(May 2, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Lek Wrote:(May 2, 2015 at 2:57 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Sure, but so are the Iliad and the Odyssey, not to mention the Koran and the sacred books of Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Only a fool, though, takes such books at face value. Such books are a very low grade of evidence, so you are going to need something else to make your beliefs even close to reasonable.
The bible is far superior to any other "holy book. It consists of a series of books written over many centuries, by numerous authors from different time periods, which carry on the message of the coming messiah. Jesus fulfilled the prophecies. The Koran all hangs on the testimony of one man. Hindus' writings are so fractured as to be incohesive. They just keep creating more and more gods.
It is easy to write a book that pretends to fulfill prophesies made in another book. I could do it with any text that makes prophesies, and so could you. So that is evidence of nothing.
Additionally, the Bible is known to be in error. For example, the Israelites slavery in Egypt and spending 40 years wandering in the desert are known by archeologists to be false.
Your analysis of the Koran versus the Bible is ridiculous. A committee can lie just as easily as a single man, if that is what they wish to do so. Additionally, you very casually dismiss other ancient texts without giving them the same consideration you give the Bible. In other words, you are just prejudging them. Which is to say, you are prejudiced against them, and prejudiced in favor of the Bible.
(May 2, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Lek Wrote:(May 2, 2015 at 2:57 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: I could take a philosophical approach, and ask you to prove that things cannot create something out of nothing, but I will set that bit aside for the moment.
That wouldn't be scientific.
Who said it was? As you are not inclined to be scientific, it is an irrelevant and hypocritical objection.
(May 2, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Lek Wrote:(May 2, 2015 at 2:57 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: In order for your argument to have any traction, you need to prove that the universe has not always existed. If the universe has always existed, then not only does it not need a creator, it cannot have one.
If you mention the Big Bang in connection with this, that isn't going to get you what you need for this. Right now, scientists tell us that the universe is expanding. It is possible that the universe will continue to expand forever. Another possibility, though, is that eventually gravity will slow everything down, and pull everything back together. If that happens, then things will be going at tremendous speed when they eventually collide, causing a very big bang. Perhaps that is what has happened in the past, and has been going on over and over again forever. For you to make use of the Big Bang as evidence, you will have to prove that that is not the case, and I defy you to do that to the satisfaction of physicists who study such things.
Natural law doesn't allow for something to come from nothing.
If the universe always existed, something would not be coming from nothing. Something would always exist. Which is something you must allow to be possible, or God could not always have existed, and would need a beginning as well.
Indeed, the universe always existing fits best with our experience, as we have never witnessed universes being created or destroyed.
(May 2, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Lek Wrote: There is also no way for science or mathematics to prove that the universe always existed.
That is irrelevant. For the present purposes, all that is necessary is for this to be a possibility.
(May 2, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Lek Wrote: You must step outside of your scientific box in order to contemplate that abstract idea. You must use a different type of reasoning to come to the conclusion that what exists in the phyhscal world always existed and never had a beginning, which is what theists do.
Again, that is a hypocritical objection. I never stated that science had all the answers. Indeed, since it is an ongoing process, no sane scientist would say that science presently has all of the answers.
(May 2, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Lek Wrote:(May 2, 2015 at 2:57 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: No, it shows no such thing. There could easily be nothing outside the universe. You will have to come up with actual evidence that something exists outside of the universe for your story to be reasonable to believe.
Can natural laws account for the universe to expand into something that doesn't exist?
What is the problem with something expanding into nothing (which is another word for "something that doesn't exist")? If there is nothing other than the universe, then what is there to stop the expansion? There would have to be something in order for the universe to run into anything and be stopped from expanding.
(May 2, 2015 at 7:35 pm)Lek Wrote:(May 2, 2015 at 2:57 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: Your feelings about Christianity are the same as many Muslims report about their feelings about Islam. Your feelings are no better evidence than their feelings. And since you both cannot be right, this means that your feelings prove absolutely nothing at all.
If you had been raised a Muslim, right now you would very likely be regarding your feelings as proof that Islam is true. Or if you had been raised a Hindu, you would probably be regarding your feelings as proof that Hinduism is true.
Basically, what you are telling us is worthless as evidence. You only feel it is valuable because you have largely ignored the fact that people of other religions feel precisely the same way about their religions.
If the evidence is truthful and leads someone to discover God, then it is very worthwhile evidence.
...
You are begging the question with that. You assume that your position is the truth, and then you say that anything that leads someone to it is good. And that is also very poor reasoning, as any logician will tell you. A fallacious argument that accidentally has a truthful conclusion is still a fallacious argument and an example of bad reasoning.
With the feelings that Muslims have that Islam is true, does that prove that Islam is true? If not, then feelings do not prove anything. Which means, your feelings that Christianity are true prove nothing whatsoever about the truth or falsehood of Christianity.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.