(September 10, 2010 at 2:59 pm)LastPoet Wrote: Sense you make don't.

We have a forum area called the Gauntlet. If it is deemed that a person hasn't been engaging in rational or constructive discourse the moderators can remove that person's privilege to post anywhere but in the Gauntlet. There the offender must reform or after an amount of time if the offender is deemed to be irredeemable he or she is banned.

I think we could safely invoke that rule now.

(September 10, 2010 at 3:26 pm)lrh9 Wrote: We have a forum area called the Gauntlet. If it is deemed that a person hasn't been engaging in rational or constructive discourse the moderators can remove that person's privilege to post anywhere but in the Gauntlet. There the offender must reform or after an amount of time if the offender is deemed to be irredeemable he or she is banned.

I think we could safely invoke that rule now.

I know, but that reply wasn't for you, it was for the ThinkingMan

It's your fault anyway, how dare you type faster than me?

You had no idea what the Gauntlet was. You're just trying to save face.

Okay, say we accept your assertion that our existence is evidence of God. Why God? Why not a metaphysical interdimensional unicorn-rabbit hybrid? He created everything, my book tells me so.

Honestly all you are doing is ...regurgitated theist drabble...Why can't you guys see the science here?

The problem is of course that you have to make the foundational assumptions that first, such creatures are possible, second, that the existence of what is observable are traits attributable only to a specific God, and third, that said specific God is as defined by the rockbangers who wrote your precious holy book, which just so happens to be the right one.

Science does not require foundational assumptions. I don't have to assume that sharks exist to believe that sometimes people get attacked by them in the ocean. I don't have to assume that supernovae occur to believe that they contain the power to create new stars and solar systems. Do you see the difference?

Tell me how you can deduce that human beings can only existence under the circumstances of being created by a deity? Tell me what processes you used to formulate this hypothesis, tell me how you tested it to insure that creation wasn't an attribute shared by leprechauns, ogres, or fairies as well. Tell me, please, we are indulging your ignorance, it's quid pro quo.

Now after you have shown that gods exist, and that creation itself can only be attributed to a deity, then we will have to further exercise scientific methodology to determine which deity is responsible for our existence.

(September 10, 2010 at 2:09 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: TheDarkestOfAngesl, when you have tried to discuss the matter, however you have not refuted any of the points I made. Moreover from your comments it seems you have not understand any of the points I have made since otherwise you would not have made these comments. I will clarify:

What points have you actually made?
Moreover, how did my points not address the issues you were talking about?
You're very much oversimplifying the problems at hand and making unreasonable deductions because you believe things to be simpler than they are.

(September 10, 2010 at 2:09 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: We cannot see the 2 in the equation x+3=5 but rather we deduce it from the rest of the equation. The 'supporting evidence whatsoever' is the rest of the equarion and likewise the supporting evidence for the creator is you and me and all that exists. Perhaps you are baffled and amazed because you are blind or in denial to see the evidences around you?

You can solve "X" by subtracting three from both 5 and "x+3" to get the simple equation of X=2.
However, your analogy is completely false as this is not how things are in reality.
You cannot simply add "goddunit' to any equation and declare that a hyper-intelligent and omnipotent being is the simplest answer to a simple equation. The reason is that because there is neither evidence nor reason for anyone to believe such a being exists, let alone has had any influence on anything in the universe. That is where the evidence points as the universe, life, and everything in between already has explainations that are perfectly logical and perfectly rational given the evidence presented before humanity that do not require an incomprehensibly powerful being at the helm of everything.

(September 10, 2010 at 2:09 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: God is unprovable by science because by defintion God is unlimited and independednt and not a subject of cause and effect. Unicorns, Godzilla by defintion would be limited and dependant and subjects of cause and effect so science can hypothesis about these matters. You dont seem to be understanding the properties of the creator and the properties of creation. It is not a question of special treatment it is a question of logic.

You can say that god is unprovable by science, but intelligence is not. Further, artificial manipulation of reality despite reality itself can leave traces that scientific methods can detect.

More to my imaginary creature analogy, I can justify their entire existance by using the exact same arguements that you are - I can say that Cthulu (or the flying spagetti monster, or anything else) is omnipotent and 'beyond science' to justify anything about my erroneous beliefs that I choose to.

(September 10, 2010 at 2:09 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: I agree with the first part but science as already mentioned is to examine all the tangible things which are subject to cause and effect so I do not know why you keept discussing this matter. It is not a fact that there are many truely unknown variables in terms of how life and the universe began. We may not know the details of all the causes and effects which detail how the universe began but whatever they are in the beginning the cause must have been an unlimted independant creator. This is the real reason for God to be neccassary so again you are missing the point.

That's really my point - instead of acknowledging that you do not know or understand these concepts, you've chosen to fill in the unknown gaps with a creator who is absolutely unnecessary and one of the least likely variables for the creation of anything in the universe, including the universe itself.
You have simply chosen to fill in the answer to a question without actually knowing the answer, assuming it's the simplest or best possible explaination when in fact the answers are not known.

In other words, you're simply making shit up and saying it's the best answer, when in fact it's not even a likely answer let alone a good one. I've done the whole 'cosmological arguement' song and dance before and it's just as much imaginative tripe as you'd find in modern comic books.

