The Big Bang is evidence for the existence of the supernatural

[NoGodaloud ?]

Awesome. If you can prove the universe had a causation to its beginning, then there's several teams of astrophysicists who would really like the empirical data you have to back that up.

this argument does not stand on scientific ground , but philosophical, based on inductive reasoning.

In the sense that we understand the universe as it is, this does seem to have 'begun' at some point in time in the past. However, that doesn't mean that I agree on any of the other premises or that the universe 'began' in the sense that all of the matter and energy that exists in the universe now didn't exist prior to the singularity or the big bang.
The entire premise of the 'first cause' idea is entirely based on nothing substantial. It's merely filling in gaps in scientific knowledge with whatever it wants.

how comes it then, that a big portion of the scientific community agrees on that matter ?

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/beginning.html

and those are two things that don't exist. Our phyiscal body is the only thing we really have that we can prove and it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt where our heritage lies.

how do you explain then outside body experiences ?

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/the-bibl...ht=dualism

"During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the 'crash car'. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: 'Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are'. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: 'Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.' I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man."

That is an excellent question. I've chosen to believe that the best manner in which to explain our existence is by the things that I and/or others can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I've chosen to reject explainations that depend on things people have said or written without the benefit of knowledge or study.
That's why I believe science over religion. Science has proof and they're still studying these things based on what we know and what we can prove and it's done a lot more in terms of explaining our existance better than any other method ever devised. I'm satisfied with that.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...m-t274.htm

you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws.
You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.
(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

A eternal universe, never created
or a finite universe, which had no cause, since you exclude God.


You've created a false dilemma. You've deliberately only given two answers where the only reasonable one is the one you prefer and neither one will lead to an honest answer because there is no answer right now.

You have only the two alternative options. This is indeed not a false dilemma, but a true one. Aloud yourself to think a littlebit, and proof me wrong.

Isn't that the default creationist position in this arguement?

Of course not. God is not nothing. God is God.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

this argument does not stand on scientific ground , but philosophical, based on inductive reasoning.

Of course it doesn't. That's why it's unacceptable as proof of anything except an overactive imagination.

how comes it then, that a big portion of the scientific community agrees on that matter ?

You provided me with a link to a site that does not provide a scientific paper. I've read numerous books and papers on the subject by the phyiscists who actually study this sort of thing.

I will state that they do state with however much frequency that the universe began at the big bang. I do not disagree with this assertion and I've mentioned this earlier in this discussion. However, they do not assert that the universe was created at the big bang in the sense that there was no matter and energy prior to the big bang and there was huge energy after. Instead, they assert that the universe as we understand it now had begun at the big bang and it will end at another point in the past.

how do you explain then outside body experiences ?

Like this: There is a part of the brain you can stimulate in order to replicate those experiences.

So according to the new york times...
The journal of neurology states that...
The New England Journal of Medicine postulates that...
WebMD on Medscape today writes that...
...those out of body experiences are thanks to a part of the brain you can stimulate. The experiement I've seen on television (discovery health, if I remember correctly) was actually able to do this without opening up your skull but instead using a specialized helmet and the doctor was able to throw a switch and the subject, who was not informed as to the true purpose of her visit there of what was actually happening, had an out of body experience.

you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws.
You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.
(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

Scientific laws are based on empirical and testable evidence, not solely on reasoning.
Three points, however:
One, you're right, nothing is ever 100% certain. Nothing ever done by science, no matter what, is going to be wholly without error or fully certain to be accurate. Things like gravity are extremely certain, but not completely certain.
Two, faith is something completely different. I can be very certain that the sun will come up tomorrow just as I'm certain that four and a half billion years of evidence of being bathed in sunlight that this planet has had a sun come up for eons longer than either of our lifetimes. That does not require faith in the manner in which you think of faith. I can also be sure of this fact because of an understanding of the mechanics of gravity, geology, and an understanding of the solar system can allow me to understand how the Earth keeps its orbit and proper rotation for its twenty-four hour day. This can allow me to surmise the circumstances that allow the Earth to keep its 24-hour day rotation and the circumstances that can alter that. Of course, new information can change things, but ultimately I can say that it extremely likely that the Earth's rotation and orbit around the sun will allow the sun to rise tomorrow morning. In fact, I can make exceptionally accurate predictions as to when this can occur well into the future. You can check this on weather websites, the weather channel, and other sources to see when the sun will rise in your area in the morning.
Three, Science is not based on philosophy or any predetermined assumptions that cannot be scientifiically proven. If that were the case, then it would not be called science because it would most certainly be something else. You can certainly say that science had some pretty crazy ideas when it was getting a real go in its early lead to the modern age, but most if not all of that is due to having inaccurate information.

