Does a God exist?

[GrandizerII]

No you want to redefine belief because pretending your beliefs are evidence based is easier than going out and finding whether your beliefs can be confimed by evidence or not.

I'm certainly not going to argue further over a definition of a word that can be looked up.

Nothing on the other thing?

Please present your scholarly backup for: "the fact that singificant early documents were destroyed because they didn't agree with later invented orthodoxy and even that significant events depicted in the current bible were fabricated to support this later orthodoxy." (when I say scholarly, something more than a 1-off, Christian bashing, obviously biased, never been published in academic journals, popular level book-writing, author). Then we can discuss it.

Steve, why appeal to scholarly work anyway? It's not like your views regarding the history of the early church are in line with the mainstream scholarly view anyway.

Now it's likely, as far as mainstream scholarly views go, that there were no intentional fabrication of significant events. But it's clear through analysis of the texts that certain events (such as the nativity events) were added later on to indeed support later orthodoxy. This does not imply fabrication, however, in the deliberate sense. More that later authors (e.g., "Matthew" and "Luke") heard about some additional stories about Jesus, and without verifying it for themselves in a proper skeptical manner, included them in their texts.

[RoadRunner79]

I'm certainly not going to argue further over a definition of a word that can be looked up.

Nothing on the other thing?

Please present your scholarly backup for: "the fact that singificant early documents were destroyed because they didn't agree with later invented orthodoxy and even that significant events depicted in the current bible were fabricated to support this later orthodoxy." (when I say scholarly, something more than a 1-off, Christian bashing, obviously biased, never been published in academic journals, popular level book-writing, author). Then we can discuss it.

Steve, why appeal to scholarly work anyway? It's not like your views regarding the history of the early church are in line with the mainstream scholarly view anyway.

Now it's likely, as far as mainstream scholarly views go, that there were no intentional fabrication of significant events. But it's clear through analysis of the texts that certain events (such as the nativity events) were added later on to indeed support later orthodoxy. This does not imply fabrication, however, in the deliberate sense. More that later authors (e.g., "Matthew" and "Luke") heard about some additional stories about Jesus, and without verifying it for themselves in a proper skeptical manner, included them in their texts.

I don't need scholarly or published articles... I mostly look for something however, that provides the factual details, which the conclusion is based on and can be collaborated or attested by other evidence.  

As to the nativity, I think that you are neglecting a couple options, that Mark may have been aware, but simply chose not to include it in his Gospel.  Or it is possible that Mark was not aware, but the Matthew and Luke where made aware by their sources.  In his book "Cold Case Christianity" by J. Warner Wallace; he points out that witnesses often do not always provide the same details (some may focus on one thing, that others do not).  Likewise a witness (especially one who is aware of others testimony) may not provide all the details, that they think your already know and rather focus on what they can add.

On what basis of the nativity narrative not being in Mark, but being included in Matthew and Luke, do you conclude,  "later authors (e.g., "Matthew" and "Luke") heard about some additional stories about Jesus, and without verifying it for themselves in a proper skeptical manner, included them in their texts"?

[SteveII]

I'm certainly not going to argue further over a definition of a word that can be looked up.

Nothing on the other thing?

Please present your scholarly backup for: "the fact that singificant early documents were destroyed because they didn't agree with later invented orthodoxy and even that significant events depicted in the current bible were fabricated to support this later orthodoxy." (when I say scholarly, something more than a 1-off, Christian bashing, obviously biased, never been published in academic journals, popular level book-writing, author). Then we can discuss it.

Steve, why appeal to scholarly work anyway? It's not like your views regarding the history of the early church are in line with the mainstream scholarly view anyway.

Now it's likely, as far as mainstream scholarly views go, that there were no intentional fabrication of significant events. But it's clear through analysis of the texts that certain events (such as the nativity events) were added later on to indeed support later orthodoxy. This does not imply fabrication, however, in the deliberate sense. More that later authors (e.g., "Matthew" and "Luke") heard about some additional stories about Jesus, and without verifying it for themselves in a proper skeptical manner, included them in their texts.

In what ways are my views of early church history not in line with mainstream scholars (I'm not saying they are, just trying to define what you mean by 'mainstream')? I agree that the editors of the gospels had common sources that they used along with original work. 

My point for pages and pages has been that the NT is either originally true or they were originally intentionally false. People like to throw up objections that are not backed up (like they were altered from a more 'mild' version). Universal 'honest mistaken-ness' also does not seem to be plausible.

[pocaracas]

How about if they were just the writing down of folk tales that were floating around?
Common source: the people.
Witnesses: "the people".
Later additions: by the people.

[Ignorant]

An "action" of a thing is not a thing, then.... it is... wait for it... a PROPERTY.

Then describe the property. If you can describe the property of 'existence' in an adequate way that is not a thing's 'being' or 'acting' in some way, then I'll buy that existence is not an action.

