Apologetics open challenge

[robvalue]

OK cheers Yeah I was firing out my arse. Should have just done some research.

Mystic: you're welcome!

I still can't understand what time "coming into being" means. Can anyone help me out?

We reach each point in time, and that's when that point of time is "introduced" I suppose. But again this is all abstract, it's our way of observing what is already happening and trying to make sense of it. That doesn't make time an actual thing that exists. So in our brains, we are aware of the "passage of time" and each new moment bringing new sensations.

But my point is, we're creating "time" ourself. So if you want a creator for it, it's us. It's just a label to help us try and understand.

Maybe there is some being somewhere behind all this. I have no clue. But I see no reason to think that there has to be, nor any possible way we can learn anything about them with any confidence.

"Coming into being" is itself a temporal phrase, so that either implies a second timeline in which this "our time" is not present and then is; or else it's just a tautology using time to measure itself...

I'd say the state of the universe at any point in time is heavily dependent on the previous point, and modified by various forces. I don't know what more we can say. The theory of realivity seems to talk about time as being an actual fourth dimension and not simply a parameter, when things are viewed in certain ways. This is not something I've got my head around yet, but it highlights the problem with assuming whatever is actually happening is as simple as our attempts to model it.

[robvalue]

Bump in case any one else wants a try.

Logical fallacies aren't about atheism, they are about caring that your argument makes sense. I wish apologists in general would start caring.

[Longhorn]

Ok ok mr. Heathen, you didn't like my first argument so here goes nother one

(1) If evolution is true, cats should give birth to dogs
(2) cats don't give birth to dogs
(3) evolution is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
(4) bananananana
(5) so like praise Hathor an shit

QED MOTHERFUCKER

[robvalue]

Ah! The argument from not understanding science. Good one!

1. Science says [false statement]
2. [false statement] is false
3. Science is false
4. The only thing left is religion
5. My religion that is

The saddest thing is that it requires a false dichotomy and special pleading even after "dispensing" with science.

I may as well be talking in Chinese right? No one cares about this stuff.

[Mystic]

I still can't understand what time "coming into being" means. Can anyone help me out?

It means at one point there was no motion from a moment to another moment, no change happening, no flow, then there was change, flow, etc. The proof of that is every point of flow, every point of movement from one moment to another, didn't always exist. So the whole of it which consists of all these points didn't always exist. If none of it always existed, then all of it didn't always exist.

The present moment didn't always exist for example. The future doesn't exist for example.

[robvalue]

What makes you think there was ever no flow of time?

And if you're talking about an event happening before time has started, then this event (our time starting) must be happening within some other timeline, right? You can't have a "before" and "after" an event without time.

[Mystic]

What makes you think there was ever no flow of time?

I showed why, because every point of that flow was not there at some point, meaning the whole of it (which consists of all points) was not there at some point.

[Mystic]

 You can't have a "before" and "after" an event without time.

True, but you can have a concept of ontological before, that one thing caused the other to come to exist.

[robvalue]

What makes you think there was ever no flow of time?

I showed why, because every point of that flow was not there at some point, meaning the whole of it (which consists of all points) was not there at some point.

Not so. If the past extends infinitely, then there is no point in the past at which time was not "there", however you want to put it. If you rewind in time from this point, you will never reach a beginning.

Or to put it another way, if time did start at a certain point, it wouldn't have an infinite past.

[Mystic]

From one angle, it had to start. From an another angle, it could not have started. Therefore it's a paradox. An impossibility.