You have only the two alternative options. This is indeed not a false dilemma, but a true one.

That is exactly what a false dilemma is - presenting two options that you state are the only options when it is readily apparent that they are not necessarily the only options.

Of course not. God is not nothing. God is God.

God violates the very cosmological arguement because he's an exception from the inane rule that you created that the universe cannot be eternal, as though that answer were actually known. According to the cosmological arguement and indeed any creation story, the universe was nothing until God intervened and created the universe from nothing.
The very arguement itself is a logical fallacy because it is argued that nothing existed prior to the big bang except god and god created the universe. There is no evidence of this at all and current phyiscal laws dispute many aspects of this -ranging from the first law of thermodynamics (energy cannot be created or destroyed) to the fact that things become more complex over time and begin in a more simple manner (god himself is extremely complex as a pre-existing eternal omnipotent and omnicient hyper-intelligence).
Ergo, scientifically speaking, the god answer is far less likely a possibility than other theories on how the singularity universe came to be.

[NoGodaloud ?]

Of course it doesn't. That's why it's unacceptable as proof of anything except an overactive imagination.

Any debate about proofs is senseless, since there are no proofs in regard of these issues. I say it over and over again. Stop asking for proves. Instead , make the right philosphical question : how can we best explain our existence ?

You provided me with a link to a site that does not provide a scientific paper. I've read numerous books and papers on the subject by the phyiscists who actually study this sort of thing.

Why are you asking for a scientific paper ? Why shall science provide all answers , even to questions, which are beyond the realm of science ? Why do you not accept, what is accepted by most scientists, namely, the universe had a absolute beginning with the Big Bang ? proably, because it does not fit your preconceived bias, no God shall exist, and since a beginning of the Universe is a hint of causation, you avoid this hypotheses. To believe, the universe had a absolute beginning, stands perfectly on rational ground , and is supported by many secular scientists, as already shown.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astronom...g-t199.htm

Alexander Vilenkin is Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 150 papers and is responsible for introducing the ideas of eternal inflation and quantum creation of the universe from nothing.

Vilenkin is blunt about the implications:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

There are some disquieting issues with this theory, at least to the non-Physicists. First, the singularity did not appear in space. Space did not exist before the big Bang and in fact, had to begin inside the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed. So, where did it come from and why? We don’t know. All we do know is that we exist within space and at one time it did not exist and neither did we.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/bigquestions/s460625.htm

Beyond the point is nothing. The balloon – space – has simply disappeared. Play this scenario in forward time and it represents the coming-into-being of a universe from literally nothing, with space itself appearing. So it’s not an explosion in a pre-existing space. Space itself appears. And so, for that matter, does time.

The Beginning of Time

http://www.hawking.org.uk/index.php/lectures/62

The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition.

I will state that they do state with however much frequency that the universe began at the big bang. I do not disagree with this assertion and I've mentioned this earlier in this discussion. However, they do not assert that the universe was created at the big bang in the sense that there was no matter and energy prior to the big bang and there was huge energy after. Instead, they assert that the universe as we understand it now had begun at the big bang and it will end at another point in the past.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/If_the_Big_Ban..._come_from

Back in the late '60s and early '70s, when men first walked upon the moon, "three British astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 The singularity didn't appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don't know.

...those out of body experiences are thanks to a part of the brain you can stimulate.

the example , i have shown , no stimulus made that person have this out of body experience, Indeed, following explanation shows this :

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/the-bibl...ht=dualism

"During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the 'crash car'. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: 'Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are'. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: 'Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.' I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man."

