Theist zone

[Welsh cake]

I'm not really familiar with the bible. Does it actually say in genesis that god created out of nothing? I've read the first bit (before it gets really hard to understand) but I can't remember anything about god creating from nothing. If it does say it somewhere, which bit is it?

^^ There's this book called Genesis. The very first verse in the entire Bible states "1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The word "created" translated back to Hebrew is "bara" which literally expresses creation out of nothing. This word is used throughout the Bible and is only associated with God.

You haven't read your Bible have you? You might actually want to bother reading it sometime if you're here professing belief in a supernatural deity. XD

Neither, God is a supernatural being, not a man, not by any stretch of the imagination. How does matter form itself out of nothing?

It doesn't. Read a physics book sometime and you'll stumble upon Empirical laws regarding reality, and under Conservation laws you'll find the Laws of Conservation of Mass & Energy. It states that the mass of a closed isolated system will remain constant over time, as thermodynamics dictates. In other words, mass and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Do you believe the universe has always existed? What is believable is that an all powerful, all knowing, ever present God created the universe out of nothing. To me believing that the universe has always existed would take a ton of faith far more than I have.

All the available evidence points to just that, the universe has always existed naturally in some form or other, free of an intelligent first-cause, just because you can't comprehend that reality is complex and can only manage to conceive of a supernatural magic-man (one who you have a personal relationship/experience with) is utterly irrelevant and my, how ignorantly fallacious you are being today!

Just because we can't yet understand reality in its entirety doesn't make it any less real or demonstrable.

If you are not familiar with the Bible how is it that you can identify yourself with Christ that makes no sense to me. The OT is a fore telling of Christ. The NT is about who He is and why He came to earth. This is basic knowledge for christians.

What are you talking about? Christ didn't even fulfil Messianic prophecies! Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah in OT! Worse still, Christianity contradicts Jewish eschatology! That's why the Jews don't regard him as Lord, Son of God, and/or their saviour!

[Minimalist]

Christ didn't even fulfil Messianic prophecies! Jesus did not embody the personal qualifications of the Messiah in OT!

Which is why they had to invent the doctrine of the second coming...because their alleged 'god' couldn't get it right the first time.

Some god.

[Godhead]

Welsh cake -

Sorry but no, I haven't read the bible as much as you have. You obviously equate theism and a belief in god with the bible and christianity. Which is ironic, as you obviously seem to have much more of a connection with religion than I ever did. It's bizarre really, you're an atheist with the mind of a christian. I've noticed that about a lot of atheists, they can't seem to let go of christianity, they're obsessed with it just as much as some christians are. Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.

[Edwardo Piet]

EvF what kind of evidence are you asking for, just look all around you, where do you think all that matter came from. Do you believe that it just manifested itself, now that would be a hard one to swallow.

That isn't evidence, nor is it an argument.

That's appeal to emotion.

That's at least two fallacies in fact, the appeal to emotion fallacy, and the personal incredulity fallacy since you are asserting that God must exist (or is very likely to) simply because you personally can't imagine it happening any other way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_fr...magination

Do you believe that it just manifested itself

Do you believe God in all his supernaturalness just manifested "him"self without any explanation for him whatsoever in addition to him having the ability to then create the universe?

I'm asking for some surprisingly amazing evidence that surprises me by being able to substantiate God's existence even when by definition he's outside of the natural realm.

Or.... IOW I'm just asking a rhetorical question about evidence in order to demonstrate the fact your beliefs almost certainly aren't backed up by any.

EvF

[tackattack]

@ Welsh the universe, I believe, isn't an isolated system. I'm sure Void will chime in if I got this wrong.

[theVOID]

@ Welsh the universe, I believe, isn't an isolated system. I'm sure Void will chime in if I got this wrong.

The universe was/is believed by many to be an isolated system, though you have to be careful, because some still use the term universe to include a mutliverse or extraverse as well as our universe... If you are talking about the post inflationary universe then i honestly don't think it is an isolated system, the dark energy problem seems to suggest that something may be coming into the system, but there are other proposed causes for dark energy that posit the conversion of antimatter into dark energy at points of high density, like black holes, as if the destruction of antimatter spawns the dark matter - then it would be the case that our observations are not an entry of matter, but a proportional transition, like the universe being turned inside out from the middle (for lack of a better picture)... Though honestly you can't really hold favor with either explanation.

[Eilonnwy]

Although I am atheist I have no doubt that Jesus existed. He is recorded on censuses from the time.

lol, wut?

Edit: For clarification, in all the theist BS here, I singled out this as the stupidest comment.

[Godhead]

Eilonnwy -

There's no need to ridicule Coolboy for his views. Many atheists agree that Jesus existed.

[Edwardo Piet]

Godhead - you are not the police of the forums. Stop spamming the forums with telling people what they should or should not say when they're not breaking any forum rules. Please.

[Mr Camel]

I'll step in for Coolboy....

Given Jesus was written about so much, there's a very good chance some random named Jesus actually existed.
Whether or not he was the son of God.... is another matter.

I think that's what he meant...


Given this guys track record, he was most likely the same as any other lunatic claiming to be related to God somehow, today.