My House Did not have a Builder (or did it?)

[vulcanlogician]

That's why I think it is a good thing when theists come to drop their "science" here. It is exposing their dogmas to scrutiny from people outside of their little bubble. If they pay attention to the replies to their arguments, it could potentially be an educational experience. It the very least it prompts a "not confirmed" response which is step one in challenging confirmation bias.

[bennyboy]

Creationists never bother to read and learn though.

No, because they seek only to confirm their beliefs, never to challenge them.

I have to believe that at least some Christians see deliberate ignorance as an offence to God, rather than as an act of faith.  Perhaps the percentage will change as generations go through the technological age with access to good information.

[Ravenshire]

I have to believe that at least some Christians see deliberate ignorance as an offence to God, rather than as an act of faith.

Why? Their own holy book describes the inhabitants of the original paradise as completely ignorant and forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge.

If they believe that buy-bull is the word of gawd, or at least gawd inspired, then it would follow they find ignorance to be a virtue.

[bennyboy]

I have to believe that at least some Christians see deliberate ignorance as an offence to God, rather than as an act of faith.

Why? Their own holy book describes the inhabitants of the original paradise as completely ignorant and forbidden to eat of the tree of knowledge.

If they believe that buy-bull is the word of gawd, or at least gawd inspired, then it would follow they find ignorance to be a virtue.

If God is to be found only in the Bible, then God is a figment of the imaginations of ancient desert dwellers.  If God is a real presence in reality, then to study reality is to love God. Christians who will favor the Bible over a study of the actual evidence that God must have left writ all over the cosmos are doing nothing but ancestor worship-- they have no interest in a living God.

[Pat Mustard]

(If a house shows up in a neighborhood, and no one saw it being built, did it have a builder?)

"From nothing nothing comes" is scientific. (I think it still is, isn't it? Under debate, maybe).
"The universe is something." I think that would be classified as a true statement.
"Therefore the universe came from something." I think that would be a nice logical conclusion.
Now, since it is universally observed (which observation is required in order for anything to be classified as scientific), that anything made has a maker, some consideration should be taken as to the nature of the maker of a given thing.
The maker of a wooden chair just needs to know enough about woodworking in order to have planned and accomplished the fashioning and construction of the chair. It is a functional item, with a useful purpose, so it would require intelligence to accomplish the production of a wooden chair, albeit not necessarily a great intelligence, because the item is not very complex.
A Rolex watch also requires a maker, and one who needs enough intelligence to make all the small intricate parts of the watch, and to make them all work together correctly and properly, and over a long period of time. The maker would have to know how to tell time, and how to cause the made item to also be able to tell time. This item is also quite functional, and also has a useful purpose, but since it is much more complex than a wooden chair, it requires more intelligence, and more labor as well, to accomplish the production of it.
Now the same could be said of a house, a hotel, a hospital, a skyscraper, or an entire city. Each requiring more intelligence, more organization, and more manpower to accomplish it's respective product.
So using this same reasoning, (and I think it is logical reasoning. Correct me if I am wrong), we must assume that the level of intelligence, organization, and power required to accomplish such a thing as an entire universe, and not just any universe, with all of it's nearly innumerable complexities, but a universe in which there is life, and not just life, but an astoundingly wide variety of forms of life, each with their various levels of intelligence, purpose, and function- I say we must assume that the level of intelligence, organization, and power required to accomplish this is utterly incalculable.
I think that conclusion is quite logical, and about as scientific as we can be, since, though we did not witness the creation of the universe, all other things that we know to be made are also known to have a maker, and the making of such made things can be observed. It would I think, therefore be quite an illogical conclusion that the universe itself could not have a maker.

(If a universe comes into existence, and no one saw it being made, did it have a maker?)

So you're going for the design fallacy. Try and find out what happened to Paley's watch some day.

Oh, and this is obviously a cut and paste job, from all the tags wrapped around each paragraph. If you're going to hit us with nonsense, please let it be your own nonsense in future.

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Hello, OP.

The universe is very similar in its building blocks; for example you always have standards that make up what we know.
For instance; it's a standards that life as we know it require water. It's also a standard that Chemical reactions take place everywhere we know. The Physical realm we are a part of, is the same physical realm for others.

The design is unified; or in other words: was made by the same entity.
Even when we exclude this theory; we remain with the atoms that caused the big bang: where did they come from? It becomes an unbreakable loop until we break free from it with the assumption, that an infinite, stronger force we know nothing about -God-, existed and made the big bang happen.