Table 3 shows relations between demographic, medical, pharmacological, and psychological factors and the frequency and depth of NDE. [b]No medical, pharmacological, or psychological factor affected the frequency of the experience.[/b]

Scientific laws are based on empirical and testable evidence, not solely on reasoning.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...9.htm#1201

It must be noted the distinction between normal (operational) science, and origins or historical science. Normal (operational) science deals only with repeatable observable processes in the present, while origins science helps us to make educated guesses about origins in the past.

Two, faith is something completely different.

When it comes to historical sciences, what we can do, are , as shown above, educated guesses. In that sense, we can believe, aka faith, a supernatural explanation fits best the evidence, or a natural explanation. Thats the controversy about creation x evolution. Both positions are in the end based on guess and faith.

Three, Science is not based on philosophy or any predetermined assumptions that cannot be scientifiically proven.

Outside the scientific circle, there is always a philosophical circle.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...w-t335.htm

Science has been redefined to include only naturalistic explanations. All observed and hypothesized processes in the universe must be the result of natural causes. No supernatural explanations are allowed.

"Naturalistic science" points to naturalism, whether philosophical or methodological, both of which are essentially the same. Neither of which will allow the supernatural as a cause for anything in this world, even if logical. Natural causes must account for everything. So if scientific findings shows limits in natural causes, it doesn't matter because natural causes must have done everything. This shows that it is not the science that is important, but the reigning philosophy of naturalism. By definition, it will exclude any other possible explanation, whether presuppositional or logical or even rational, including the possibility of the supernatural, so it is true that naturalistic "science", or rather the naturalistic interpretation of scientific evidence will always miss a supernatural explanation. Whatever the supernatural is, the naturalistic mind will not accept it. That's why it is true that research today is not about finding real answers, but only confirming a naturalistic philosophy.

If that were the case, then it would not be called science because it would most certainly be something else.

Again. You need to make a distinction between operational and historical science.

You have only the two alternative options. This is indeed not a false dilemma, but a true one.

That is exactly what a false dilemma is - presenting two options that you state are the only options when it is readily apparent that they are not necessarily the only options.

I have asked you to present more options. Do you have any ? If you don't , you agree automatically with my assertion.

The very arguement itself is a logical fallacy because it is argued that nothing existed prior to the big bang except god and god created the universe.

Nothing physical existed, not absolutely nothing.

There is no evidence of this at all and current phyiscal laws dispute many aspects of this -ranging from the first law of thermodynamics (energy cannot be created or destroyed) to the fact that things become more complex over time and begin in a more simple manner (god himself is extremely complex as a pre-existing eternal omnipotent and omnicient hyper-intelligence).
Ergo, scientifically speaking, the god answer is far less likely a possibility than other theories on how the singularity universe came to be.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/does-god...t79-15.htm

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News...le&id=5493

As an unembodied mind, God is a remarkably simple entity. As a non-physical entity, a mind is not composed of parts, and its salient properties, like self-consciousness, rationality, and volition, are essential to it. In contrast to the contingent and variegated universe with all its inexplicable quantities and constants, a divine mind is startlingly simple. Certainly such a mind may have complex ideas—it may be thinking, for example, of the infinitesimal calculus—, but the mind itself is a remarkably simple entity. Dawkins has evidently confused a mind's ideas, which may, indeed, be complex, with a mind itself, which is an incredibly simple entity. Therefore, postulating a divine mind behind the universe most definitely does represent an advance in simplicity, for whatever that is worth.


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/

According to the classical theism of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and their adherents, God is radically unlike creatures in that he is devoid of any complexity or composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Besides lacking spatial and temporal parts, God is free of matter/form composition, potency/act composition, and existence/essence composition. There is also no real distinction between God as subject of his attributes and his attributes. God is thus in a sense requiring clarification identical to each of his attributes, which implies that each attribute is identical to every other one. God is omniscient, then, not in virtue of instantiating or exemplifying omniscience — which would imply a real distinction between God and the property of omniscience — but by being omniscience. And the same holds for each of the divine omni-attributes: God is what he has. As identical to each of his attributes, God is identical to his nature. And since his nature or essence is identical to his existence, God is identical to his existence. This is the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS). It is to be understood as an affirmation of God's absolute transcendence of creatures. God is not only radically non-anthropomorphic, but radically non-creaturomorphic, not only in respect of the properties he possesses, but in his manner of possessing them. God, we could say, differs in his very ontology from any and all created beings.

