Please Present The Best Explanation For Our Existence

[Astreja]

BellyGod, you have convinced me! I'm going to convert to Zoroastrianism.

 

And then you'd have Freddie Mercury as a coreligionist instead of B.I.G. Win-win.

[Astreja]

...Naturalism is based on a naturalist philosophy, namely that a supernatural power does not exist. Since Gods existence cannot be proven, naturalism cannot claim to be true.

It doesn't need to be "true," B.I.G.

 

It just needs to be more likely than an eternally-existing, immensely powerful, universe-creating being pretending to kill himself for half a Friday, all day Saturday and a bit of Sunday morning so it would not feel compelled to torture thinking beings for eternity because their long-dead ancestors decided to listen to a Talking Snake™ instead of him.

[midniterider]

...Naturalism is based on a naturalist philosophy, namely that a supernatural power does not exist. Since Gods existence cannot be proven, naturalism cannot claim to be true.

It doesn't need to be "true," B.I.G.

 

It just needs to be more likely than an eternally-existing, immensely powerful, universe-creating being pretending to kill himself for half a Friday, all day Saturday and a bit of Sunday morning so it would not feel compelled to torture thinking beings for eternity because their long-dead ancestors decided to listen to a Talking Snake™ instead of him.

 

That is a fantastic summary of Christianity... lulz.

[skepticalme]

Naturalism is based on the truth as best as we can find it.

 

No , naturalism is based on a naturalist philosophy, namely that a supernatural power does not exist. Since Gods existence cannot be proven, naturalism cannot claim to be true.

 

Since god's existance can not be proven then this argument would seem to refute creationism as well.

 

The natural is know to exist, the supernatural is not.

[skepticalme]

i am not a specialist about bad design, and maibe you are right, and the answers are not satisfying . But so what ? there are also things in the bible, that leave a interrogation point. There is not everything 100% explained in a manner, that satisifies me. But when i look to all other alternatives, aka atheism/naturalism , for example, the provided explanations do not withstand scrutiny at all. Naturalism is falling the truth test easily, and obviously. But, feel free to present reasons, which might change the vision of things i have. So far, all here have fallen short to come up with a consistent explanation and world view.

 

Wow, you have thoroughly debunked the world of science in a single post. I'll be sure and alert Stephen Hawking so he can get the ball rolling letting the world community of science know that all their peer reviews, all their tests, all their elegant findings, moreover all the technology we have grown to love and enjoy that have resulted from their efforts, have been for naught and are merely a pretty illusion.

 

Or, you are just too uninformed, disinterested and perhaps lack the mental capacity to take it all in and see the implications of what mankind has discovered over the past few millenia.

 

since when is there a peer reviewed report about HOW the Big Bang started, what caused it ?

 

You are making the Kalam Cosmological argument. This argument is flawed because it assumes causality outside of time. We know from the Einstein paradoxes that causality is a product of linear time moving from past to future. The Big Bang was to start of time so no causal chain can be followed backwards from that point. We have no framework with which to model causality in dimensions higher than time if it exist at all. We know that on the quantum scale, a scale that the universe once occupied, things do happen uncaused. Virtual particles pop into existance from nothing and are responsible for the Kashmir effect and black hole evaporation.

 

The Kalam argument fails in another way when proponents of it try to apply it to their own explainations. If everthing needs a cause then what caused god? Most will claim that god is outside of time and doesn't need a cause. Well since time occurs WITHIN the universe, then there are components of the universe (higher dimensions) that are outside of time as well. Thus, if god can exist uncaused then so can the universe. The Kalam argument fails its own test.

[bornagainathiest]

i am not a specialist about bad design, and maibe you are right, and the answers are not satisfying . But so what ? there are also things in the bible, that leave a interrogation point. There is not everything 100% explained in a manner, that satisifies me. But when i look to all other alternatives, aka atheism/naturalism , for example, the provided explanations do not withstand scrutiny at all. Naturalism is falling the truth test easily, and obviously. But, feel free to present reasons, which might change the vision of things i have. So far, all here have fallen short to come up with a consistent explanation and world view.

 

Wow, you have thoroughly debunked the world of science in a single post. I'll be sure and alert Stephen Hawking so he can get the ball rolling letting the world community of science know that all their peer reviews, all their tests, all their elegant findings, moreover all the technology we have grown to love and enjoy that have resulted from their efforts, have been for naught and are merely a pretty illusion.

