Attn: Theists - What would it take to prove you wrong?

[Silver]

I never said I knew but I'm sure pretty certain God exists for a number of reasons.

but God does actually exist

Liar

He has been waffling back and forth for a while now. I was wondering when someone else was going to catch him in the act.

[discipulus]

Actually, I am just asking for you to clarify your views so I can understand them.

You see, I liken this exchange to us sitting at a table at a coffee shop and I am asking you about your views because I am interested in understanding how you, as an atheist, answer certain questions that I happen to think are important.

Instead of assuming you believe a ....b.....and c..... I am simply asking you what you believe.

I shall ponder what you have said thus far and get back with you.

You could have started by stating this. Why the cloak and dagger?

I have stated this several times already.

[The Reality Salesman01]

@discipulus

What the hell are you talking about? This is the creepiest coffe table conversation I've ever had. You end it by walking away?!! I feel so unsatisfied.

[Bad Writer]

This is why faith is a disease; it gets people to respond to outside stimuli irrationally, such as when we talk to SoC about god.

[The Reality Salesman01]

I think I've got to hang it up for the night. Have fun BWS! Don't be too hard on the poor souls. Lol...see y'all tomorrow.

[Chas]

Do you understand now? Your argument might as well just show that "stuff exists, and used to be other stuff" QED. You are missing your point by a LONG shot.

It's just a simple deduction of logic. If something begins to exist then something caused it to exist. If something didn't cause it to exist then it wouldn't have begun to exist. We know everything that exists, that didn't always exist, must have been made by something else that exists. The universe we know for a fact had a beginning with the BB therefore it is something that began to exist. This is just factually what we know.

But you claim your god is eternal. Equally logically, I say the universe is eternal.

You eternal god has no cause, so if not caused it can't exist.

[Jackalope]

The correct answers to the the two questions above are the only "debate" the KCA requires. It renders the assertions made in the first two premises false (or at least, unknowable).

How so?

Premise 1 - all things that begin to exist have a cause.

This is not known to be true. As an examples, virtual particles come into existence without known cause.

Premise 2 - the universe began to exist.

This is also not known to be true. We know, and likely can know, nothing about the state of the universe prior to 1 unit of Planck time after the big bang. Therefore, we do not know that the universe began to exist, or whether it existed eternally, and began to expand.

The validity of an argument depends on the truth of it's propositions. The truth value of the KCA's premises are currently unknown, ergo, the argument is not valid.

QED

[pocaracas]

We don't care that god exists because it's not our claim.

No no you're claiming you should not believe God exists unless you have 100% certain scientific proof of some kind (which we don't have obviously). I'm saying you should believe God exists and I'm explaining why you should believe God exists with the logic I've just given you. I'm not just stating what I believe without proof here, I've given you good logical reasons for the belief. It's a very simple deduction of cause and effect and the nature of the single cause of all the effects that exist, whether it be in this universe, other universes or whatever else that exists in reality. You must have one single starting point in common for everything and the starting point has no start itself (point of creation), ie it is outside of time/events in a sequence. You have the cause of the sequence of all events everywhere, and so the prime mover. There is no burden of proof needed for this it follows logically to a conclusion. If there was no cause then there could have been no effects but there was an effect if we're here. There must be only one cause for everything and whatever caused everything is uncaused.

ok, let's assume, for a moment, there was actually something that caused the Universe into existence.
How do you jump from that to "it was a very complex entity with amazing powers"?
And then, how do you go from that to "it was the god of love, who hates people who don't believe it exists, based solely on what other people tell them"?

I prefer the "I don't know" position. And, as far as I've been made aware from other threads, so do most atheists around here.
Our current knowledge of the Universe's past extends only to the big bang... and it is riddled with assumptions. Somewhat reasonable assumptions, but assumptions nonetheless.
What was before the big bang may be a sea of empty space stock full of virtual particles.... or... there was no before the big bang and nothing can be said about it... or...we don't know... maybe someday we'll find out... maybe not.
But the one thing we don't do is assume a complex entity exists in order to create the simpler Universe. This "god hypothesis" is merited, by us, less than one percent odds of turning out to be reality. Some award it a big fat round zero%.

This is how logic works.

[Walking Void]

Sword of Christ, not everything that is vague to us would really have to possess a god explanation where science does not yet.

If You were interested in the wonders of the universe before the big bang, You might try to find a logical theory for how this even works.

I myself am interested in the big crunch theory, because it allows a cyclic lifespan of the space We understand to be our universe. What this means, is that perhaps space, energy, particles, laws, were never created if they have always been there. This is not demanding of a creator to have produced our living space, especially the earth.

Here is an interesting article hosted on HowStuffWorks:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/diction...crunch.htm

[Sword of Christ]

But you claim your god is eternal. Equally logically, I say the universe is eternal.

...But we know the universe isn't eternal though. Big Bang? The beginning of time and space? The cosmic background radiation? The laws of thermodynamics?

You eternal god has no cause, so if not caused it can't exist.

God isn't meant to have a cause God is the cause, being the cause of all things that are caused is the idea. Without a cause nothing can be caused.