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Any debate about proofs is senseless, since there are no proofs in regard of these issues. I say it over and over again. Stop asking for proves. Instead , make the right philosphical question : how can we best explain our existence ?

Science is the best method of explaining our existence and that is based on proof. You can't answer the question at all in any manner that is meaningful without testable and repeatable evidence.

Why are you asking for a scientific paper ? Why shall science provide all answers , even to questions, which are beyond the realm of science ? Why do you not accept, what is accepted by most scientists, namely, the universe had a absolute beginning with the Big Bang ? proably, because it does not fit your preconceived bias, no God shall exist, and since a beginning of the Universe is a hint of causation, you avoid this hypotheses. To believe, the universe had a absolute beginning, stands perfectly on rational ground , and is supported by many secular scientists, as already shown.

Because no reputable scientist is saying that the universe began in the same sense that you are. They acknowledge that we only really know about the big bang to a point and if you're literate with astronomy and I'm talking about the papers, books, and speeches done by physicists who are literate in this topic and not about a group of religious people who think that their belief if something is the same thing as knowing something.

Alexander Vilenkin is Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 150 papers and is responsible for introducing the ideas of eternal inflation and quantum creation of the universe from nothing.

That's nice. If he makes a peer reviewed paper that's accepted by the scientific community at large on that topic, then let me know. Until then, his claims are quite unsubstantiated and not too indiscreetly tainted with theology, which is itself an exercise in imagination and not science.

The Beginning of Time

And in that same paper, Hawking mentions the following:

At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself. The density would have been infinite. It would have been what is called, a singularity. At a singularity, all the laws of physics would have broken down. This means that the state of the universe, after the Big Bang, will not depend on anything that may have happened before, because the deterministic laws that govern the universe will break down in the Big Bang. The universe will evolve from the Big Bang, completely independently of what it was like before. Even the amount of matter in the universe, can be different to what it was before the Big Bang, as the Law of Conservation of Matter, will break down at the Big Bang.

Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang. Events before the Big Bang, are simply not defined, because there's no way one could measure what happened at them. This kind of beginning to the universe, and of time itself, is very different to the beginnings that had been considered earlier. These had to be imposed on the universe by some external agency. There is no dynamical reason why the motion of bodies in the solar system can not be extrapolated back in time, far beyond four thousand and four BC, the date for the creation of the universe, according to the book of Genesis. Thus it would require the direct intervention of God, if the universe began at that date. By contrast, the Big Bang is a beginning that is required by the dynamical laws that govern the universe. It is therefore intrinsic to the universe, and is not imposed on it from outside.

Although the laws of science seemed to predict the universe had a beginning, they also seemed to predict that they could not determine how the universe would have begun. This was obviously very unsatisfactory. So there were a number of attempts to get round the conclusion, that there was a singularity of infinite density in the past. One suggestion was to modify the law of gravity, so that it became repulsive. This could lead to the graph of the separation between two galaxies, being a curve that approached zero, but didn't actually pass through it, at any finite time in the past. Instead, the idea was that, as the galaxies moved apart, new galaxies were formed in between, from matter that was supposed to be continually created. This was the Steady State theory, proposed by Bondi, Gold, and Hoyle.

Note that Hawking makes several direct statements about what was before the big bang in the sense that he is not stating that the universe was created at the big bang, but rather the universe as we understand it began at the big bang.
As I recall, I've said this exact thing before, the universe began in the manner to which we understand it at the big bang, which is to say nothing of anything prior to this event. You have postulated based on nothing that not only did the universe begin from nothing, but a hyper-intelligence that is capable of creating vast amounts of energy from literally nothing is more simple than a singularity. Bullhokey.

Hawking even specifically refutes the notion that an outside influence had any direct effect on the universe.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/If_the_Big_Ban..._come_from

And how credible is this answer supposed to be? Why did you even bring it up because whoever made that answer disagrees with you.
In the answer states: According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know for sure.
Emphasis mine.