 

Or, you are just too uninformed, disinterested and perhaps lack the mental capacity to take it all in and see the implications of what mankind has discovered over the past few millenia.

 

since when is there a peer reviewed report about HOW the Big Bang started, what caused it ?

 

You are making the Kalam Cosmological argument. This argument is flawed because it assumes causality outside of time. We know from the Einstein paradoxes that causality is a product of linear time moving from past to future. The Big Bang was to start of time so no causal chain can be followed backwards from that point. We have no framework with which to model causality in dimensions higher than time if it exist at all. We know that on the quantum scale, a scale that the universe once occupied, things do happen uncaused. Virtual particles pop into existance from nothing and are responsible for the Kashmir effect and black hole evaporation.

 

The Kalam argument fails in another way when proponents of it try to apply it to their own explainations. If everthing needs a cause then what caused god? Most will claim that god is outside of time and doesn't need a cause. Well since time occurs WITHIN the universe, then there are components of the universe (higher dimensions) that are outside of time as well. Thus, if god can exist uncaused then so can the universe. The Kalam argument fails its own test.

 

Right on the money, Skeptical!

 

Fyi...and B.I.G.'s...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

 

Black Hole Evaporation is usually referred to as a manifestation of Hawking radiation.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

 

Btw, is this of interest?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMB_cold_spot

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

[believeingod]

 

 

I imagine these probabilities are based on very bad assumptions. Also, ultimately, our existence is a mathematical certainty. All the conditions that lead to our existence were present during the big bang. It seems as if part of the bad assumptions about a fined tuned universe is a narrow concept about what looks like. A thing or two being different might mean life AS WE KNOW IT wouldn't exist.

 

It means also, that our universe would not exist. the Big Bang had to be finely tuned as well.

 

http://www.unm.edu/~hdelaney/finetuning.html

 

Second BIG challenge to naturalism - vanishingly low probability that so many fundamental properties of the universe could be precisely as required for life to exist.

 

There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life.

P. Davies Int. J. of Astrobiology 2(2): 115, (2003).

 

1) Explosive power of the creation event precisely matched to power of gravity; density precisely matched with critical density, cosmological constant

 

 

 

If the force of explosion was only slightly higher, the universe would only consist of gas without stars, galaxies, or planets. Without stars, galaxies and planets, life could not exist. The matching had to be to the remarkable precision of one part in 1055. ... Some physicists believe that one explanation can be found in a model of an inflationary epoch at about 10-35 of the first second where a short period of accelerated expansion caused the perfect balance between gravity and the rate of expansion and density and critical density. This could explain the very flat characteristics of the universe given by these precise matchings, but the inflation required in this model would itself require an extraordinary fine tuning to yield the precisely balanced result. If the inflationary model is true, the inflationary epoch would contain enormous fine tuning and the precision of values issue is only removed one step.

 

 

Life as we know it exists because of the way the universe is rather than the universe being what it is simply for the sake of eventually suporting life. I like the water puddle arguement I heard from somewhere. The shape of a water puddle is a result of the shape of the hole it fits in. The hole isn't perfectly designed for the sake of being able to hold a puddle of that specific shape.

 

Of course you must like it. If fits your belief. But its terribly flawed.

 

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/theistic-proofs/the-teleological-argument/the-argument-from-fine-tuning/the-evolutionary-critique/

 

The evolutionary critique is fine as far as it goes. It does not, however, go very far.

Yes, evolution can provide at least a partial explanation of the appearance of design in biology: biological organisms evolved to fit their environment.

It cannot, however, explain the appearance of design in the circumstances of the Big Bang, our galaxy - solar - moon - earth tuning to life, or in the laws of physics. These, unlike biological organisms, have not evolved. Modern design arguments, which tend to focus on physics rather than biology, can therefore resist the evolutionary critique.

[believeingod]

You are making the Kalam Cosmological argument. This argument is flawed because it assumes causality outside of time. We know from the Einstein paradoxes that causality is a product of linear time moving from past to future. The Big Bang was to start of time so no causal chain can be followed backwards from that point.

 

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/grunbau.html

 

The Creator may be conceived to be causally, but not temporally, prior to the origin of the universe, such that the act of causing the universe to begin to exist is simultaneous with its beginning to exist.

 

Contemporary philosophical discussions of causal directionality deal routinely with cases in which cause and effect are simultaneous; indeed, a good case can be made that all temporal causal relations involve the simultaneity of cause and effect.

