(August 10, 2016 at 6:11 am)robvalue Wrote: So under all the drivel Snowtracks, it's fear of hell again.It’s circular reasoning to presuppose that miracles are impossible and conclude that God who performs miracles cannot exist. Miracles are not falsifiable since it’s possible to conceive of an argument that would make miracles possible, one being that God exist.
Well, I don't think it's a real place. Even if I did, I wouldn't kiss the arse of some external being on the hope that it will stick to its word while holding my future hostage. That's not about knowledge, it's about surrendering all of my humanity and dignity to a fascist dictator.
What else have you got?
Yes, scientific enquiry is a motivation. But you don't provide science. If there was anything to investigate and any way to investigate it, I'd be all over it.
If the universe had a beginning then the cause of beginning must lie outside of the universe, if the cause is outside the universe, then by definition the cause is some kind of miracle. At this point not saying God caused the miracle, but saying that the cause is not detectable by science which only detects and measures the natural realm, “past-eternal” universe is only a meta-physical speculation.
Astronomers have measurements showing that the universe is expanding and has been expanding at all look back times (because of the finite and constant velocity of light, the farther away an astronomer looks, the farther back in time he is observing). As astronomers look back in time they note that the galaxies get progressively closer together and the temperature of the universe measures progressively hotter in a manner that can be explained only if the universe arose from an infinitesimally small volume and an infinitely high temperature … “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.”, Ref*
*Vilenkin singularity theorem in book - Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes.
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Quote: So under all the drivel Snowtracks, it's fear of hell again.
God made the Garden-of-Eden very good (not perfect), but made it even better by introducing free-will. God knows that it's better to have free-will with sin and evil, than no free-will with evil. Remember, any discomfort of hell is self-imposed by declaring independence from God (People should at least know that His nature is 'good' to an infinity degree).
Atheist Credo: An universe by chance that also just happened to admit the observer by chance.