Dear Atheists: what would convince you God/Christ is Real?

[SimpleCaveman]

Hi Mister Agenda,

How’s it going today? Hope you are staying warm.

Snowtracks came back with
Which is pretty much axiomatic, though I would say it differently.

I wouldn't say it's axiomatic, I'd say it's a proposition that needs to be supported.

Sure. I thought it was but we can talk it through to see if it is supported. What I tried to do, because it seemed clear to me in this way, was to have two mutually exclusive types: with a beginning and without a beginning. If it had a beginning, then it came from something else. Things don’t just spontaneously come into being. If it didn’t have a beginning, I was calling that eternal. Eternal really means without end, too, but I was keeping it simple.

That seems to be to be obvious. Now let’s look at your next part and see if it still is as obvious.

Time as we know it started with the initial expansion, so in that sense, at least, the universe has always existed.

I agree. This makes sense. If always means “for all time,” and it seems like it would mean that, then the universe has always existed. Whether “always existing” and “eternal” are the same is another question.

I think you can make a case that philosophical nothingness is impossible and has therefore never existed, does that make 'something existing' the eternal thing?

I have a very hard time with ‘nothingness.’ I have always :-) been in something. Some movies try to show it as dark and empty, but even that assumes space, time and something to perceive.

Do you consider philosophical nothingness to be different than material nothingness? When I think of nothingness, I am considering the latter.  I haven’t thought through the former. For example, if God created the universe out of nothing, I think of that as no thing that was material. I think that would have to include energy since the two are connected.

The closest to nothing physics can get is quantum foam, and it's hypothetically capable of spawning universe all day long. Does/would quantum foam count as the eternal thing that must exist if anything now exists?

Yes, that is pretty close, but, if it turns out to work, it’s still not nothing. So, then the question is did that come from something else? If so, what? If not, then I suppose it would always exist in some sense.

Enjoy your weekend!