time between singularity and the events before it or those events would never have ended and the creation of our present universe beginning at such singularity would never have come to pass. Time had to be created by an intelligent entity above it. To begin the motion of time. Yeah.. .that is a huge power. A crazy "magic" as you rhetorically call it. Call it what you like... whip out your empty rhetoric and dressing up of the irrational infinite time... God is the only rational choice.

I agree completely Nacker. You have proven conclusively, without a doubt, that the FSM exists. This will put an end to all AvT debates!

Sweet.

Unlike you i justify my statements by quoting you directly and giving reasons.

The New Testament is by far the most accurate and documented document in antiquity. With thousands of copies, the earliest dating within years of the autographs, cross referencing can be done among these multitudes of copies found in different geological areas to determine the New Testament to an unprecedented degree of accuracy (somewhere in the ball park of 99%) with no doctrine hindered by the unconsequential discrepencies.

The best the rest of history has to offer is Homer's Illiad with some where around 640 copies. That is pretty weak compared to the thousands of copies. The earliest dates 3 centuries after the autograph (original). That's 300 years of copying. Who knows what the Illiad really said!!! And that is Histories best runner up to the Gospels. Who knows what Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny, etc. really wrote. Maybe Aristotle never existed. Maybe Plato was a hoax. The best kept historical documents are those reserved for Jesus of Nazereth. There is no comparison. The burden of proof lies with you to disprove those eye witness accounts, and the careful study of Luke who has had his work studied in references to thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine-islands finding not a single mistake. If he was so exact in other matters, perhaps he was exact in recording the truth about Jesus. He was writing about a person which his beliefs in meant persecution, so there isn't a lot of motive to lie. Your burden of proof is very heavy at this point.

There are differences in different religions... but there are also similarities... Aristotles Ethics were a good shot at God. Budhism seeks denial of self to escape evil (dukha), That's funny, Jesus said to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Him, the idea of holiness found in religion, the concept of sacrifice, etc.
One thing to do is to look at the differences and say they are too different to point to a real god...
Another thing to do is to look at the massive longing for god found in humanity and the similarities in how we view god and see that there is something written on the heart, mind, and soul of man that pulls him to the true God. This implies that God wants to be known.

There are Gaps in our knowledge... and there always will be. One gap that does not have to exist is the disacknowledgement of the necessary beginner. He actually makes the things we know for sure... make more sense. It isn't a sacrifice of knowledge to accept God... it is the acquiring of knowledge that allows that acceptance.

One scientist to another... "I can't measure God. Therefore he can't exist." "Yeah Mr. Bucket, let's just be ignorant of what ever we want to be and speculate about what we want science to be"

Don't you see how ridiculous that is???

Yellow,
I read your first cause argument argument... again. You have yet to escape your problem of time. The tools for measurement may change as the universe changes, but time is a reality that would require the power of God to rise above. Since it cannot be infinite... then it must have been begun. Since it would require the power of God to control time... He is your best scientific theory for why we are here in this finite continuum called time.

Thanks for the conversations. I think this closes out our discussions b/c You think I'm blind to reality so I'm afraid you won't really listen. You think I'm looking past your points, and I think you are ignoring mine, so this is not really going anywhere.

Just remember... infinite universe = irrational.

And none of you have provided any acceptable alternatives better than God who fits the mold of the beginner that must be. Write it off as "magic." Or an imaginary friend named the spaghetti monster... but those empty rhetorical devices won't get rid of your irrational faith in the infinite universe.

Late.

I agree. The New Testament is 99% accurate?? That's about as accurate as saying shit tastes good!

And that sums up the thead.

I'm done with this unless nacker actually takes my actual words and attempts to dissect them point by point rather than simply continue screaming the same naked assertions at the top of his lungs over and over again.

Not using the quote function to respond to what a person has actually written is simply a dishonesty tactic, and I've called him on it several times now.

He's wasted enough of my time and yours, and even if you do pin him down, he'll simply leave the thread as he's done in a half dozen or so other theards in this forum.