(June 3, 2016 at 3:38 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: Interesting to note, that the majority of professional philosophers are atheists, 72.8%. Of the remainder, 15% are theists....Do you think those 72.8% understand the arguments and objections?

Academic philosophers are a self-selected set so that statistic doesn't really prove anything. My guess is that the reverse would be true for theologians.

(June 3, 2016 at 3:47 pm)robvalue Wrote:  

You can have a deistic "God" (an intelligent creator) for all I care. You can't possibly correlate it with a story book. You can't know anything about it, even after assuming its existence.

Yes they really do do an amazing jump of faith   They even try to co-opt advancing science with intelligent design but never answe the jump from a god to a religion other than ancient texts by the semi illiterate

(June 2, 2016 at 4:20 am)Socratic Meth Head Wrote: God is supposed to be Omnipresent, and Hell is supposed to be a seperation from God.

This makes no sense, they cant co-exist, its one, or neither.
Christians cant sacrifice God's supposed Omnipresense or hell in order to have a somewhat consistent belief.

Jesus went to hell.  If Jesus is supposed to be God and God and hell can't co-exist there's a problem, isn't there?  So the story must be wrong.  

1.  God exists.

2.  Hell exists.

3.  God & hell can't co-exist.

4.  Since they can't co-exist neither one of them exists. 

5.  Will someone please write a new fairy tale?

delete double post

As it stands right now, everything in nature has to come from something. Things don't materialize out of absolutely nothing. To suggest that pehaps there was something supernatural at play isn't any more weird than suggesting there wasn't.

I think either way, you're putting your faith in something.

Whether you believe the start of the physical world was caused by a supernatural force, or whether you believe it was caused by the forces of nature, there are still unanswered questions and aspects that are beyond our comprehension.

(June 3, 2016 at 3:22 pm)robvalue Wrote: I'm really no expert so I only have a superficial understanding. I assumed each creation/destruction event would maintain net energy somehow. Someone who knows more than me about this (anyone) should best clarify

There is really no "creation" or "destruction", only change. Release the energy from matter and there is no more matter, but you have LOTS of energy and everything is still balanced. E=mc-squared, A-bombs and all that.

These so-called particles that pop in and out of existence are nothing more than 'precipitated' quantum vacuum fluctuations. Everything is always balanced.

(June 3, 2016 at 4:02 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote:  

Whether you believe the start of the physical world was caused by a supernatural force, or whether you believe it was caused by the forces of nature, there are still unanswered questions and aspects that are beyond our comprehension.

I agree. but why do you need to insert god? Oh right faith (indoctrination) passed down for the past 2000 years ....

(June 3, 2016 at 3:49 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Now you're just playing with words. Fine. I'll play that game. Since the evidence shows that actual things can cause change, where is the evidence that nonexistent things can cause change? Since there is no such evidence then a rational person operates on the most reasonable premise and the conclusions that follow from it. Apparently you are not interested in following the evidence after all.

I'll give you a hint: "actual things," are not the only thing within your argument that can be argued against. There is also the notion of change, of cause and effect as you understand it, and whether or not that applies universally. It doesn't: prior to the big bang, all ideas of how change works go out the window, and this is something supported by all of the physics we currently understand.

Moreover, your argument loses all force if you present it properly, which is "the evidence we observe suggests that, in our current expansionist universe, actual things can cause change, but they might not be the only thing." That barely says anything at all.

Oh, and by the way? Still haven't bothered to connect your spurious argument to the god conclusion you're attempting to make. I know you're searching for distractions to mask that, but that's kinda the big failure here for you. How is your conclusion relevant to the argument at all?

(June 3, 2016 at 4:02 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: As it stands right now, everything in nature has to come from something. Things don't materialize out of absolutely nothing. To suggest that pehaps there was something supernatural at play isn't any more weird than suggesting there wasn't.  

I think either way, you're putting your faith in something.  

Whether you believe the start of the physical world was caused by a supernatural force, or whether you believe it was caused by the forces of nature, there are still unanswered questions and aspects that are beyond our comprehension.

The difference, and this is why faith only exists within theistic explanations and not secular ones, is that we can readily demonstrate that the natural world exists, and we have no suggestion that the supernatural is even something that's possible.

(June 3, 2016 at 4:02 pm)Catholic_Lady Wrote: As it stands right now, everything in nature has to come from something. Things don't materialize out of absolutely nothing. 

Amen, sister. Except for God, of course. 

Quote:To suggest that pehaps there was something supernatural at play isn't any more weird than suggesting there wasn't.  

I think either way, you're putting your faith in something.  

Whether you believe the start of the physical world was caused by a supernatural force, or whether you believe it was caused by the forces of nature, there are still unanswered questions and aspects that are beyond our comprehension.

...and until an atheist can fill in all the blanks for me, explain all the unknowns of the universe, explain the meaning and purpose of life, explain exactly what morality is and how we can objectively measure right from wrong and puts it all together for me in a nice, easy-to-understand package distilled in a post that's not too long to read, we get to fill in the blanks with our favorite beliefs and it's just as valid as saying "I don't know."