Back in the late '60s and early '70s, when men first walked upon the moon, "three British astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 The singularity didn't appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy - nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don't know.

I don't know where you got what was stated above, but this clearly isn't the case anymore, if it even was to begin with.

the example , i have shown , no stimulus made that person have this out of body experience, Indeed, following explanation shows this :

You've missed the point - science has proven that a cluster of neurons can be stimulated to give an out-of-body experience. Just because the experiment had a direct stimulation of that cluster in one manner or another doesn't mean they can't be stimulated naturally.
My point of even bringing up those papers is to prove that those anecdotes you keep bringing up are far more likely to be explained by that cluster of neurons being stimulated in a natural manner (in other words, the brain, trauma, or some other method) instead of a neurologist poking around in someone's skull being a necessary component for that or some supernatural explaination.

It must be noted the distinction between normal (operational) science, and origins or historical science. Normal (operational) science deals only with repeatable observable processes in the present, while origins science helps us to make educated guesses about origins in the past.

There are many kinds of sciences but I have no idea what on earth you're talking about.

When it comes to historical sciences, what we can do, are , as shown above, educated guesses. In that sense, we can believe, aka faith, a supernatural explanation fits best the evidence, or a natural explanation. Thats the controversy about creation x evolution. Both positions are in the end based on guess and faith.

Controversey on creation v evolution? Controversey amongst whom? Evolution has been science for as long as it's been around. Creationism is a belief held on by superstitious people who choose to reject evidence to the contrary despite no evidence supporting creationism at all.

Science has been redefined to include only naturalistic explanations. All observed and hypothesized processes in the universe must be the result of natural causes. No supernatural explanations are allowed.

They aren't allowed because they're not scientific. Science has never been redefined to exclude supernaturalism at any point in time beyond an attempt to explain ignorance rationally by people who prefer an explaination instead of an honest answer.

Again. You need to make a distinction between operational and historical science.

I prefer to acknowledge things that exist rather than whatever methodology that allows people to make up answers and accept them as science.

I have asked you to present more options. Do you have any ? If you don't , you agree automatically with my assertion.

So you answer one false dilemma by presenting another? If I can't provide a specific answer you want I'm automatically wrong and I agree with you?
If it makes you feel better, you can assert whatever you want. It doesn't make you right.

As an unembodied mind, God is a remarkably simple entity. As a non-physical entity, a mind is not composed of parts, and its salient properties, like self-consciousness, rationality, and volition, are essential to it. In contrast to the contingent and variegated universe with all its inexplicable quantities and constants, a divine mind is startlingly simple. Certainly such a mind may have complex ideas—it may be thinking, for example, of the infinitesimal calculus—, but the mind itself is a remarkably simple entity. Dawkins has evidently confused a mind's ideas, which may, indeed, be complex, with a mind itself, which is an incredibly simple entity. Therefore, postulating a divine mind behind the universe most definitely does represent an advance in simplicity, for whatever that is worth.

This is assinine. A thinking entity is not simple at all - it's a complex process that humans barely understand as it is and yet a conciousness far more powerful than ours is supposed to be simpler than a dense point of energy? Bullhockey.
This is entirely an attempt by theists to redefine what intelligence, conciousness, god, and whatever in order to fit this specific arguement, which is itself a logical fallacy called 'moving the goalposts'.

[NoGodaloud ?]

Science is the best method of explaining our existence and that is based on proof. You can't answer the question at all in any manner that is meaningful without testable and repeatable evidence.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...s-t339.htm

It must be noted the distinction between normal (operational) science, and origins or historical science. Normal (operational) science deals only with repeatable observable processes in the present, while origins science helps us to make educated guesses about origins in the past.

for example evolution. i guess you believe, (macro) evolution is a fact, right ? :

http://creationwiki.org/Argument_from_incredulity

We are talking about evolution, a theory that tries to tell us what happened in an unseen, unobservable, unrepeatable past. The fact that someone invents a natural "explanation" for something that is unseen, unobserved — and hence unscientific — does not mean that that explanation has any basis in reality. Without supporting evidence, it is a mere suggestion, a speculation. The fact that someone can devise a natural explanation in the context of this "theory", which makes unscientific claims about a hidden past, says nothing about the truth.

