I am an orthodox Christian, ask me a question!

[Edwardo Piet]

Both an infinite amount of time and an amount that goes on forever and ever express the same thing. So you are simply asking the same question all over again.

No not at all. My point is that if it goes on forever, it's infinite... then what actual difference in reality does it make to being nontemporal? Simply defining God as nontemporal doesn't make him need any less of a temporal if he'd been here forever. All you're doing is saying he was here 'before time', but without any explanation - he still requires just as much of an explanation, you're not helping the issue, you're dodging it. He still requires just as much evidence, you're just defining him 'outside'.

It sounds like you're saying that God has to be composed of parts because he has all these attributes.

I'm saying you can't just define him as simple and lacking parts. I'm saying that whether he arise from chance, was here for ever, or is nontemporal, he still is just as complex and improbable as he would be if he arose from chance alone.

If he were to arise from chance alone that would be extremely improbable, this is how complex he is. To simply say that "Oh, well he's outside of time, he's nontemporal" that does fuck all to help, he is just as improbable, and complex, and requires just as much an explanation - you still have to provide just as much evidence as if you'd dodged it by saying "Oh he was just there at the beginning", the 'nontemporal/atemporal' move, is just as much of a dodge as it is to say that he was here from the beginning. Untill you actually provide some evidence your defining him outside does fuck all.

Ok you say he's nontemporal/atemporal you still need to provide the same degree of evidence. You can't just define outside him out ot explanation.

This is the informal fallacy of argument from personal incredulity

Wrong. The Argument from Personal Incredulity goes like this: "This doesn't make sense to me personally...therefore it's wrong/probably wrong". That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I don't see any evidence so I myself won't believie untill I do. And you can't just dodge matters by defining God outside of explanation.

and is not a meaningful response, such that your incredulity toward one scenario does not support the truth of the alternative scenario.

I know this. As far as I know, I never fall the the argument of personal incredulity. Because I never believe that something is wrong just because it doesn't make sense to me, out of a lack of imagination. I won't believe untill I know of any evidence, this is perfectly acceptable and not the argument from personal incredulity.

Listing the attributes of God does not somehow prove that he is composed of parts,

Obviously not. But God needs an explanation. If he is outside of time that doesn't make him any more reasonable to believe in than if you believed he arised spontaneously from chance alone. It's still exactly the same problem. You still need to explain God, you still need just as much evidence. You can't just define him 'outside'. Besides, then you've gotta provide evidence for that claim too!!

for divine simplicity accounts for his attributes as being identical with himself. For example, "God is good" is not a moral valuation (God has goodness) but an ontological statement (God is goodness); i.e., the being of God is identical to the attributes of God. (As a point of interest, divine simplicity proves the bifurcation fallacy of the Euthyphro dilemma.)

All this is irrelevant to the fact you need to explain God. You can't say he's nontemporal anymore than you can say he was 'just there' from the beginning. It's still a total and utter fucking dodge. You still need to supply evidence for God's existence.

First, objections involving notions of temporal finitude can be ignored as mere Straw Man, since God by definition as Creator is not part of our space-time manifold.

Wrong. As I have said, you are dodging the question by making bullshit strawman objections. It's not a strawman because whether he's nontemporal/atemporal, whether he arose from chance alone, or whehter he was "there from the beginning": makes no difference whatsoever to my argument. I'm saying that however you define him, you cannot just dodge the question.

Saying he is nontemporal and that I'm making a strawman is just completely dodging the fucking question.. Any of these 3 and it still has the same problem, a lack of explanation and a lack of evidence.

He has exactly the same problem as if he was here from the beginning or if he arose from chance alone. The whole point of the definition of complexity being 'something that it would be highly improbable to arise from chance alone' is the matter it addresses....and God as exactly the same problem if you define him as being outside of this. Arising chance is an analogy that applies to eternal things, and to nontemporal things - equally. It addresses the same question, God still has the same problems.

Second, the likelihood of something is not determined by whether or not you have received an explanation.

Which is an equivocation of you're point. I'm not talking about any explanation. I'm saying that there's no reason to believe untill there's an actual one. The explanation. I cannot know what's the answer for sure, but nor can anyone else. Whatever the real likelihood is I can't know for sure...this doesn't matter...what more do you expect?

You may not believe something until then, but that is quite a different matter altogether.

Is it? I can only know what I know. I am agnostic. My qualm here is untill I know of an explanation, untill I know of evidence, then as far as I'm concerened it's nonsense. The burden of proof is on the theist.

Sure you could be right, but anybody could be right and anybody could be wrong. That's bloody obvious. This is about what we believe because we can't know anything other than what we know! All we're dealing with is what we know. So speaking of what we can't know if irrelevant...unless you're actually accusing me of gnosticism!.

Third, complex in this context has nothing to do with "hard to understand" (and even if it did, it would commit the personal incredulity fallacy to base the likelihood of God on that).

I never sait it was to do with difficult to understand at all. And I've already dealt with the charge of that fallacy so read above if u haven't.

As I said, complex is defined theologically and in contemporary dictionaries as composed of, or characterized by, an arrangement of parts. That God is not composed of parts has nothing to do with the likelihood of his existing eternally.

He is complex because he requires the same amount of explanation as if he did arise from chance alone. He needs an explanation...he's supposed to be creator of the universe for christ sake! He needs an explanation just as anything else does. And for you to be rational - he needs evidence.

This reflects your personal epistemic criteria, which is relevant only if your belief is required. And it's not, for the truth of something is not proved by whether or not Mike believes it (according to the rules of logic)

Ahahhaa.....'extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence' is the only rational way by definition. You can call it 'personal epistemic criteria' if you want, but that doesn't chance the fact that evidence by definition=something that gives credence to the validity of a belief...so to believe without evidence is to believe without valid reason to believe it is true. Which is irrationality. If you want to believe without evidence, 'on faith', fine by me. But as far as I'm concerened it's irrational by definition and special pleading

Why 'have faith' when "faith" is belief without credence for it? When faith is without evidence? And....why have faith in some particular things??? Why?...

So...furthermore....cherry picking alert!

EvF