An electron has the property of existing in the real world. It has many other properties, too.... charge, mass, velocity, energy. All those properties, taken together, let us make the identification of "electron". A conceptual electron, one used by physicists when doing calculations, has no property of existing in the real world.

This illustrates your problem nicely. You say that a conceptual electron does not have the 'property' of existence, but it still has the properties of charge, mass, velocity, energy, etc. Fine. If there is a real electron, it has the property of existence. Remove the property of existence, and there is merely a conceptual electron, but still an electron.

What happens if we apply the same to a different property. Suppose there is a real electron. Remove only the property of 'charge'. Is an electron still existing? No. Is whatever-it-is still existing? Yes. So if existence is a property and not an act, then it is a radically different sort of property than the others. When a conceptual electron is being, then it is existing. If it is not, then it is merely conceptual.

"Why is there something, rather than nothing?"

The theists' POV of science is that, before the big-bang, there was nothing and somehow that nothing turned into the everything in our universe.... there's no mechanism to account for such a thing, therefore God made it so. Am I right?

You are right that some theists hold to that view. No, you are not right that I am one of them or that this demonstration relates to that sort of discussion. According to the demonstration I proposed, whether the cosmos is eternal or 'began' is irrelevant. This sort of consideration is irrelevant because the demonstration I proposed asks what are the current conditions, the present conditions, the here-and-now conditions for things here-and-now to exist as they are existing and to continue existing. It is not a consideration of existential or causal history, but rather a consideration of existential/causal hierarchy presently necessary to continue existing in the same way.

1) If the big-bang brought forth space-time itself, then "before the big bang" is non-sense, as that expression would represent a timeless state. There's no "before" is there's no time. We humans have a damned hard time wrapping our heads around this type of concept, so it's ok if you too have a difficulty there.

No space and no time... what does that mean?! What does "exist" mean in such a state?

I agree. This sort of inquiry about the 'pre'-big-bang reality is without meaning (at least without intelligible meaning?). Which is why I don't find arguments speculating about these things to be very revealing.

2) If the big-bang didn't bring forth space-time itself, then space-time pre-exists the known Universe. Space-time has been shown to have some remarkable properties... and one of them is the so-called quantum foam... that " is theorized to be created by virtual particles of very high energy. Virtual particles appear in quantum field theory, arising briefly and then annihilating during particle interactions in such a way that they affect the measured outputs of the interaction, even though the virtual particles are themselves space. These "vacuum fluctuations" affect the properties of the vacuum, giving it a nonzero energy known as vacuum energy, itself a type of zero-point energy. However, physicists are uncertain about the magnitude of this form of energy."

Ya, this stuff is fascinating and who knows what we will know in the years to come. As fascinating and important as these things are, they aren't relevant to the demonstration I proposed.

But do note how everything can come from simple building blocks, [1] unlike the theist proposition that everything comes from the most complex imaginable building block [2] that lays out the plan for simple blocks to become complex  ... and, eventually, culminating in an entity of similar highest possible complexity?Almost like if this Universe was a womb for generating the next generation of the divine! Now there's a neat proposition for a movie or book!

1) Not only do I note this, but I affirm it on both physical and metaphysical levels.

2) I don't think we mean the same thing by complex. By 'complex' I don't mean 'difficult to understand'. By 'complex' I mean 'composed of many parts'. An unconditioned reality which simply is 'being' does not strike me as complex at all. To the contrary, it strikes me as the simplest possible thing. To be fair, you don't exactly doubt the existence of something 'like' this, or else 'elementary particles' wouldn't make any sense to you. Quarks, as you proposed, are quite complex-to-understand, while themselves being very simple things.

Also, picking up on your last sentence there... if nothing exists, the property of "existing" is also absent. Absent from where I wonder....?

You might try reading the sentence again: "If nothing ELSE existed, it would still be existing." HERE emphasis mine.

If nothing ELSE exists besides condition-less, subsistent existence, then condition-less existence would keep right on existing. I stated this to drive home the fact that, unlike everything else in the cosmos, it exists with condition.

Does space-time exist as a thing? or is it merely a substrate where everything else exists? I honestly have no answer for these questions... Let someone wiser than me answer them satisfactorily.

Good questions for sure that you should investigate.

[Ignorant]

ALL this demonstration shows is that while some things, RIGHT NOW, depend on the existence of other, simultaneously existing, more fundamental things, something must exist without that or any such condition. It simply exists, and would exist if nothing else existed at all. Call it whatever you want.

And that thing you talk about is the universe, ni god included nor needed. [1]

Oh and the reason I used creatard is because when I boiled out all the nonsense word salad from your previous post, all I got was a badly worded version of Paley's argument from design, [2] which was refuted in On the Origin of Species.

1) That is fine, but realize that by making this asserting the universe rather than god as 'subsistent being', you have accepted the conclusion of the argument as true. I have already said you may call it whatever you want, you've chosen 'universe'. So you don't disagree with the argument, you merely disagree with the identification of the conclusion with god. I'll take that.