Because no reputable scientist is saying that the universe began in the same sense that you are. They acknowledge that we only really know about the big bang to a point and if you're literate with astronomy and I'm talking about the papers, books, and speeches done by physicists who are literate in this topic and not about a group of religious people who think that their belief if something is the same thing as knowing something.

Fine. Lets cite some literate scientists then.

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/beginning.html

"The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago." Stephen Hawking The Beginning of Time

"Scientists generally agree that "the Big Bang" birthed the universe about 15 billion years ago." Tom Parisi, Northern Illinois University

"As a result of the Big Bang (the tremendous explosion which marked the beginning of our Universe), the universe is expanding and most of the galaxies within it are moving away from each other." CalTech

"The Big Bang model of the universe's birth is the most widely accepted model that has ever been conceived for the scientific origin of everything." Stuart Robbins, Case Western Reserve University

"Many once believed that the universe had no beginning or end and was truly infinite. Through the inception of the Big Bang theory, however, no longer could the universe be considered infinite. The universe was forced to take on the properties of a finite phenomenon, possessing a history and a beginning." Chris LaRocco and Blair Rothstein, University of Michigan

"The scientific evidence is now overwhelming that the Universe began with a "Big Bang" ~15 billion (15,000,000,000 or 15E9) years ago." "The Big Bang theory is the most widely accepted theory of the creation of the Universe." Dr. van der Pluijm, University of Michigan

"The present location and velocities of galaxies are a result of a primordial blast known as the BIG BANG. It marked: THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE! THE BEGINNING OF TIME!" Terry Herter, Cornell University
"That radiation is residual heat from the Big Bang, the event that sparked the beginning of the universe some 13 billion years ago." Craig Hogan, University of Washington

"Most scientists agree that the universe began some 12 to 20 billion years ago in what has come to be known as the Big Bang (a term coined by the English astrophysicist Fred Hoyle in 1950." University of Illinois

That's nice. If he makes a peer reviewed paper that's accepted by the scientific community at large on that topic, then let me know. Until then, his claims are quite unsubstantiated and not too indiscreetly tainted with theology, which is itself an exercise in imagination and not science.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/philosop...m-t274.htm

For example you cannot PROVE gravity will always be consistent at all times. You can only observe that it’s consistently true every time. Nearly all scientific laws are based on inductive reasoning. All of science rests on an assumption that the universe is orderly, logical and mathematical based on fixed discoverable laws.You cannot PROVE this. (You can’t prove that the sun will come up tomorrow morning either.) You literally have to take it on faith. In fact most people don’t know that outside the science circle is a philosophy circle. Science is based on philosophical assumptions that you cannot scientifically prove. Actually, the scientific method cannot prove, it can only infer.(Science originally came from the idea that God made an orderly universe which obeys fixed, discoverable laws - and because of those laws, He would not have to constantly tinker with it in order for it to operate.)

As I recall, I've said this exact thing before, the universe began in the manner to which we understand it at the big bang, which is to say nothing of anything prior to this event. You have postulated based on nothing that not only did the universe begin from nothing, but a hyper-intelligence that is capable of creating vast amounts of energy from literally nothing is more simple than a singularity. Bullhokey.

I've not said, it would be more simple. I said the only rational deduction is, if the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. From absolutely nothing, nothing derives.

Hawking even specifically refutes the notion that an outside influence had any direct effect on the universe.

Its enough that he aknowledges that the universe had a beginning. The rest is his personal opinion. Nothing more.

And how credible is this answer supposed to be? Why did you even bring it up because whoever made that answer disagrees with you.
In the answer states: According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as "singularity" around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a "singularity" and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don't know for sure.
Emphasis mine.

sprang into existence. What does that mean to you ?

I don't know where you got what was stated above, but this clearly isn't the case anymore, if it even was to begin with.

and how do you know, this clearly isnt the case anymore ???