(September 10, 2010 at 2:09 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: It is absolutely disgusting how you keep using science to this question when I have explained the limitation of science in my original response and even your fellow athiest agreed with me. Go back and read my first two posts and contemplate what is being said. You statements simply prove that it is you who are trying to cover for the lack of understanding of the scientific principles and decades of hard labor and scientific discovery. You are clearly misunderstanding the basic principles regarding what science can do.

Whether or not an atheist agreed with you is irrelevant. You've explained a great deal but all you've done is tell me stories based on nothing. I've already read your first two posts and I've responded to the first one. You've said little of value in terms of "Why there must be a god."

God is a completely unnecessary component of the universe and just about everything can have perfectly reasonsable explainations (and evidence, in many cases) that reject the need for an omniopotent creator in any scenario. You've done nothing to prove your case.

(September 10, 2010 at 2:53 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: If you could only show the logical inconsistencies in my points then perhaps I could shake them off.

OK then so lets formally refute your argument. You are mixing your cosmological arguments up between the Kalam and argument from contingency. But lets start with the Kalam from islamic philosophy and populrized by fundie theological spin doctor Dr. William Lane Craig.

The Kalam states:
1 - whatever begins to exist has a cause
2 - the universe began to exist
3- therefore the universe has a cause

Final step - the proposer defines the causal agent as an uncaused first cause, infinite god.

Firstly the syllogistic reasoning is logically valid. But is the argument sound?

Premise 1 is self evidently true of the material and finite universe. However, it tries to baselessly smuggle in the concept of an infinite god into the argument so the proposer can say ta-da god exists.

Premise 2 commits the fallacy of begging the question, as it cannot be demonstrated to be the case and assumes that it is true. All we can 'prove' is that our current universe inflated rapidly from a quantum singularity,

The deductive conclusion is sound. But taken together with the premisies commits a compositional error in that it is arguing from the constituent parts of the universe to the universe as a whole. This is an invalid inference.

However, with the final step it really falls apart. The three steps cannot get you to a god anymore than a universe creating "thought of an apple" or anything else you care to imagine. The rejoinder around god being infinite is invalid because god has been defined into existence by man ontologically. Thus Premise 1 can now be seen as question begging for god. In addition asserting god is infinite is invalid as it commits the fallacy of special pleading as god goes to the defining qualities of the premise.

The conclusion that a god creates and sustains the universe, furthermore now posits lots of additional problems for the theist. God/s now has/have to be timeless, spaceless and immaterial as to create a universe it/they has/have to be outside of it. Such a being is impossible as it has no matter, kinetic nor potential energy to interact with the physical universe (the only known mechanisms for cause and effect). And as you have already noted (and baselessly dismissed) cannot cause anything as its timeless. In addition the boundary conditions of the big bang were so chaotic and results unpredictable that arguing for a designer is again special pleading.

DarkestAngel, you have lossed the plot. The points I made were simple, you have not addressed them I think you didnt understand in the first place.

"Okay, say we accept your assertion that our existence is evidence of God. Why God? Why not a metaphysical interdimensional unicorn-rabbit hybrid? He created everything, my book tells me so."

If we imagine a unicorn rabbit hybrid or an alien or anything like that that things we imagine visiually will be limited and dependent because we cannot imagine what unlimited or independent or existing without cause and effect looks like. What we do know is the creator is unlimited, independent, without cause and effect etc. Therefore we should not be imagining rabit hybrids, aliens or the like as the nature of anything we imagine cannoy be unlimited or independent.
Fair enough if we want to have more details about the creator the only way we can get these details is not by imagining what they are ourselves but we will only know when the creator informs us of his attributes.

Therefore we need a revelation which one can intellectually prove to be from god. I will do these when I come to write about the miracle of the quran in another thread. But yes the quran does detail many attributes of the creator e.g. unlimited, independent, self sufficient, eternal, the sustainer of all that exists, the one who is nothing like the creation and so on. The description of Gods attributes in the quran perfectly fits with the attributes we would expect him to have based on our deductions about him when we contemplate reality.

The question thus becomes is the quran from the creator? I will prove that it is in another thread.

(September 10, 2010 at 5:40 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: The description of Gods attributes in the quran perfectly fits with the attributes we would expect him to have based on our deductions about him when we contemplate reality.

Well, that's handy.

(September 10, 2010 at 5:40 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: If we imagine a unicorn rabbit hybrid or an alien or anything like that that things we imagine visiually will be limited and dependent because we cannot imagine what unlimited or independent or existing without cause and effect looks like.

Whereas we can imagine what a disembodied timeless mind is like. Obviously!

Quote:Therefore we should not be imagining rabit hybrids, aliens or the like as the nature of anything we imagine cannoy be unlimited or independent.

Nu-uh. It's an unlimited, independent, eternal rabbit hybrid.

Quote: Fair enough if we want to have more details about the creator the only way we can get these details is not by imagining what they are ourselves but we will only know when the creator informs us of his attributes.

Flopsy told me he existed in a dream.

(September 10, 2010 at 5:40 pm)ThinkingMan Wrote: DarkestAngel, you have lossed the plot. The points I made were simple, you have not addressed them I think you didnt understand in the first place.

I didn't "lossed the plot" and you know it. Your choice to not address my counterpoints is more evidence that you simply do not wish to engage in a debate so much as simply preach to us about how correct your views are regardless of how easily they can be dismissed.