(December 31, 2018 at 3:32 am)Angelina Wrote:

(December 30, 2018 at 10:04 pm)Angelina Wrote: Isn't everything that exists really evidence for God? Do you think the necessary chemicals and other building blocks of the universe could have just materialized out of thin air on their own? If so, how do you justify this belief?

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: A pot of gold is not evidence that leprechauns exist.

No, but the pot of gold had to come from somewhere. It did not and literally could not have, just created itself.

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Flowers are not evidence that fairies exist.

Flowers that came to exist how exactly? How do beautiful flowers exist on our planet?

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Everything that exists is evidence of existence.

That really doesn't mean anything and just sounds like a cop out.

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: The energy of the universe didn't pop out of thin air.
When we observe the universe, we take measurements.
We have observed and noted some very consistent physical laws concerning matter and it's relationship with energy.

Measuring something does not explain how or why it exists

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: We have discovered forces that act upon matter and energy. We have the Gravitational Force, Weak Nuclear Force, Electromagnetic Force, Strong Nuclear Force.

Forces that came to be how? Nothing exerts force without being alive. A universe in motion is a living universe.

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: A few physics classes can help you understand these better.

We have laws of motion that help to describe how bodies of matter interact with each other.

They don't describe how. They are simply observed happening.

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Our universe exists and we can explain to the best of our ability how planets & stars form through gravity and how life evolves through evolution.

Gravity that occurs how? And I think you're confused. Evolution does not explain how or why anything exists on our planet. Evolution started long after the planet and all life began.

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: We have some very exciting experiments that give us a good idea about how organic life can emerge from non organic chemicals, but as of yet we don't have the full picture. In time we will.

Nothing that even comes close to explaining how or why we have self awareness and emotion and sensation. We can't even determine how a lifeless protein can form legitimately yet.

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: We justify all of our beliefs with evidence.

There is no evidence that supports atheist beliefs, so I don't agree.

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Do you have any evidence that a god exists ?

Yes, the entire universe and all life. Literally everything that exists.

This is a bunch of arguments from ignorance and incredulity

(December 31, 2018 at 6:10 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is more likely some natural phenomenon created the universe or a supernatural being?

What did cause this natural phenomenon?

Quote: The natural process wins hands down.

Nothing seems to be more natural than something. Why does something exist?

(December 31, 2018 at 8:12 am)polymath257 Wrote:

(December 30, 2018 at 10:04 pm)Angelina Wrote: Isn't everything that exists really evidence for God? Do you think the necessary chemicals and other building blocks of the universe could have just materialized out of thin air on their own? If so, how do you justify this belief?

No. Why would it be evidence of a God? Remember that God is supposed to be a supernatural being that is able to create universes, dictate morality, etc.

How is the existence of physical things evidence of a supernatural?

The reason that things grow is evidence for a fertility god.

(December 31, 2018 at 8:21 am)Dmitry1983 Wrote:

(December 31, 2018 at 6:10 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is more likely some natural phenomenon created the universe or a supernatural being?

What did cause this natural phenomenon?

Quote: The natural process wins hands down.

Nothing seems to be more natural than something. Why does something exist?

1. Argument from ignorance 

2.Assertion and again argument from ignorance

(December 30, 2018 at 8:28 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:

(December 30, 2018 at 7:55 am)Gwaithmir Wrote: @ T0 Th3 M4X :

Which tells me that you don't actually have any legitimate evidence for the existence of God and you're just messing with us. I'm not wasting my time with you. Case closed.

Nope.  It tells me you don't have any evidence on the contrary.  Don't waste your time with me.  I didn't invite you.  You invited yourself.  Case closed.

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Shifting the burden of Proof Fallacy.

(December 31, 2018 at 8:21 am)Dmitry1983 Wrote:

(December 31, 2018 at 6:10 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is more likely some natural phenomenon created the universe or a supernatural being?

What did cause this natural phenomenon?

Quote: The natural process wins hands down.

Nothing seems to be more natural than something. Why does something exist?

Why do you assume everything has a cause?

At most, everything in the universe has a cause in the universe. But even that isn't true because of what we have learned at the quantum level.

In asking why there is something rather than nothing, you are assuming there is a cause. But since causality is part of the universe, the universe itself cannot have a cause: it just is.

(December 31, 2018 at 8:21 am)Dmitry1983 Wrote:

(December 31, 2018 at 6:10 am)downbeatplumb Wrote: What is more likely some natural phenomenon created the universe or a supernatural being?

What did cause this natural phenomenon?

Quote: The natural process wins hands down.

Nothing seems to be more natural than something. Why does something exist?

We can be sure that nothing supernatural did.
 