 

 

 

We have no framework with which to model causality in dimensions higher than time if it exist at all. We know that on the quantum scale, a scale that the universe once occupied, things do happen uncaused. Virtual particles pop into existance from nothing and are responsible for the Kashmir effect and black hole evaporation.

 

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/smith.html

 

John Barrow and Frank Tipler comment, ". . . the modern picture of the quantum vacuum differs radically from the classical and everyday meaning of a vacuum-- nothing. . . . The quantum vacuum (or vacuua, as there can exist many) states . . . are defined simply as local, or global, energy minima (V'(O)= O, V"(O)>O)" ([1986], p. 440). The microstructure of the quantum vacuum is a sea of continually forming and dissolving particles which borrow energy from the vacuum for their brief existence. A quantum vacuum is thus far from nothing, and vacuum fluctuations do not constitute an exception to the principle that whatever begins to exist has a cause.

 

The Kalam argument fails in another way when proponents of it try to apply it to their own explainations. If everthing needs a cause then what caused god?

 

http://www.gotquestions.org/who-created-God.html

 

Question: "Who created God? Where did God come from?"

 

Answer: A common argument from atheists and skeptics is that if all things need a cause, then God must also need a cause. The conclusion is that if God needed a cause, then God is not God (and if God is not God, then of course there is no God). This is a slightly more sophisticated form of the basic question “Who made God?” Everyone knows that something does not come from nothing. So, if God is a “something,” then He must have a cause, right?

 

The question is tricky because it sneaks in the false assumption that God came from somewhere and then asks where that might be. The answer is that the question does not even make sense. It is like asking, “What does blue smell like?” Blue is not in the category of things that have a smell, so the question itself is flawed. In the same way, God is not in the category of things that are created or caused. God is uncaused and uncreated—He simply exists.

 

How do we know this? We know that from nothing, nothing comes. So, if there were ever a time when there was absolutely nothing in existence, then nothing would have ever come into existence. But things do exist. Therefore, since there could never have been absolutely nothing, something had to have always been in existence. That ever-existing thing is what we call God. God is the uncaused Being that caused everything else to come into existence. God is the uncreated Creator who created the universe and everything in it.

 

 

Most will claim that god is outside of time and doesn't need a cause. Well since time occurs WITHIN the universe, then there are components of the universe (higher dimensions) that are outside of time as well. Thus, if god can exist uncaused then so can the universe. The Kalam argument fails its own test.

[bronxo]

This question is quite philosophical in nature. Finding an 'explanation' or cause for our existance, we always have to look further down the road. This problem is known as infinite regress. Some people solve this problem by inventing an omnipotent god who does not abide by any laws of nature we know.

 

However, this way of thinking presupposes an eternal and static universe. We know different now.

[Overcame Faith]

The question of how all that physically exists came to be is, I think, the ultimate question that humanity has always sought to answer. From what I understand, no one has the definitive answer; though I think science does a good job of coming forward from the big bang and explaining things in naturalistic terms to today. The problem, though, remains what happened before the big bang? It is somewhat appealing to accept the explanation that since everything in existence must have a cause and to go from there and hypothesize something that defies that rule so we have a true starting point. And, of course, that starting point for many is a being who is not physical, had no cause, is outside of time and space, and who must be the first cause of all that is physical. This being is said to be god.

 

Let's assume, for the sake of this discussion, that there was something that was uncreated, non-physical, and was the first cause for all that is physical. If we assume that, then here are some issues that remain unexplained:

 

1. If there was one such being, then why couldn't there be more than one?

2. And if there was more than one such being, then why couldn't they have worked in concert with one another to be the first causes (rather than there being only one first cause)?

3. If this being or beings was or were the first cause or causes of all that is physical, why does that require that it or they exist today? Maybe it or they somehow transformed themselves from non-physical to physical thus ending their non-physical existence and resulting in the physical universe in which we live today. And one's subjective experiences with this alleged creator (or creators) proves nothing more than that a person had some sort of subjective experience.

 

As you can see, even hypothesizing a first cause does not answer everything since I can speculate from that hypothesis with hypotheses of my own. The assumption is that there is only one first cause and that does not necessarily have to be the case.