The difference between theism and atheism; to me; is this exact spot: some believe the creator is intelligent; others believe the creator was thoughtless particles that exploded.

What creator? The whole thing makes itself.

---

Yes.  I am a god.  Now kneel down before me,  suckers!

Can I be excused on account of my bad knee? I've got a letter from my doctor.

PS I'm sorry I came in here, OP is obviously either a troll or from BJU and on assignment to convert some heathens with his knockdown second century knowledge.

[WinterHold]

[bennyboy]

Atlas, here's your problem. If you push on it, the final answer will be "I don't know!" And you will then happily proclaim, "Aha! You don't know, therefore God!"

This is an epic logic fail. The fact is that the origins of the Universe are unknown, and currently unknowable. But making shit up isn't an improvement over just not knowing.

[Dan Brooks]

I used to say, "In the beginning, God made man in His own image. In the end, man made God in his own image." 
Yes, people have and do create gods in their image and likeness. This happens all the time. They can't deal with a God they can't relate to, so they make one that they can relate to. 
There's an interesting story in the book of Jasher about what Abram did to his father Terah's gods. He asked him who it was that made mankind and the heavens and the earth, and his father took him to a room filled with idols and said, "These are they which made us, and everything there is." So one day when Terah wasn't around, Abram went in there with a meal to offer to them, and he saw that none of them reached out to take the meal. So he took a hatchet and broke them all except for the largest one, and put the hatchet into the hands of the largest one, and left.
Later on, Terah went into the room and saw all his gods destroyed except the large one with the hatchet in it, and he said to Abram, "What have you done?" And Abram said, "I did nothing. The large god took the hatchet and destroyed all the smaller gods." And Terah said to him," Why do you lie? Do gods of stone and wood, which I have made myself, have any power or spirit in them to move about and do such things?" And Abram answered, "Why then do you serve them, seeing that they have no power or spirit in them. How can they protect you or provide for you?"
So yes, people do make gods to relate to. And those gods are fake. They have no power to do anything. Like the Bible says, "Eyes have they, but they see not. Ears have they, but they hear not. Mouths have they, but they speak not. Hands have they but they handle not. And those that make them are like unto them."
Let's say someone you know made a figurine in your likeness, and put it in the main room of their house. You may be quite flattered at first. But they didn't stop there. They not only made the figurine, but they spoke to it every day and had imaginary conversations with it, as if it were really you. You would probably think they had gone mad. But after a while, you would not only think that, but you would probably start getting upset and wonder why they are acting as though the figurine is actually you, and ignoring the real you. 
The figurine isn't alive, and can't do anything, and is obviously a very poor substitute for the real you. But the fact that there is a lifeless figurine of you doesn't relegate the real you into nonexistence. You still exist, and you're much better than the stupid figurine of you that just sits there doing nothing. 
So also does the fact that people make up lifeless gods that do nothing relegate the real God into nonexistence. That is, the fact that there are false gods is not evidence that there isn't a real God.

Your god is most certainly man made. Evidence : There is no knowledge in the bible attributed to god that a bronze aged man could not have known or imagined. What is amusing is that otherwise intelligent people are repeating this magician in the sky nonsense as if it holds up under minimal scrutiny. Cure for tuberculosis? Birds blood spread by the flapping wings of a live bird. Cures for other diseases? Incantations and gesticulations. Get real!

What are you talking about? With the cure thing. I've never heard of that other than in witchcraft, which God forbids. And if a bronze age mad could imagine a god like the one the Bible speaks of, then why did they have so many of them? And how did they think they making an image out of stone and wood could accurately portray Him, when He specifically says they cannot, and forbids doing it? If the biblical concept of God were so easy to see and imagine, why didn't everyone just worship one individual invisible spiritual being who created everything? That concept is quite contrary to the ideas of the old gods they made up. At least they knew that there had to have been some sort of god or multiple gods who made everything, but their concept of who this god or these gods were was quite inferior to how the Bible reveals God. Of course there were those who did believe in and know the real God, but that's because He revealed Himself to them. But those who didn't know Him had a really  hard time believing in one individual God who could do everything God did, and be like Him. And that's still true today as well. God, the way He actually is, is impossible to imagine without information being given to us about Him. And even with the information we do have of Him, we still don't know Him fully as He is. Like Paul said, We see through a glass darkly at this point.

[vulcanlogician]

What are you talking about? With the cure thing. I've never heard of that other than in witchcraft, which God forbids.

Leviticus 14:1-7

[Dan Brooks]