I can say that with confidence as the supernatural is not a thing.

So we are left with natural processes.

There are in fact a number of different natural processes that could have caused everything.
here are some.

https://www.universetoday.com/116835/wha...-big-bang/


And again I say the idea of a god doing it has a lot of work to do to flesh out the idea. It has all the problems of a natural cause, while still needing to explain the exitance/motivation/techniques of the god. In other words it is the more unlikely of the possibilities and according to Occams razer can be dispensed with.

(December 30, 2018 at 10:04 pm)Angelina Wrote: Isn't everything that exists really evidence for God?

No; the existence of a thing is not evidence for the cause of that thing. The cause must be shown to exist and be capable of the effect to be taken seriously.  Simply claiming that it exists doesn't cut it.

Quote:Do you think the necessary chemicals and other building blocks of the universe could have just materialized out of thin air on their own? If so, how do you justify this belief?

Do you think an incredibly complex, powerful, intelligent consciousness could have just materialized out of nothing on its own?  If so, how do you justify this belief?  Claiming "god" doesn't resolve any questions, it just pushes them back one level and sets up a different infinite regress.  

If you claim that the god always existed then you have to explain why that's possible but it isn't possible that the energy that makes up the universe could not have always existed.

(December 31, 2018 at 3:32 am)Angelina Wrote: Flowers that came to exist how exactly? How do beautiful flowers exist on our planet?

Abiogenesis and evolution are fascinating processes and provide plausible frameworks for all of the diversity of life.  It is personally much more satisfying to have an actual explanation than to just give up and claim it was a magical being.

Quote:

(December 30, 2018 at 11:14 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Everything that exists is evidence of existence.

That really doesn't mean anything and just sounds like a cop out.

The only cop out is to throw in the towel and say "god did it" because you don't know something.  Saying it was god actually doesn't mean anything as "god" is reduced to a word that means "unknown" but lets people pretend they have an answer.

Quote:Measuring something does not explain how or why it exists

Exactly.  The thing is not evidence of the cause of the thing.  The existence of the universe is not evidence for the cause of the universe. You have to provide evidence for the proposed cause itself.

Quote:Forces that came to be how? Nothing exerts force without being alive. A universe in motion is a living universe.

That is an equivocation of the word "living".  Being in motion doesn't make something alive and plenty of things exert force on other things without any part being alive.

Quote:There is no evidence that supports atheist beliefs, so I don't agree.

The only belief that can be attributed to atheism is the belief that the claim that a god exists has not been supported by sufficient evidence.  You can be an atheist and not accept evolution or the big bang or any other scientific theory. You can be an atheist and believe in ghosts and an afterlife and bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster and alien abductions and psychic powers and any other drivel you like.

(December 31, 2018 at 8:40 am)Amarok Wrote:

(December 31, 2018 at 8:21 am)Dmitry1983 Wrote: What did cause this natural phenomenon?

Nothing seems to be more natural than something. Why does something exist?

1. Argument from ignorance 

2.Assertion and again argument from ignorance

It's getting hard to keep-up with this thread; so much happening!  Most cosmologists hold to the idea that the total energy in the Universe is exactly zero:

Wikipedia -- Zero-energy Universe

It is almost as if the Universe came from "nothing".  (Ha!)

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(December 31, 2018 at 9:48 am)unfogged Wrote:

(December 31, 2018 at 3:32 am)Angelina Wrote: Flowers that came to exist how exactly? How do beautiful flowers exist on our planet?

Abiogenesis and evolution are fascinating processes and provide plausible frameworks for all of the diversity of life.  It is personally much more satisfying to have an actual explanation than to just give up and claim it was a magical being.

Rainbows didn't exist before Noah and the Flood.  (Duh!)

(December 31, 2018 at 8:42 am)Gwaithmir Wrote:

(December 30, 2018 at 8:28 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: Nope.  It tells me you don't have any evidence on the contrary.  Don't waste your time with me.  I didn't invite you.  You invited yourself.  Case closed.

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Shifting the burden of Proof Fallacy.

Nope. Put up or shut up.

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(December 31, 2018 at 4:14 am)Peebo-Thuhlu Wrote:

(December 31, 2018 at 3:53 am)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: You seem to be missing the point.  No reason to imply dates/time periods when we had no way to record said events during those specific times.  Nowadays we have calendar systems for attributing dates to events.

 
   
 Wha.... ?
"...When we had no way to record said events... "
"... Nowadays we have calendar systems for..."

 We now have calenders.... So now we have history... Which we only have from when we have calendaers... ?

 I do not understand. Please, expand upon these thoughts M4X.

Not at work.

No, it's not about "having history", it's about "attributing dates" to history.  Big difference.