If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out...

[Kix]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

Let me give you an analogy. Suppose you know that I am omniscient, and that I am willing to offer you a choice. We have items A and B, though you are only allowed to choose one. Before you pick, I let you know that I am omniscient, and that you will pick A (assuming I am not lying/double bluffing). Because of my omniscience, if you then decide to pick B, you will have proved that I am not omniscient. However, if we assume I am, and have told you that you will, eventually, pick A, I have stripped all options to pick B.

Basically, you would be under a paradox to show that I am either not omniscient, or that you have no free will to pick B.

Well in that case you would be lying if I pick B. If you know absolutely that I will choose A, then I shall choose A. There is still nothing actually constraining me from picking B. Nothing physical, and knowledge does not.

I was under the impression God could not cause anything if he was outside of time and space? Does causality not require time?

Also, "stepped into" time?

Why not? Not necessarily. Yes.

If all of God's knowledge/morality stems from his nature, what is keeping his nature from being something completely arbitrary? As in, God has the same odds of being a sadistic prick as an omnibenevolent deity. The mere fact that God is supposed to be infinitely complex and powerful prevents him from being viable due to Occam's Razor. The odds that the Universe popped into existence (which I don't even necessarily agree with) has less complex entities to entertain to be viable than an all powerful being.

I was about to delve into Christian morality, but I'll attempt to keep this a theism vs. agnostic/atheism conversation.

God's very existence is necessary and eternal, so it isn't arbitrary. If nothing else exists, God still exists. Do you honestly think that if a nature is necessary that we are multiplying the cause into more causes? The problem is that the universe is not going to pop into existence out of nothing because it isn't viable. I think that you notice the problem of the situation because you don't want to yourself believe that it began to exist. I think that's how obvious it really is to anyone.

For anyone reading, the Euthyphro argument is summed up by Socrates asking, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" Which can be translated to "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"

Again, if God had dictated that rape and murder were cherished actions, and joy and love were vices, it would be as such, if we consider everything stems from his nature. This gives us the idea that even if his morals are not arbitrary (which they seem to be), God's nature is arbitrary and we are unable to ascertain anything different. It allows scenarios for God to be malevolent.

Well only if these were consistent with Gods nature. What morals are arbitrary are those from a naturalistic worldview. Good luck telling the psychopath or nazi germany they actually did anything wrong.

Why would God's nature be arbitrary if it were necessarily existent?

I would point to the circular causality argument, and I'll tackle your objections in a second. As far as my understanding goes, the potential infinite does not need an "absolute" beginning. There is Melissos an admiral's argument (based in part on Cantor's ideas), that states that "If something exists it is eternal because nothing can be produced from nothing", though I believe Brouwer and Wittgenstein wrote refutations to his particular strand of logic.

I don't see that circular causality is avoiding the beginning of the universe, or even that it takes it on. It's not like this is anything scientifically tested either. A potential infinite is not one that has an infinite past, because then it actually goes past infinity.

Again, the Universe as we understand it today began to exist.

Then currently it makes the most sense to believe in a personal creator.

The Kalaam is not necessarily true, as it states in Premise 1 that everything finite and contingent has a cause, when there are several examples of things without a first cause, such as Brownian Motion. It then follows that there may have been no inherent first cause for the Universe, though this would not outright disprove a God (at least in a deistic sense).

I think it is apparent that it is metaphysically true in any situation. Random motion of particles=thing that begins to exist without a cause? How does it follow that there is no inherent first cause of the universe? Is this because you brought up something that was not even the same as what we are talking about?

Can you expound your thoughts beyond "I don't understand this"? I don't mean to be rude, but that is all I'm getting across in this message. Circular causality does not have to explain a beginning, though it does have to tackle the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" which I believe to be a fallacious concept.

I don't see why you are using it the way you are because it doesn't seem to do what you want it to. It isn't fallacious to ask why there is something rather than nothing when there was nothing in the first place.

That is not what I was expressing at all. My comment was merely to state that I did not believe Craig to be a fundamentalist, nor did I think they denied their own existence.

Excuse me? I have already made the contention that P1 is false primarily because we do know that there are things without a first cause, and that it commits a fallacy of composition. It isn't being inconsistent at all.

Even though you have not demonstrated this even though you think you did?

I originally said, "P1 also commits the fallacy of stating that a set of things inherits the characteristics of the individual parts thereof."

This can be translated to, "The set of a group of things does not necessarily inherit the traits or attributes of the existents it contains."

I believe the reasoning for that is very clear.

This doesn't have to do with traits other than identity. It is never a trait for something to come into being out of nothing uncaused because there is anyway in which it can be a property of something unless it were to actually have some sort of cause.

Ah, but I contend it is fallacious. It assumes that because the existents within the set are caused, then the set itself is caused. This is just as inherently false as assuming that because a car is composed of several light weight pieces, then the car will, overall, be lightweight.

You seem to think that this is a valid property and it seems to me are actually committing fallacy by assuming that nothingness has properties within something.

You are assuming that the Universe has a "nature" to be caused? What is your justifying principle, then?

