Hell and God cant Co-exist.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The issue at hand concerns whether a specific observation (that only actual objects can cause change) could be considered evidence for something. It is certainly evident to the senses. I’ve always thought that evidence meant just that: something, well, evident.

This is nothing but twaddle. We know where you're going Chad, we've been there before. Have you seen a universe created? No? Then how do you know these 'observations' of yours are at all representative of what happens when a universe is created?

I never said anything about the creation of the universe. You and Esquilax seem hell bent on putting words in my mouth. My own experience, in this universe, within the here and now, confirms what lots of other people throughout history have observed. Change happens. When change happens, it seems to always happen as result of actual things. Why put the word, observation, in scare quotes? Do you feel threatened by some observations?

But if you're so big on evidence, why don't you provide some. Show me some evidence that God is uncaused

You must be Irish. Rather than address the question on the table you want to talk about something else. That is fine. I’m not asking you about any specific conclusions drawn from a certain observation; but rather about the observation itself. For example, Newton observed the apple falling toward the ground. Based on this observation he came to certain conclusions leading to the theory of gravity. I thought that was how people gain knowledge? They observe things, then they reason about it, then they reach conclusions. When asked about the evidence that supports their conclusions, they then point back to the initial observation. That seems pretty basic to me. Are you suggesting an alternate process for learning about the world?

My observation, one that seems pretty obvious is that only actual things can cause change. Is the observation itself valid? Is there a compelling reason to suppose that this observation is an illusion? Why do you feel justified excluding this particular observation from rational inquiry?

We have no scientific proof or evidence of any sort regarding how this all began, and as far as we know, everything in nature, every force, etc, has to come from something.

No, actually, you're wrong. Leaving aside quantum mechanics, which suggests that you can, in fact, get something from nothing,…

[/quote]

The quantum vacuum is not a ‘nothing’.

…all of the evidence from physics suggests that this "you can't get something from nothing" style of causality breaks down past the Planck time.

If at some point your theory of causality devolves into paradox and incoherence, then those problems suggest that you have a flawed theory of causality.

That things require causes in this specific iteration of the universe is simply a function of the linear time inherent in this specific iteration, but it's not a uniform standard applicable to every region of space-time, just what we can observe.

So your counterpoint to everyday observations about this universe is that some unknown speculative universes, universes that have never been directly observed, might operate differently from your paradoxical and incoherent theory of causality.

Essentially, prior to the Planck time the universe existed in a state completely unlike anything we've ever known, and beyond our current ability to measure, so expecting that it operates by the same causal rules is extremely silly.

Prior to Planck time? Planck time is just the theoretically smallest scale, a unit of measurement like minutes or seconds. That just means either 1) there are increments of time with less duration that are beyond our ability to measure or 2) a Planck unit actually is the smallest increment of time.

I really don’t understand you, Esq. On the one hand you dispute the observations of others based on your understanding of physics and then you dispute them on the grounds that the laws of physics eventually break down into paradox and incoherence. To me that seems very evasive.