In the beginning...

[Neo-Scholastic]

You have imagined such a being and decided to worship it.

I predicted this non sequiter.

[Ryantology]

You have imagined such a being and decided to worship it.

I predicted this non sequiter.

Predicting my response must have tired out your poor thinking meats so much that you ran out when it came time to respond to the rest of it.

[fr0d0]

Responding is futile...

[ThomM]

It's an interesting question. Christians frequently assert that nothing can come from nothing, but also frequently assert that God made the universe from nothing at all. They also assert that quantum foam doesn't count as 'nothing', only absolute nothingness counts as nothing for purposes of universe origins. If God existed and was omnipresent, where did he get the 'absolute nothingness' he made the universe from.

Of course in 50 years, they'll be saying the 'nothing' Stenger refers to when speaking of the origin of the universe was the same 'nothing' God used all along, if more evidence comes along to support the 'universe from nothing' hypothesis.

Worse - if a god "always" existed - then there NEVER was that absolute nothingness - unless the god is absolutely nothings itself -

[The Reality Salesman01]

Reading all of the responses in favor theism makes it blatantly obvious that you have nearly abandoned a God in every possible traditional sense. It's not even really theism you are defending anymore but rather more of an abstract deistic description of some ridiculous conscious entity to which you ascribe the title of "God". You are grasping at straws and splitting hairs to make room to jam the creator you continue to tailor to objections for the purpose of continued discourse. You have ignored every impossibility implied by all of you claims with responses such as "I think its a totality..." WHAT?! Do you read the things you write? What the fuck do you even claim to believe anymore? What a bunch of contradicting bullshit. You sound like absolute morons. Take these Ad Hominems and jam them up your totalities! If you are throwing logic out the window to make your own rules, I can too! Two wrongs make a right! FUCK IT! Lol

[fr0d0]

Welcome to the grown up world of actual theism TeX.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

God created (blank) from...

What material?

Something believers choose to translate as VOID. In other translations and in other versions of the same myth it is WATERS which separated into above and below. There is really no creation involved. It is only implied by the use of the word void.

---

...
If you look at Genesis 1:1 something did not come out of nothing. "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void."

Void where prohibited by law?

It says God created X and Y It does not say from nothing X and Y were manifested. We know this because the word for Create is the Hebrew ברא bara' it means to shape or form. The Idea is like taking a lump of clay or a rock and to shape it into a vessal.

The word means to shape or form, create in the sense of art but there is always something being shaped or formed. Shaping the void sounds like fun. Know where I can get some void?

"In the beginning God SHAPED the Heavens and the earth, and the earth was an amorphous mass."

---

Genesis 1:1-2 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

It's tricky to figure this out, but the impression is that he formed dry land and placed it upon a foundation of some kind. Because after saying that 'the earth was without form and void' it tells us that there was something called 'the deep' and that there were 'waters'. Was 'the deep' a 'void' filled with water, from which god brought forth land?

It is not really tricky. It is the pious translators who impose their theology on the text. The same stories are told about other creator gods such as Amun of Egypt. And for us we are hampered by that being centuries old theology and the use of words that were outdated in the time of King James to give the impression of and old text.

An old question is who originally wrote those words and why do you believe them? That is regardless of original intended meaning or translation, who and why? The follow up question is, who told you they were inspired and why did you believe them? There are no internal provers.

---

Reading all of the responses in favor theism makes it blatantly obvious that you have nearly abandoned a God in every possible traditional sense. It's not even really theism you are defending anymore but rather more of an abstract deistic description of some ridiculous conscious entity to which you ascribe the title of "God". You are grasping at straws and splitting hairs to make room to jam the creator you continue to tailor to objections for the purpose of continued discourse. You have ignored every impossibility implied by all of you claims with responses such as "I think its a totality..." WHAT?! Do you read the things you write? What the fuck do you even claim to believe anymore? What a bunch of contradicting bullshit. You sound like absolute morons. Take these Ad Hominems and jam them up your totalities! If you are throwing logic out the window to make your own rules, I can too! Two wrongs make a right! FUCK IT! Lol

In my informal studies one of the things I realized is that the religion of the people is not the religion of the priests. You are seeing all the different religions held by the people. It is the sort of thing that caused the Spanish Inquisition to declare the situation hopeless after one short foray into the countryside.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...you have nearly abandoned a God in every possible traditional sense.

