Is there objective Truth?

[pocaracas]

First up, some generic PHP forum insight.
Go to your User Control Panel's Options, or use this link: https://atheistforums.org/usercp.php?action=options
Near the bottom right, you'll find the option "Put the editor in source mode by default", activate that.
I know it's not active by default... whoever thought up this MyBB forum, decided to impose the "new and improved WYSIWYG" editor.... but this editor is crap when you want to break apart quotes from other people.

Now that you have the "source" editor, you will see the tags used to make these posts pretty.
The one you need to master is the quote tag.
For example, your post gets this tag:

Code:

[quote='Soldat Du Christ' pid='1418943' dateline='1476749980']

You can shorten it to just

Code:

[quote]

or

Code:

[quote='Soldat Du Christ']

The pid you find above refers to the Post ID - that was this forum's 1,418,943rd post.
The dateline refers to the date when the post was made. It's a long number that counts how many seconds have passed since January 1st 1970 - this is the standard Linux time representation. You can use this site to convert that into something you can understand, if you need it: http://www.epochconverter.com/


Now that you know a bit about the tag, how to use it properly?

Here's the basic that gets automatically filled when you hit the Reply button:

Code:

[quote='Soldat Du Christ' pid='1418943' dateline='1476749980']
Your text.
[/quote]

My answer to your text.

But I can break apart your text into bits so I can address each of them and it looks decent:

Code:

[quote='Soldat Du Christ' pid='1418943' dateline='1476749980']
Your first point.
[/quote]

My answer to your first point.

[quote='Soldat Du Christ' pid='1418943' dateline='1476749980']
Your second point.
[/quote]

My answer to your second point.


and so on and so forth...

Some people are lazy and, instead of copy/pasting the quote tag into each of those points, they simply type out an empty quote tag... it's fine, as long as it follows from the previous identified quote tag.
If you're quoting another person in the same post, it's good netiquette to properly identify each quote.


Right, lesson over.... now, for some practice!

"Get with the times, huh?
Did I say Universe? Or did I say "all"? Can you envisage a scenario where those two are not coincident? I can.
Can we, humans, affirm that all that exists is contained in this Universe? NO."

The Universe IS all. Lol
Considering space time is expanding into NO space and NO time, it's safe to say there is no existence outside our universe. If you want to be a rebel and refuse to follow the evidence where it leads that's fine, but don't try and call me unreasonable.

The Universe is not necessarily all. Lol
We cannot tell if the Space-time within the Universe is unique, or if our Universe is in some subset of an infinite space-time.
And we know from mathematics that you can have an infinite subset within another infinite subset, so I see no contradiction.
Our Universe's space-time can very well be expanding within the infinite space-time.
There's no way to know that it's not the case, so you can't shut down that possibility and insert a super powerful conscious entity in there.

It is known that space-time itself can randomly produce matter. It is not inconceivable that, within the frame of an infinite space-time, in a few locations (possibly an infinite number of locations), such production was massive enough to provide a singularity that kick-starts a Universe, leaving its inhabitants blind to any outside process.
This is where the evidence leads.
Certainly, it's not proven and will likely never be... because of that singularity detail that prevents us from probing beyond it...
Check the work by the 2004 Physics Nobel Laureates.

" Ultimately, you can't claim anything about any beginning, because you don't know if there was one... you can only claim something about this Universe...."

Well we can have the upmost confidence this universe had a begining believing in an infinite regress of causality is more of a leap of faith than beleiving in an uncaused first cause. That everything just exists with no explanation is more of a stretch then magic

Well, the singularity has been arbitrarily posited as the starting point of this Universe, yes... the T=0. That says nothing about negative time in that scale.
Our calendars put t=0 at 2016 years ago.... allowing "negative time", so we should be careful.

So you think that space-time existing since all eternity and for all eternity is more of a stretch than the existence of a conscious, Universe-creating, eternal entity?
Occam's Razor, dude... which is simpler?

We observe simple things being put together to form complex things. Think of stars, the great material building furnaces of the Universe.

" Don't act like a smug human, thinking you know things you can't possibly know.
If you want to be honest, all you can say is that you don't know if there is a beginning. Anything else, you'll be having to preface everything with a mighty big IF."

Notice that i'm using words like probability, evidence, and the like. I do believe the universe had an ultimate begining, can i prove it empericaly? Nope. But considering the improbability of the contrary, and the evidence leaning heavily towards a begining, you're litteraly butting heads against all reason.

"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." -Velankin

There's Vilenkin again...
Enjoy: