The reason why I am a theist is based on the evidence that I don't know how to overturn.

The evidence to me is we observe trillions of cause and effects in the time and space of nature, and no hard evidence of something from nothing, so to me this is an overwhelming preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. It would be like expecting to win the lottery if you are still holding out for some naturalistic explanation. The odds are stacked against you. If you keep holding out for some naturalistic explanation to the point where you have to know all things, that is a loser's proposition because you are claiming you have to be God "all knowing" to know if God exists, but obviously, you are not the uncreated Creator and never will be. The beliefs of an atheist become unfalsifiable. That which is unfalsifiable is itself false.

Since that which does not exist can't cause anything because it doesn't exist then nature which is something can't come from nothing. That which does not exist will never be able to cause something. That's why you never see a billion pound gorilla stomping NYC because it doesn't exist.

And infinite regress of cause and effects is impossible, because by that definition you would have had an eternity to come into being before now, so you should have already happened. And you should never have existed, because if a past eternity of cause and effects were true, then by that definition a past eternity goes on for eternity, thus never reaching this point. Infinite regress is false on these individual points, and it is self-contradictory on these points as well. Therefore, nature needs a cause outside of itself, outside of time and space, being uncreated. This uncreated Creator is whom we call God. His foremost quality is that He is uncreated. This is another way of saying, there are no gods before God, beside God or after God. He alone is from everlasting before time and space.

So the foundation of all truth begins with accepting the uncreated Creator. Before venturing out into finding where He reveals Himself, or not, and determining His nature, qualities and what He demands of us, or not, I would back up first, and acknowledge first the existence of the uncreated Creator. It would wrong to start from a false premise.

Even a person on some remote island who lived thousands of years ago could make this same observation, therefore, he would be without excuse.

Yeah, hi.

Thanks for updating me that I am wrong.

(June 21, 2015 at 4:13 am)robvalue Wrote: Yeah, hi.

Thanks for updating me that I am wrong.

You're welcome.

I covered this recently in another thread so I will quote myself. This kind of argument contains many logical fallacies, and if you are interested, I can help you see why. It is based off the argument from incredulity, "I can't imagine how else all this could have happened."

If anything is unclear, please ask. I have links in the post to my website explaining what the fallacies mean.

(June 20, 2015 at 5:13 am)robvalue Wrote: All of science has never so far indicated there ever was "nothing". So to be blunt, to state there once was "nothing" is to make a completely unfounded assumption that goes beyond all scientific knowledge. We simply don't know what happened before a certain point.

But even if there was a "cause" then

cause =/= sentient being =/= god =/= any particular god

[ =/= means is not equivalent to ]

That's 3 non sequiturs in a row following an argument from ignorance/incredulity from an unsupported assertion.

Logic is my only friend.

I agree that there isn't 100% scientific proof for god. I would go further, and say that there is 0%. There isn't even a coherent definition that could be tested for.

(June 21, 2015 at 3:51 am)crosssaves Wrote: [bullshit deleted]

Yeah, no. Try again, kid.

Not this again.

The argument here boils down to everything needs a cause....except this one thing.

Crosssaves then tacks on that it happens to be the thing they believed in all the time, how convenient.

Maybe the thing that doesn't require a cause is the universe!

At least we know that that is a real thing unlike what ever flavour of god crossaves believes in.

Thanks for bolding the important parts and using nice paragraph breaks, that's very considerate of you and shows good taste and manners. Now, are you willing to listen to the reasons why your argument is void?

P.s. Important question: does this uncreated creator have a penis?

(June 21, 2015 at 4:20 am)robvalue Wrote: I covered this recently in another thread so I will quote myself. This kind of argument contains many logical fallacies, and if you are interested, I can help you see why. It is based off the argument from incredulity, "I can't imagine how else all this could have happened."

If anything is unclear, please ask. I have links in the post to my website explaining what the fallacies mean.

(June 20, 2015 at 5:13 am)robvalue Wrote: All of science has never so far indicated there ever was "nothing". So to be blunt, to state there once was "nothing" is to make a completely unfounded assumption that goes beyond all scientific knowledge. We simply don't know what happened before a certain point.

But even if there was a "cause" then

cause =/= sentient being =/= god =/= any particular god

[ =/= means is not equivalent to ]

That's 3 non sequiturs in a row following an argument from ignorance/incredulity from an unsupported assertion.

Logic is my only friend.

I agree that there isn't 100% scientific proof for god. I would go further, and say that there is 0%. There isn't even a coherent definition that could be tested for.

You misread what I said. You said "to state there once was nothing is to make a completely unfounded assumption." I didn't state there was nothing, but just the opposite that such nothingness does not exist. Since there is not this nothing then it can't cause something, so nature can't come from nothing. Pretty simple. Many atheists try to argue something from nothing, but obviously, they are wrong.

You misread the argument. I did not say because there is a cause, therefore there must be a sentient being. Rather, I showed why both infinite regress is impossible and why something from nothing is impossible.

You did not show any non sequiturs, argument from ignorance/incredulity or unsupported assertion; but you did show how you misread, therefore, you have committed all 3 of these fallacies.

The 100% scientific proof for the uncreated Creator was given in the opening post which you were unable to challenge. The coherent definition of uncreated Creator is tested by trillions of cause and effects in nature, showing it is impossible for infinite regress and it is impossible for nature to start up from nothing, so it needs a cause outside of itself, outside of time and space, being uncreated. This uncreated Creator is whom we call God. That's the test -- you were unable to show something can come from nothing and how infinite regress could be true.

Your notion of creating or causing something outside time and space is invalid. Causation relies on a timeline and appears to be a statistical phenomenon whose arrow of time relies on entropy, i.e. is not applicable to the universe as a whole quite as simply as your naive approach suggests.