What traditional sense? Whose tradition? It sounds to me like you get upset when our conceptions of God do not match your simplistic notion of an old guy with a beard sitting on a throne.

You have ignored every impossibility implied by all of you claims with responses such as "I think its a totality..." WHAT?...What a bunch of contradicting bullshit. You sound like absolute morons. Take these Ad Hominems and jam them up your totalities!

Don't get mad just because our beliefs don't conform to your stereotype. The only impossibilities you see are those associated with a very limited conception of God. The actual Christian tradition has refined its conceptions of God over hundreds of years of reflection, from Aristotle to Aquinas up to this day.

If you are throwing logic out the window to make your own rules, I can too! Two wrongs make a right! FUCK IT! Lol

You always have the option of pointing out the contradictions in our ideas instead of resorting to insults. You seem like a reasonable person. Please don't be like some AF members who start ranting about the dishonest motives of believers instead of adapting their questions to the actual ideas we present.

[The Reality Salesman01]

Don't get mad just because our beliefs don't conform to your stereotype. The only impossibilities you see are those associated with a very limited conception of God. The actual Christian tradition has refined its conceptions of God over hundreds of years of reflection, from Aristotle to Aquinas up to this day.

Aquinas and Aristotle's assumptions were based on absolute time which is something that nobody in support of theism seems to recognize as a real deal breaker to their theories. That is the sterotype that thesits of all sorts continue to confrom to and no, it doesn't make me mad. Its just odd that any champion of logic is dead set on ignoring relative time and its implications to he aristillian and aquinian roots to their claims. If you wish to avoid stereotypes, I wish to hear a version of a God tale that proves relativity wrong and shows how a God of unlimited power can change before the components which enable change to exist are in effect, and have it make sense at all. Not to mention the continued talks of Omnipotence without changing the definition of the word into yet another impossible thing to exist. I would like a list of 10 things, barney-style that you think are properties of the God you defend. You know, as if God was your car...

My Car has...

Silver wheels
Red Paint Job
Can go zero-60 in 4 seconds
Requires Premium Fuel
Needs an oil change every 4,000 miles

Etc...

Then at least we can have a clear idea of what exactly you are claiming.

I'm not completely sure what you are defending anymore. You seem to be discussing some version of the theorhetical 10th dimension as posited by string theory and calling it God.

Is this what you continue to defend?

If you are throwing logic out the window to make your own rules, I can too! Two wrongs make a right! FUCK IT! Lol

You always have the option of pointing out the contradictions in our ideas instead of resorting to insults. You seem like a reasonable person. Please don't be like some AF members who start ranting about the dishonest motives of believers instead of adapting their questions to the actual ideas we present.

I'm just playin around brotha! You can believe whatever you want and I don't surmise that insults will slow you down, but I do assure they are light hearted in nature and not intended to offend. I'm just not wired to accept the proposal of an explanation at face value merely because its unfalsifiably possible. But, as long as something is possible by even the smallest of margins, there will be somebody attempting to pawn it off as probable. I accept this inevitable fate.

[Neo-Scholastic]

In my mind I thought I was giving a fairly clear picture of God as the All out of which all things come and to which they owe their existence. Apparently, I was mistaken. You raise legitimate concerns about possibly trying to critique a moving target. Describing the ineffable is quite the challenge, especially for me, since my views are constantly evolving. But I will do my best to follow your suggestion, even if it may take a little bit of time. And it may be a good topic for a separate thread like, "What Attributes Must God have to be God?" BTW the attributes of your car far exceed those of mine...you the Man!