(July 22, 2023 at 1:30 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: GN, false. I never mentioned anything about me in the OP, for e.g. but just got into the Argument itself from Contingency. On one of my earlier threads, where again I mentioned nothing about myself, someone asked me to make an Intro Thread, I think it was Happy Skeptic. So, I did, and mentioned things about myself, like that I was an Investment Banker etc. Read my posts on this thread and you'll see the vast majority are not about me. They're about God.

I know more about you, from listening to you, than I know about god, or your god.  If you took a minute to stop reflexively arguing you might actually make a connection with someone..and if you think you're going to fish up souls without connecting to people, then you're not the man for the soul fishing job.

(July 22, 2023 at 1:32 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Angrboda, you did not engage with this:

"Again, all you have to do to realize the Universe cannot be actually infinite in the past, given that we got here, is count backward into the past.

You claim it is a false analogy to say that if we started from 1,2,3, we will never get to infinity, but allegedly, starting from infinity, we can get to 0.

All you have to do is count backward in time. If we started from -infinity, we would never get to 0. We got to 0, therefore we didn't start from -infinity."

I said it to Polymath in the course of a reply to him, where I engaged seriously with all his arguments; but it also applies to your position, since it is similar.

Where did you engage with it?

While I empathize with the intuition underlying your argument, it's another thing to logically demonstrate that it's impossible for an infinite past to finally get to the present moment, even if we presuppose the A-theory of time (which I personally don't hold to, but whatever).

Consider your use of the words "started from -infinity", what would that mean exactly? If you start with a premise that doesn't make much sense, you're not going to get to the conclusion you're after in a logical manner.

Aquinas :

The teaching of Catholic Doctors has its authority from the Church; for that reason we must rely upon the authority of the Church more than upon the authority of an Augustine, a Jerome, or any other Doctor. [Summa Theologica II-II q. 10 a. 12. c.]

(July 22, 2023 at 1:43 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I know more about you, from listening to you, than I know about god, or your god.  If you took a minute to stop reflexively arguing you might actually make a connection with someone..and if you think you're going to fish up souls without connecting to people, then you're not the man for the soul fishing job.

I gave him this advice some time ago. 
How not to share your faith. 
https://www.amazon.com/How-Share-Your-Fa...1888992301

By two Catholic priests.

(July 22, 2023 at 2:04 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote:

(July 22, 2023 at 1:43 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I know more about you, from listening to you, than I know about god, or your god.  If you took a minute to stop reflexively arguing you might actually make a connection with someone..and if you think you're going to fish up souls without connecting to people, then you're not the man for the soul fishing job.

I gave him this advice some time ago. 
How not to share your faith. 
https://www.amazon.com/How-Share-Your-Fa...1888992301

By two Catholic priests.

Pointless. Not because it's not relevant, but because his evangelism appears to be more a form of ego gratification than a constructive project.

(July 22, 2023 at 1:28 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: It's a bit like this, since we were talking about Baptism: if you've never jumped into a swimming pool, say, and have no idea, from first person experience, what being immersed in water feels like, then you're not getting the whole picture. Once you actually have that experience, then you know, and Billions from All Continents across/over 2000 years starting from the Apostles of Christ down to today have had it. The arguments are there to make you take that leap into the water, so to speak; they are accessible even to those who've never experienced Christ. Those who've experienced Christ have an additional witness.

Nope. A great example of a non-sequitur, and false analogy.
Jumps from swimming pools to some sort of false analogy about equating that to some sort of belief, with no connection. 
You STILL are presuming belief. There is no *reason* to be jumping anywhere. You are so blinded by your cult, you cannot imagine non-belief. 

Quote:That witness is the Holy Spirit living in us, answered prayers, experienced miracles etc. Here it's a case of both/and, neither/or. If the Philosophical Arguments are sound, there would be reason to believe God exists and can be experienced in a personal way. That's the theory. Then there is Practical Experience. Those are the Practicals, so to speak. The theory is there to lead you to the practicals. 

We don't give a shit about your Holy Spirit. You have not demonstrated it exists, thus you cannot invoke it here. 
1st principle of debate : Know your audience. 
It's all nothing but your interpretation of events. There are countless crazy interpretations of events, we see many of these nuts in the ED every day. 
Some are admitted to Psychiatry. 
Stop expecting us to share your false assumptions. 
You really don't get how to argue or convince anyone of anything, do you ?

