God Exists

[Mister Agenda]

You made claims. Those are what need to be defended. Atheism is merely not believing any God or gods are actually real.

If you're a rational person with a normally functioning brain, then you must have good reasons for not believing in God. Otherwise, it's just some emotional preference that doesn't warrant a discussion. For example, you may believe there's no God because there's no scientific evidence for His existence. If these kinds of reasons can be attacked and successfully destroyed, then that leaves a person with no good reason to not believe in God.

Since, to the best of my knowledge, you can't read my mind; you will have to ask what my reasons are or wait until I post them. This is your thread, your topic, and you have presented ideas that you need to defend. It's poor form to derail your own thread.

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It is if that physical reality goes through changes and processes.

That is a mere assertion supported by nothing.

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If existence (rather than just this iteration of a cosmos) has a beginning, and time began at that same beginning (as seems to be the case for our cosmos), then physical reality always existed, since time has no meaning 'before' the beginning of time unless there's a larger cosmos with its own time that this one sprang from.

This is very convoluted and loaded with hidden premises. Reality is a complete set of all that exists. This would include all physical things, as well as everything else (if there exists things that are not of matter and energy).

Also, how you've described things appears to be logically incoherent. First you say matter and energy didn't always exist. Then you say because matter and energy didn't always exist that therefore it has always existed.

Perhaps it would help you if you thought of reality as a set which includes all matter and energy. Now ask yourself if this set has ever been emptied of matter and energy. And if you're a materialist then I suppose you could yourself if the set has ever been empty. Try not to get too hung up on the language of this question.

I distinguished between existence (or reality) and this cosmos (our space time continuum). I don't see how that counts as hiding my premises rather than failure of comprehension on your end.

That's a mischaracterization of what I said: I didn't say matter and energy didn't always exist. I said if reality had a beginning, everything would have always existed. That is because to exist throughout time is to exist always, even if time had a beginning. Which seems to definitely be the case in our cosmos; although it may not be true of any 'larger' reality our cosmos might exist within.

I don't believe an empty set for reality is possible. When would it have existed? Without time, 'nowhen'.

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This cosmos is past-finite, yet it has also existed since time began.

Yes, but did it exist timelessly? If it only existed in time (because time is interwoven in matter and energy), then it follows that there was a state of affairs where matter and energy and time did not exist.

Timeless existence is an oxymoron. How long do you think something existed timelessly? It's a mere assertion to say 'it follows' that there was a state of affairs where matter and energy and time did not exist. Why does it follow, besides your intuitions?

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God doesn't have to change for an infinite past to be a problem. Merely existing brings in all the same objections. How long did God wait in the infinite past before creating the universe?

He didn't "wait" at all, being in a timeless state. This makes sense because causally prior to His creation of matter and energy there was no time. It was only after His creation that He entered into a time relationship.

A timeless state and an infinite past are contradictory. He cannot have existed before time, the phrase 'before time' is meaningless when applied to all of reality rather than a particular cosmos.

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It's not that simple. Many atheists constantly whine about religion, theists, and so-called indoctrination without providing any good reasons for why they're atheist in the first place. It's all very desperate and angry. That's the impression I get anyways.

There's actually a study that shows people are likely to perceive atheists are angry even when they're not. At any rate, your impression of how angry we are has nothing to do with whether or not your supernatural beliefs are true.

https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewco...ext=psyfac

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Wrong, one needs (good) reasons to believe in shit, not the opposite. Reasoning 101 . You are trying to shift the burden of proof.

Nice try tho. 2/10

So, you don't have any good reasons to not believe in God? I believe it. I bet you don't believe in God for emotional reasons. I explained this in a previous post.

Nice try tho.

1/10

You should have good reasons to believe in something, proportionate to the extraordinariness of the claim. Lack of good reasons to believe in something proportionate to what you're being asked to believe is a sufficient reason to provisionally withhold belief in it until sufficient reason to rationally justify belief is obtained.