Logic. Identity. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing has no nature to come into existence.

Nothing. Is. A. Fallacious. Concept.

So you contend that everything is a literal something? If not everything is a literal something (like your mental thoughts in a physical way), then some things do not have a nature and do not exist.

As I have said umpteen times, the Universe as we understand it began to exist. We do not know if it existed in a different fashion before the Big Bang.

What I have said umpteen times is that cosmology pretty much are in agreement about there being nothing before the Big Bang. Is Hawkings exaggerating just a bit?

Have we ever observed nothing?

Why do you insist on not making sense? Nothing has no properties or nature, you are trying to give it one.

It's fairly simple. We have never truly perceived nothing to exist, so stating that there was originally "nothing" is likely a fallacious concept to begin with.

If you abandon the law of identity and cease to be rational, I'll give you that. Then how is anything fallacious?

I think I've addressed this entirely too many times to warrant another response to it. Basically, you are begging the question by presupposing a "creation", or that it did not always exist.

The more I read from you the more clear it becomes that even you have a problem with it not existing, but you are swimming against the scientific community because I think that it is obvious to you.

That is not what the refutation presupposes at all. It deals with applying inherent characteristics from the individuals to the whole, not that plurality is flawed. You're attempting to bash a strawman right now.

It asks why the kids would not be under two hundred pounds when it isn't the nature of humans to be a specific weight like that. What I said about the apples just makes no sense, but his analogy isn't even talking about something the same at all as what we are talking about with the something that begins to exist has a cause.

There is no refutation or argument that has no logical flaws, but Kant is an incredible philosopher, both credited with one of the best refutations to the TAG and the Ontological argument.

How does he go about refuting it?

You don't need a multiverse to refute the fine tuned argument. We, over time, have adapted to exist in the form we have now. There is no evidence that the world was created specifically for us to exist in.

Your argument boils down to "If things were different, then things would be different", which is merely a tautology.

It WOULD seem that it makes sense that it was fine tuned for our creation when tiny differences in constants would cause something like the universe being entirely helium. Tell me how helium can be life? At all? We're within a infinitesimally small margin. There is no need to refute fine tuning as you don't understand. It is accepted that there is fine tuning, we're merely trying to explain it. Who is trying to refute it even though it is obvious to even the scientific community? Internet atheists because they think that fine tuning automatically is the word design?

That depends. Are you asking how I explain my objective moral values, or God's moral values?

How do you explain the existence of objective moral values? I explain God's as necessary with God's nature.

Fine tuning is still inherently flawed, and I'd love to see said cosmologists that agree with the concept. What they likely mean is that we are fine tuned to exist in the Universe, not the other way around, akin to the puddle concept.

What is meant by fine tuning is that the universe's constants were tuned within a very strict margin that allows things to work properly and eventually for life to even possibly evolve. These are highly specified conditions from the Big Bang. This isn't contested in the scientific community because of things like how I mentioned happen with very minor changes. I still think that you are thinking of the word "design".

The possibilities to explain it is that it is either due to how it has to be, chance, or design.

This is a common fine tuning misconception. No one says we are required to exist in our form, or even as forms we would acknowledge as life today.

You've delved right back into the tautology mentioned earlier.

We could exist in maybe a slightly different form, but when almost all of the other possibilities from small changes lead to something in which life cannot exist, we're talking about existing in ANY form. This is not my misconception, it is your's. Improbability is built upon improbability, and so on.

Now you're melding deductive/inductive arguments into empirical evidences, which are completely different things. Can you give me any empirical evidence that the supernatural exists?

I don't "ignore" things based on what I like or dislike. Seeking the truth, whatever it may be, comes before my own indiscretions or personal comfort.

It's good to know that you are seeking the truth! Why do deductive arguments not actually matter? Is it because you don't like the type of evidence when you don't have evidence for the truth of atheism?

Have we ever perceived nothing to exist? Have we ever seen nothing, to then conclude that there truly are no properties? I would contend that we have not, making it unlikely the "default" setting for the universe was nothing.

We don't observe that something cannot be A and not A at the same time, do we? Nothing exists to separate it from existence. You are throwing laws of logic out for some reason.

For starters, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Perhaps a prophecy from any number of religious texts that wasn't vague and was on a massive scale. Something akin to "In the continent that resides in the "lower left" hemisphere of the world, in quadrant X, there will be a massive earthquake followed by a hurricane, causing the deaths of X number of people".

Possibly God ascending from the Heavens and demonstrating his divinity by bending the natural laws that govern our world today. That could potentially be flawed, as he could merely be from the future. ""Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clark.

If God existed as claimed, he could easily have made his existence much more obvious than it is today.

What kind of evidence to extraordinary claims need that make them coercive? What is needed in order to make them rational belief? The argument that God doesn't do what you want Him to do in order to believe in God's existence doesn't mean that there is not strong evidence that God does exist. I think that if you accept even what we are talking about it would appear as though God exists. Deductive arguments are just fine for rational belief.

