(October 11, 2009 at 8:48 pm)ecolox Wrote: To give life to the universe perhaps, unless you think nothing did it?
False dichotomy. Why does it have to be God or nothing at all? Why can't something spark creation off, or something simpler be there originally, rather than a supernatural Creator, a Deity, "God" doing it or being there originally?
How come God is exempt from explanation? Isn't a singularity + God more complex than a singularity?
I ask how God is required, not how a cause is required. It's a fallacy of False Dichotomy to say it's either God or it's not caused at all. If you play it that way, you get the answer you
want in a single step. Unfortunately for you, it's a fallacious one because it's false dichotomy.
Quote:I don't understand why you think universes just exist.
I don't. But I don't understand why you think God just exists.
I'm saying that by
your reasoning I could just as easily posit the universe existing all along instead of God, or, IOW, I could posit a singularity like the Big Bang - or even just the laws of physics themselves. What makes you think you can get away with
God just being there from the begining?
I'm saying the universe could exist as a simple singularity and then expanded, or it could have a singularity as a cause. What makes you think that the complexity of a Supernatural Creator, of "God", is required in this matter? Why does it have to be God existing at the beginning, or non-temporally, why does
he have to be the creator? It's more parsimonious the cut-out the middle man is it not? If you fail to give evidence as to why "God" makes matters any easier.
Quote:I know. You say "it came from nothing" or "I don't know - because I don't want to say what I really think". God is required to fill the void your brain creates.
1. I never said it came for nothing.
2. I indeed don't know the very deepest origin of the universe, nor does anyone to my knowledge, even the top scientists are still working on it and even they may never know,.
3. '1.' and '2.' are not the same thing. As for '2.' I don't know because there's no evidence that I know of of the exact beginning origins right from he start...as for '.1' that's a claim I never made, that I couldn't possibly know, and doesn't even appear to make any sense.
Quote:I think the universe is more than enough evidence of God.
You can think what you want but it doesn't make it so. How is it evidence whatsoever? I ask what the evidence is, and you say "The universe" or IOW, "everything", oh, very helpful(!)
What are you actually talking about?
Quote:Strawman. I didn't expect evolution to do something it isn't supposed to, but evolution is incomplete in what it is supposed to explain.
I don't think it is a Strawman. Did you not say that Evolution fails to explain life? Because it's not supposed to...that's what I mean't by you expecting it to do something that it isn't supposed to. Because it
isn't 'incomplete' by not explaining life, because that's not what evolution is about. Evolution is about how life evolves, it's not about how life originally got here, it's not supposed to explain life itself.
Quote:I didn't say evolution is supposed to explain everything, so there isn't much point in jabbering on about that.
And did I say you said that? I believe I just read that you said that it is incomplete because it doesn't explain life...and it's not supposed to because that's not what evolution is about. I don't believe I ever said that you said it's supposed to explain
everything??
Quote:...and what about God? How does he explain it? He doesn't: Because he's just asserted as an explanation, and an explanation isn't an explanation if it's just a completely unwarranted baseless assertion.
Quote:God explains the universe because He is an eternal thinker that could create the universe we experience.
Circular reasoning. You can't use
him as an eternal thinker to explain
him who is an eternal thinker. Explain how he can even exist, and exist as an 'eternal thinker', instead of just asserting he exists because he is an eternal thinker. Asserting that barely doesn't explain a thing.
How can you use him existing as an eternal thinker to explain he exists?? You have to explain that he exists
first.
Quote:According to you, if your answer isn't nothing, then what is the explanation? Dawkins would say not to ask that question.
I don't know the answer of where the universe comes from - I've already told you that - and neither do you: You don't know either - or I sincerely doubt it: You just say you know. How can you?
Admitting that we don't know, or we don't know
at least yet, is better than pretending to have the answer to the question when we don't. Admitting to not know is better than a fallacious answer.
Any explanation is not logically better than no explanation, that's fallacious reasoning: A non-sequitur.
A fallacious explanation is, well, fallacious. So how is that "better" than admitting you don't know when you don't? If you don't know then it's correct to say you don't: What good does it do, on the other hand, do base your entire argument on fallacious reasoning?
Quote:God is the critical answer that gives life meaning. Your answer of "I don't know" or "nothing" doesn't give life meaning, it means life is meaningless (except in the meaningless sense).
That's your opinion and also entirely irrelevant to the truth of the matter of whether God exists or not.
Quote:Well, when you wonder about the meaning of your life you define it in terms that suit you - a life that ends in destruction - free from responsibility.
I take responsibility for my life rather than basing it on what "God" wants. And...how does me not believing in God remotely prevent me from being responsible?
Quote:When I consider the meaning of life I define it unselfishly in terms of God - a life that ends in Judgment.
This is all your own subjective opinion of what is meaning, your own aesthetics.
I can care about people, I can be unselfish,
without God. So where's your evidence that you can only be moral with God?
I find the world inspiring to live in. So where is your evidence that there can be no meaning without God?
Quote:I live every day trying to walk the straight and narrow that Jesus described - the only lifestyle that God will have mercy upon and is pleased with... It is a life that is beneficial to mankind as a whole and nature too.
Being a good person and living a good life in general is beneficial to mankind...whether you're a believer or non-believer in God.
Quote: I believe in giving even when the favor will not be returned (e.g. helping the poor), forgiving people, confronting and settling disputes, and so on.
Me too. I can care without God, believing in him doesn't give you special powers of kindness. If it did, then how come non-religious people can give a shit?
Quote:These are the lessons of the Bible - they support true growth, growth that will last and not turn sour.
They're obvious to anyone who cares, religious person or irreligious person.
Quote:You say everything needs an explanation, but what you mean is...everything except God! You refuse to explain God! Why?
Quote:Everything that we can see/experience-first-hand especially needs an explanation. We cannot gather evidence about God in the same way that we can gather evidence about the universe. God is one step beyond...or so.
I could just as easily say that the universe was at the beginning, and was a 'step beyond' so didn't need evidence, and so "God" wouldn't be required. How does the extra complexity of a deity help deal with the universe? If the universe has origins at some form of singularity, or the laws of physics themselves, or whatever started that - How does God make the issue any easier?
You are committing the special pleading fallacy, it's fallacious reasoning on your part. You have got no excuse to demand that God doesn't need an explanation and can "Go beyond" and that the universe does and can't.
Quote:God is eternal - and unexplainable.
I could just as easily say that the origins of the universe in secular terms, without a deity, are "unexplainable", I could suggest the notion that the origin of the very origin of the laws of physics themselves may never be able to be explained by science: I could say that was out of reach and unexplainable. Why is the complexity of a deity needed? Your reasoning is fallacious: You are special pleading God as the only thing that doesn't require an explanation, without logically justifying that.
EvF