Christians, Prove Your God Is Good

[Esquilax]

*Sighs* That's the thing; I already have. I'm really not sure how else to describe my argument to you.

You've already established that god is the only thing allowed in the category "things that come from nothing"? How did you do that? If you're just referring to the naked assertions you've made thus far, then no, you have not. Just saying something is so doesn't make it true; if you've made an actual argument, with evidence, then save me having to look through nigh on forty pages of material and just give me the cliffs notes version.

I never said anything about a pre-big bang universe,

True, but since you were discussing things beyond our current model of physics, I thought I'd point out that such a state is equally true of the universe prior to the big bang. It's one of those things that makes it very clear that when you describe god as being the only thing in the category of things outside of our physics models, you haven't done much reading on our current ideas in science.

I simply said that God could've created the universe (or perhaps its expansion and formation would be more accurate) using the big bang. Whatever the current model, no model explains the origin of the matter, so going into details is pointless.

If you recognize that no model founded by the people actually testing the beginnings of the universe gives us an explanation of its origins, why on earth do you feel okay about asserting god as that explanation without even attempting to test it?

Actually, no, I'd never heard the special pleading argument before, but I inferred the meaning from context. I looked it up just now to make sure, and I inferred correctly. God justifies the exception by His definition as omnipotent.

Two problems: now you have two claims to justify before you can functionally use the exception in an argument, the first being that god exists at all, and the second being that he's omnipotent. Hell, you haven't even tried to address whether omnipotence is even possible, and there's good argument to demonstrate that it isn't. Naked assertions aren't good justification for exceptions from rules; you can make up any sort of exception, if you're content not to restrict yourself to things that you can demonstrate as real. It's not exactly a great feat, to fantasize your way out of a logical fallacy.

As I've said multiple times now and in many ways, God is necessarily above all rules and limitations, if He created our existence. I see no point in repeating myself any further, so this will be the last time I mention it.

It's good that you'll stop repeating it, because it's wrong: one does not necessarily have to be above all rules and limitations to have created the universe. In fact, I can come up with plenty of hypotheticals other than a god for that exact purpose. You're mistaking the thing you want to be true, for the only thing that could be true.

Again, already answered multiple times in multiple ways. There is only so much I can do here.

Yeah, see, I'm not gonna go back over so many pages for you; the way you've argued so far casts incredible doubt on the claim that you've answered anything in a satisfactory manner, despite your thoughts to the contrary.

Unless physics has all of a sudden added the spontaneous creation of matter to its lexicon, I certainly do not.

So, somebody's never heard of virtual particles, or of our current thinking regarding the universe pre-expansion, then. You say the laws of physics do this and that, but you also demonstrate that you haven't read any of the relevant material before you speak.

So you're wrong from the beginning, but purely on the matter of logic, your argument here doesn't hold up; even if the physics community does not deal with the spontaneous creation of matter, it doesn't entail that they deal with the reverse either. To start with, it's a false dichotomy to assert there are only two options without justification. You also ignore the very obvious possibility that they could just abstain from speaking on the issue at all until better information presents itself.

My citation is logic...can I do nothing but repeat myself here? Apparently not.

Your logic is faulty, and your grasp on it tenuous, which is why I ask for something a little more solid. Like evidence.

Well, at least it's a new question. The answer is, how the hell should I know? You're asking me to explain the unexplainable. If I knew how to create something from nothing, I'd be a god myself.

You can know how something occurred without being able to do it yourself. But if you don't know the mechanism, or even how to find out or test it, you don't have an explanation in any real sense.

Why must you have answers to everything? Why must everything be explained, categorized, analyzed and interpreted?

If you're asserting something about reality, if you're coming here into our discussion forum to talk about these issues, then you'd better have some details. To be clear, you are claiming to have answers, I'm just asking that you explain them; it's not my problem that you have such a poor grasp on the things you believe.

But the reverse of your questions is also pertinent: why are you so content with ignorance? Why is knowledge and the pursuit of it something you're trying to denigrate and paint as an absurd desire?

Why do you want so badly for there not to be a God? That is the most important question.

We haven't discussed what I want at all, and in fact, what I want is irrelevant to what's true. I don't desire that you be wrong, I just point out that, factually and logically, you are wrong. I don't have to want the reverse, or even believe the reverse, to point that out.

But thank you for assuming my motives without asking me, that level of rudeness and presumptuousness tells me a lot about your position. You presume a personal motive from someone you've never met before you'd even entertain the possibility that he might see a weakness in your factual case, or perhaps it's comforting for you to think that my position is based on something as base as desire, rather than on evidence. I don't care which, the point is this: you're not going to denigrate my position with assumptions like that, without me correcting you on that.

Your most important question is completely irrelevant to the discussion, and why I'm taking part in it. Try again.