Again, Brownian Motion, Casimir effect, and Quantum Mechanics (in relation to quarks) all show things coming into existence without a prior cause.

So nothing does not exist, yet they are coming into being? How inconsistent you are! They have been shown? Even though they don't do what you want them to do, they have been shown? Like taken and dissected and shown that there is no reason that they happen?

Atheism is merely a rejection of the postulation "God exists", unless you are part of strong atheism, which I do not claim to be. As there is little to no empirical evidences for the claim, and the fact that most inductive arguments fail, atheism (or agnosticism) is the logical choice to make.

If I denied the existence of pixies, would you make me give logical arguments against the existence of pixies? Wouldn't the fact that there is no evidence for these pixies be a refutation in itself? It is much like trying to disprove a negative.

The arguments are not failing right now, so what does that mean? Maybe I could give you good reasons why pixies did not exist, and that there were no good reasons for thinking they do exist. This isn't even the case with God. For instance there is no Santa Claus because there is no one living at the North Pole, no one flying around delivering presents on Christmas Eve.

There is no evidence to suggest there was a time where the laws of physics did not exist, but there is evidence to say that they were different in the far reaching past, as I've said before.

Except for the beginning of the universe. Can you tell me where physical laws exist without the matter, or without a universe?

That's flawed on a number of levels. We ascertain which is the "best" explanation by explaining why it is the best explanation. You cannot possibly think to say that science would equally consider Creationism on the same playing field as Evolution without empirical basis "explaining" which comes out ahead.

I'm not arguing or Creationism.

(1) God either can or cannot create a rock that is so heavy that he cannot lift it.
(2) If God can create a rock that is so heavy that he cannot lift it, then God is not omnipotent.
(3) If God cannot create a rock that is so heavy that he cannot lift it, then God is not omnipotent.
Therefore:
(4) God is not omnipotent.
(5) If God exists then he is omnipotent.
Therefore:
(6) God does not exist.

The only way out is to argue that God is bound by logic, and thusly cannot create nor entertain paradoxes of himself. If we take that route, however, then we have problems with omniscience and omnipotence being compatible.

There is an easy way out and it is to say that God's omnipotence does not mean God can do everything conceivable. Since logic would be a part of God's nature, God would not contradict His nature. This just means that God can do anything God wishes to do with no other constraining factor beyond his nature. We for example are constrained by things around us whereas God is free to do what God wants to do consistent with His necessary nature.

Or a Triune God? *hintwinknudge*

How does a Truine God multiply causes beyond necessity? It's a single entity.

In any case, there is no evidence that God is a logical necessity or an empirical one, which is why he is invalid when compared to Occam's Razor.

Unless nothing yields nothing because it can't do anything unless it were something.
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Wouldn't a vacuum be an example of nothing? An empty space that amidst all of the matter quickly fills up.
Also is Brownian motion proven causeless or is it simply not understood?

I don't think vacuum is nothing because it has properties through which things go through it and it is space.

 

[KoshTheKoala]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

Wow, I actually read all this... and it wasn't even all that interesting. Best part of it:

Felix:

Kix:

Felix:

Exactly what I was thinking. Every choice I make leads to several other choices and it influences other people's choices as well. If god knows the outcome of all this right now, at this moment in time, there are only 2 logical conclusions:

1. My choice is predetermined by his omniscience.
2. God doesn't experience time and exists in the presence with his knowledge from the furtherst possible time in the future, if that makes any sense.

However, the second option is confusing. If somebody in the presence already saw what we're going to decide, do we still have a choice at this moment?
If we have, we are constantly changing God's knowledge. Sounds pretty powerful for his own creatures :D

God = Benjamin Button

 

[Gegliosch]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

Too.. many... quotes........ uuaarrghhh...



You really made a contest out of this Oo

 

[Allyourbase]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

I crunched some numbers and I'd have $13,432,023. Yeah...

 

[KingAce]

If I had $1 for every time God bailed me out..

I believe the reason you guys are having problems with God's Omniscience characteristic, is because you forget that his also omnipresent.

Which goes back to my earlier statements.
My understanding is that the construct of this Universe other universes and omniverses...is type of energy.
And this energy gives form to all objectivity and subjectivity...from matter, physical energy and thought. In other words everything is composed of this energy. With this premise, omnipresent means everything is God.
So it would make sense for him to know the actions you can take and the actions you will take.
And if God is infinite, then he can't be effected by change and thus by time.

Secondly even without God in the discussion.
Free will doesn't exist, Felix. That idea correlates with randomness, something you hold on to...but will never prove because you're not omniscience. Everything is predetermined, especially our actions (this is consistent)...since they are driven by thoughts or our body...all these properties are parts of the Universal system. A system that runs on determinism; you cannot trick the Universe Felix.

You're argument was that God is an irrational explanation to Universe. You have failed to prove this. What you have succeeded in doing is stating the obvious, which is...God is not a satisfactory explanation to the universe for you, because you believe in free will.

Which takes us back to the usual end of these discussions...
People believe in what they want to believe...and you don't know enough to go about proving them wrong.