My point of even bringing up those papers is to prove that those anecdotes you keep bringing up are far more likely to be explained by that cluster of neurons being stimulated in a natural manner (in other words, the brain, trauma, or some other method) instead of a neurologist poking around in someone's skull being a necessary component for that or some supernatural explaination.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/intellig...ht=dualism

Dr. Ken Ring published a paper in the Journal of Near-Death Studies (Summer, 1993) concerning near-death experiencers who, while out of their bodies, witness real events that occur far away from their dead body. The important aspect to this phenomenon is that these events seen far away are later verified to be true. Experiencers not only witness events from great distances, but they have been documented to hear conversations between people at the same events. Conversations such as these have also verified to be true. An even more fascinating phenomenon occurs when the experiencer actually appears in spirit to someone, usually a loved one, during their NDE and it is verified to be true by the experiencer and the loved one. It is evidence such as this, if scientifically controlled, that can provide absolute scientific proof that consciousness can exist outside of the body. A scientifically controlled NDE that can be repeated which provides such evidence would be the scientific discovery of all time. However, science does not yet have the exact tools to accomplish this. But, science is coming very, very close. This kind of evidence and others provide very strong circumstantial evidence for the survival of consciousness.

Evolution has been science for as long as it's been around. Creationism is a belief held on by superstitious people who choose to reject evidence to the contrary despite no evidence supporting creationism at all.

you can call evolution science. But macro evolution has not been proven true until today.....

http://creationwiki.org/Evolution_leaves...nexplained

has evolution adequately explained enough within its biological framework? The answers for many is no! Even if it could, does it make such stories that the evolutionists make factual? No! Because science cannot deal with the past outside human experience and there is no way of verifying what happened in that past. Without verification, we can speculate and give "explanations", but they have no truth value. The circumstantial evidence paraded as unambiguously pointing to evolution is not so unambiguous.
Also the things explained by evolution, a good number of them, if not all of them, can be explained from another framework other than the theory of evolution, i.e. research into creation science.

So you answer one false dilemmat.

Its up to you to show me, the dilemma presented is false. Can you ? If not, why do you not aknowledge i might be right, there are no more options ? are you being honest ?

[theVOID]

I have often heard creationists say that everything in existence must have been caused by something else thus leading to a chain of causes all the way to God Himself. To which atheists respond, “Then what caused God to be in existence?” But this passage from a prominent Christian theologian refutes this common atheist counter to creationism.”

“For instance, it is a mistake to view everything as needing a cause, for in this case there would be an infinity of causes and even God would need a cause. Only limited, changing, contingent things need causes. Once one arrives at an unlimited, unchanging, necessary being, there is no longer any need for a cause. The finite must be caused, but the infinite being would be uncaused.”

Furthermore. . . . .

Since the Big Bang definitely demonstrates the beginning of all time for Nature, that is (the universe, the closed box/system of everything). And being that time began because of a definite beginning (The Big Bang) therefore infinity, that without beginning or end, cannot exist within Nature itself but rather must exist beyond Nature. Within Nature everything is in relation to everything else, everything is interdependent, nothing is independent of the system as a whole, nothing can be truly added or taken away. Therefore within Nature things must exist as spontaneously regenerating patterns and designs, including life. Nothing save that which is outside Nature can operate independently of the system as a whole. Nothing except for mankind with his freewill which enables him to act independently of the system as a whole. Freewill cannot emerge from this system because it is independence in a system of total interdependence. Therefore, freewill, like the causation of time and Nature, is beyond time and Nature, it is not Natural but supernatural. Since mankind has freewill which is supernatural, he is therefore at least partly supernatural. Mankind is therefore both Natural and supernatural, the body and the spirit.

That post is evidence of stupid.

[LastPoet]

Nogodaloud, you have yet to provide a serious argument, you are just running away with the goal post, and you are the one using intentionally dishonest arguments:

1 - You deliberately post links of evangelical sites to provide evidence for your scientific claims, as if those could hold any credibility, They do not, except for deluded Christians. This proves that you are not interested in making any serious claim.