GN, if you're saying what St. Peter did: "15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.",(1 Pet 3:15), then I agree with you. Let me share one anecdote with you, though. I recently spoke to a friend called Daniel. He was a fallen away Catholic. I shared all this with him many times, Eucharistic Miracles, Messianic Prophecies, Miracles of Our Lord like the Shroud of Turin, of Our Lady like those at Fatima, seen by 70,000 eyewitnesses, and Miracles at Medjugorje, which is still ongoing, and has been for 42+ years, and experienced by 40 MN + people (though others sadly ignore it), etc etc, and for a while, he too was resistant. He didn't want to believe, since he'd heard otherwise from Atheistic Professors. Yet, some weeks later, he called me, and told me he was coming back to Church. He confessed and started receiving Holy Communion again. Hallelujah!

Look, it's very simple. If Christians are right, then we're giving you a gift of Priceless Value in telling you about Christ and the Gospel, since the Reward is Eternal Happiness for those who get it right. Those who get it right earlier on even moreso. If, however, we're wrong, then we're just wrong, and it's all meaningless anyway. And if morality is subjective, since we subjectively intend to do good, then that should be good under Atheism also, lol.

Grandizer, ok, thanks for that; any comments on what I said to Polymath earlier on, that if you start writing 1,2,3, etc on pieces of paper, will you, or others after you, ever get to infinity? If not, and he seemed to agree this series formed by successive addition would always be finite, so if you do too, then why doesn't that apply in reverse? If we imagine points on the timeline to be -15 BN (give or take), when time began, then it is clear that, with the elapse of seconds, we can finally get to the present, t=0, at some point, which is today. But if it was actually infinite, how did it ever become a finite number in the first place? I asked the same in reverse when I said, if you did get to an Actual Infinite on one page, what number were you on 10 pages earlier? You see, the difference between the finite and the infinite cannot be transcended by successive addition; that's what we're saying. So would you agree with that, or would you dispute it? It seems to me that, if we agree that by writing numbers on pieces of paper, we, or others after us, could never reach an Actual Infinite, then the same applies in reverse. Granted that we got to 0, we did not start infinitely many years ago. We started, according to some, around 13.7 BN years ago, and according to others, around 15-20 BN years ago.

(July 22, 2023 at 2:22 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(July 22, 2023 at 2:04 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote: I gave him this advice some time ago. 
How not to share your faith. 
https://www.amazon.com/How-Share-Your-Fa...1888992301

By two Catholic priests.

Pointless.  Not because it's not relevant, but because his evangelism appears to be more a form of ego gratification than a constructive project.

That is true. I wish I could remember the name of it ... it is a neurosis that has a name. Catholics like this who spend their time like this, asserting RC'ism as true. 
They are a dime a dozen. There are many on Catholic Answers.

(July 22, 2023 at 2:27 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Look, it's very simple. If Christians are right, then we're giving you a gift of Priceless Value in telling you about Christ and the Gospel, since the Reward is Eternal Happiness for those who get it right. Those who get it right earlier on even more so. If, however, we're wrong, then we're just wrong, and it's all meaningless anyway. And if morality is subjective, since we subjectively intend to do good, then that should be good under Atheism also, lol.

No you're just annoying.
Most critical scholars are skeptical that the apostle Simon Peter, the fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, actually wrote the epistle, because of the urbane cultured style of the Greek and the lack of any personal detail suggesting contact with a historical Jesus of Nazareth.

Your presuppositions are not valued here. We've heard all this tripe before, studied it with some of the finest scholars on the planet, and judged it to be all bullshit.
You are just wrong, and that is our best good faith judgement which you must respect. According to YOUR CHURCH, we also are saved.
Go take a Bible class, then a Catechism 101 class, but first, buzz off.
You have nothing to offer that we value, and your totally wrong, even about what your cult says about salvation.

(July 22, 2023 at 2:27 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Grandizer, ok, thanks for that; any comments on what I said to Polymath earlier on, that if you start writing 1,2,3, etc on pieces of paper, will you, or others after you, ever get to infinity? If not, and he seemed to agree this series formed by successive addition would always be finite, so if you do too, then why doesn't that apply in reverse? If we imagine points on the timeline to be -15 BN (give or take), when time began, then it is clear that, with the elapse of seconds, we can finally get to the present, t=0, at some point, which is today. But if it was actually infinite, how did it ever become a finite number in the first place? I asked the same in reverse when I said, if you did get to an Actual Infinite on one page, what number were you on 10 pages earlier? You see, the difference between the finite and the infinite cannot be transcended by successive addition; that's what we're saying. So would you agree with that, or would you dispute it? It seems to me that, if we agree that by writing numbers on pieces of paper, we, or others after us, could never reach an Actual Infinite, then the same applies in reverse. Granted that we got to 0, we did not start infinitely many years ago. We started, according to some, around 13.7 BN years ago, and according to others, around 15-20 BN years ago.

Have you considered the possibility of successively adding an infinite number of times? No, you haven't, yet that was presented in the video I linked in an early reply.

You are demonstrating over and over again that you are not listening. At this point it appears plain you simply don't want to and do not care.