2) If it was a poorly worded version of Paley, that is because it isn't Paley AT ALL. If it had been a well worded Paley argument, I would have horribly failed to adequately describe my actual argument. It's nice to know I wasn't a complete failure. This is not a teleological argument. If anything, it is a poor version of the contingency argument (which is NOT the Kalam, which brings to much temporal baggage) which has never been about the causal history of things nor their telos.

[Rhondazvous]

I don’t think belief has anything to do with it

Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble

Where the god of the bible is concerned, it is faith, not belief the biblical writers decided to require of us.

For without faith it is impossible to please god

I’m not splitting hairs. There is a difference between belief and faith

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith involves an element of hope and trust. One of you has a signature that describes why we need faith to be Christians

We use faith to justify god’s absence from our reality

Mere belief could never hold up under the realities of the world we live in. it is faith that allows Christians to ignore the people who were killed in South Carolina, keep believing that an all-powerful god rules the world with justice even though in this world the bad guy often wins. Babies suffering, children dying of cancer, just rulers being assassinated, politicians lining their pockets with money meant to aid the poor, natural disasters destroying the innocent while the PTB sit in safety, etc. faith sweeps it all under the rug so theists can keep trusting the god that no one has seen.

[Pat Mustard]

No you want to redefine belief because pretending your beliefs are evidence based is easier than going out and finding whether your beliefs can be confimed by evidence or not.

I'm certainly not going to argue further because I'm getting my arse handed to me.

Fixed your post.

[GrandizerII]

Steve, why appeal to scholarly work anyway? It's not like your views regarding the history of the early church are in line with the mainstream scholarly view anyway.

Now it's likely, as far as mainstream scholarly views go, that there were no intentional fabrication of significant events. But it's clear through analysis of the texts that certain events (such as the nativity events) were added later on to indeed support later orthodoxy. This does not imply fabrication, however, in the deliberate sense. More that later authors (e.g., "Matthew" and "Luke") heard about some additional stories about Jesus, and without verifying it for themselves in a proper skeptical manner, included them in their texts.

As to the nativity, I think that you are neglecting a couple options, that Mark may have been aware, but simply chose not to include it in his Gospel.  Or it is possible that Mark was not aware, but the Matthew and Luke where made aware by their sources.  In his book "Cold Case Christianity" by J. Warner Wallace; he points out that witnesses often do not always provide the same details (some may focus on one thing, that others do not).  Likewise a witness (especially one who is aware of others testimony) may not provide all the details, that they think your already know and rather focus on what they can add.

Except the argument about witnesses providing different factual details due to different perspectives and backgrounds is irrelevant here, because the differences in the nativity stories aren't due to those factors. If that was the case, the proportion of similarities in the elements of the nativity stories should've still been much higher, and the contradictions wouldn't be so apparent. But what we see instead is that the nativity stories were written exactly as if "Matthew" and "Luke" weren't aware of each other's writings. The similarities we do see are those to do with later key doctrines regarding the birth of Jesus: such being born of virgin and being born in Bethlehem. But the nativity stories are just considerably different from each other in most elements.

As for "Mark", most likely when that was written, the whole idea of Jesus being born in Bethlehem and of a virgin had not yet been popularized if at all  surfaced at the time. This specific lack of details about Jesus' birth is also noticed in the writings of Paul. Something like the virgin birth of Jesus should've been mentioned by Paul in at least one of his epistles, but it's nowhere there.

[GrandizerII]

Steve, why appeal to scholarly work anyway? It's not like your views regarding the history of the early church are in line with the mainstream scholarly view anyway.

Now it's likely, as far as mainstream scholarly views go, that there were no intentional fabrication of significant events. But it's clear through analysis of the texts that certain events (such as the nativity events) were added later on to indeed support later orthodoxy. This does not imply fabrication, however, in the deliberate sense. More that later authors (e.g., "Matthew" and "Luke") heard about some additional stories about Jesus, and without verifying it for themselves in a proper skeptical manner, included them in their texts.

In what ways are my views of early church history not in line with mainstream scholars (I'm not saying they are, just trying to define what you mean by 'mainstream')? I agree that the editors of the gospels had common sources that they used along with original work. 

My point for pages and pages has been that the NT is either originally true or they were originally intentionally false. People like to throw up objections that are not backed up (like they were altered from a more 'mild' version). Universal 'honest mistaken-ness' also does not seem to be plausible.

Think of it this way, Steve. Do you know of any secular Bible scholar who accepts the virgin birth doctrine? I'm aware of quite a few Christian Bible scholars, usually Catholic, who actually don't accept that Jesus was born of a virgin.

And for your last point, again, false dichotomy. You're wasting pages over a false dichotomy, ok? And yes, what you call 'honest mistaken-ness' is plausible. Your biases just won't allow you to see that.