2 - You practice the "Move the goal post" fallacy on every post, diverting any debate endlessly, disregarding the total and utter debunking of your arguments by several people. This further proves my point that you are not interested in a serious debate, but to rub your ego, trying to convince yourself that your delusions are true.

3 - When people point out your baseless assertions, you simply ignore them and keep repeating yourself, as if in repeating enough times you could turn them true.

4 - When using science, you cherry pick the facts of it that suit your argument, deliberately ignoring others that do not suit it so well. A good example of this is you talking about macro evolution.

5 - You have done multiple times "quote mining" a very known creationist tactic and very dishonest one.

6 - When one calls you on your dishonesty, you cry you are being insulted when that is not the case.

This leads me to believe that you are nothing but a troll, not seeking rational debate, but confirmation on your delusion of grandure, and this saddens me, because people here have been honestly trying to debate you, not receiving the same from you. You come here with a closed mind, and there can be no debate under that premise.

@TheDarkestOfAngels: kudos for your posts, you are very articulate and a very honest debater, If I could I would give you one more rep, but we can only give one.

[NoGodaloud ?]

Nogodaloud, you have yet to provide a serious argument, you are just running away with the goal post, and you are the one using intentionally dishonest arguments:

that is a common practice on atheist boards : trying to discredit the counterpart, accusing it to be dishonest. Let's see who is dishonest in this case.

1 - You deliberately post links of evangelical sites to provide evidence for your scientific claims, as if those could hold any credibility, They do not, except for deluded Christians. This proves that you are not interested in making any serious claim.

How do you KNOW christians are deluded ? you don't. Historical sciences are based on probabilities. You cannot KNOW how things in the past happened, therefore you cannot accuse someone, that does not share your opinion, to be deluded. Secondly, the stated webpages do present , what secular scientists said. Therefore, your argument looses completely ground.

And third, your answer just shows your bias and YOUR dishonesty.

2 - You practice the "Move the goal post" fallacy on every post, diverting any debate endlessly, disregarding the total and utter debunking of your arguments by several people. This further proves my point that you are not interested in a serious debate, but to rub your ego, trying to convince yourself that your delusions are true.

more baseless accusations.

3 - When people point out your baseless assertions, you simply ignore them and keep repeating yourself, as if in repeating enough times you could turn them true.

which baseless assertion exactly ?

4 - When using science, you cherry pick the facts of it that suit your argument, deliberately ignoring others that do not suit it so well. A good example of this is you talking about macro evolution.

thats exactly what it is. Darwinists should make a differenciation, when they talk evolution is a fact.

5 - You have done multiple times "quote mining" a very known creationist tactic and very dishonest one.

what exactly is dishonest about it ? you can do it as well, to make your point. No problem with me.

6 - When one calls you on your dishonesty, you cry you are being insulted when that is not the case.

Yes, you should STOP attacking ME. Attack my arguments, if they do not please you. And in the end, if you think, i am dishonest, you are saying, you deserve someone honest. then you should take your consequences, and search for other, honest theists, to debate with. Nobody obligates you to debate me.

This leads me to believe that you are nothing but a troll,

I see. Now starting with open personal insults. How about change your tactics ? Such tactics say more about YOU, than about me, and do not help your case at all.

I guess you stop attacking me personally, otherwise, i will stop answering you.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Okay, NoGodAloud. To prove your case, first show that something cannot come from nothing, without merely asserting it or pointing to our experience, for our experience is irrelevant outside the universe. I suspect that you'll have difficulty with this, but I'd like you to try all the same. Then, show that it is impossible for the universe to have existed in some form forever, or as an infinite series of universes. Then, show why God is the best explanation.

[Tiberius]

Darwinists should make a differenciation, when they talk evolution is a fact.

Evolution is a scientific fact though.

what exactly is dishonest about it ? you can do it as well, to make your point. No problem with me.

Quote mining is dishonest because you are taking what people have said out of the context in which they said it. Like the Darwin quote about the eye, where he says he cannot see any way for it to have evolved. Creationists point to this to make the point that even Darwin doubted his belief in evolution. The problem is, the quote is only partial, and if you place it back into its original context, you can see that Darwin was talking about possible objections to his theory, and he goes on to say that he doesn't think it is a valid one.