[Vigile]

I think god created all we see and all that exists. He was just really, really, really slow about it and the life that he ultimately sacrificed his son for, sat in organic soup for billions of years before single-celled life grouped together with other single-celled life and began to have an advantage over their neighbors, ultimately leading to millions more years of multi celled, yet brainless life, which ultimately began to find more and more efficient ways of reproducing and adapting to changing environments. All the while, god had a plan to form humans, and souls (souls I tell ya) and from the earliest times in eternity, whatever that means, he hand picked a few creatures who owe their inheritance to those selfless lifeforms who spent billions of years stuck in organic soup, to worship and praise him forever while meanwhile many, many more are destined to gnash and grind their teeth because they don't buy the whole ball of what seems like malarkey, ad hoc reasoning and reverse idea engineering.

[Ouroboros]

The Creator may be conceived to be causally, but not temporally, prior to the origin of the universe, such that the act of causing the universe to begin to exist is simultaneous with its beginning to exist.

There's a logical error in your argument. Can you see it? Try to think about what the word "prior" means.

[MagickMonkey]

As you can see, even hypothesizing a first cause does not answer everything since I can speculate from that hypothesis with hypotheses of my own. The assumption is that there is only one first cause and that does not necessarily have to be the case.

 

I like that you use that word, speculate. All BIG is presenting is speculation that the ID types give the weight of established fact. When it comes to the origins of the universe, it's all really so far above any of our heads for any of us to claim to know exactly what it's all about. Theoretical Physicists come the closest to figuring it out, but that still leaves us with so much to speculate about. BIG and many other christians are so hungry for their false certainty that they can't help but give the weight of established fact to their speculations about how physics might prove their god. They act as if they've got some mathematical theorem to back them up.

 

"We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact." - Carl Sagan

[Overcame Faith]

As you can see, even hypothesizing a first cause does not answer everything since I can speculate from that hypothesis with hypotheses of my own. The assumption is that there is only one first cause and that does not necessarily have to be the case.

 

I like that you use that word, speculate. All BIG is presenting is speculation that the ID types give the weight of established fact. When it comes to the origins of the universe, it's all really so far above any of our heads for any of us to claim to know exactly what it's all about. Theoretical Physicists come the closest to figuring it out, but that still leaves us with so much to speculate about. BIG and many other christians are so hungry for their false certainty that they can't help but give the weight of established fact to their speculations about how physics might prove their god. They act as if they've got some mathematical theorem to back them up.

 

"We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact." - Carl Sagan

 

Right, once we attempt to explain what happened prior to the big bang, then we can all do our own speculating. They say one first cause and only one god, then I can say there could as well have been two or more first causes and, therefore, two or more gods. Maybe Apollo really was one of the first causes, along with other gods just as the Roman pantheon suggests. The Christian bias is in favor of monotheism and so they automatically limit themselves to only one creator god. But nothing in their argument requires but one creator god (except for their monotheistic bias).

[MagickMonkey]

As you can see, even hypothesizing a first cause does not answer everything since I can speculate from that hypothesis with hypotheses of my own. The assumption is that there is only one first cause and that does not necessarily have to be the case.

 

I like that you use that word, speculate. All BIG is presenting is speculation that the ID types give the weight of established fact. When it comes to the origins of the universe, it's all really so far above any of our heads for any of us to claim to know exactly what it's all about. Theoretical Physicists come the closest to figuring it out, but that still leaves us with so much to speculate about. BIG and many other christians are so hungry for their false certainty that they can't help but give the weight of established fact to their speculations about how physics might prove their god. They act as if they've got some mathematical theorem to back them up.

 

"We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact." - Carl Sagan

 

Right, once we attempt to explain what happened prior to the big bang, then we can all do our own speculating. They say one first cause and only one god, then I can say there could as well have been two or more first causes and, therefore, two or more gods. Maybe Apollo really was one of the first causes, along with other gods just as the Roman pantheon suggests.

 

Or non-god first causes. I still think no first cause is definitely a possiblity and perhaps a probability. Perhaps we should be looking simply at what caused space to expand. The changes in the universe may simply be an adjustment from infinite density to zero density. The number of possibilities are enormous, and some may seem somewhat more likely than others, but it's all speculation. If we look at time the way we do other dimensions, the idea of a first cause may not even make sense. Imagine you're looking at a ruler. What caused the ruler to start existing at the 0 cm mark? What caused the ruler to have length? And if there's a cloud of fog at the zero mark, does the ruler maybe extend before that, with -1 cm. -2 cm., etc. markings?

[Vigile]

 

When it comes to the origins of the universe, it's all really so far above any of our heads for any of us to claim to know exactly what it's all about. Theoretical Physicists come the closest to figuring it out, but that still leaves us with so much to speculate about. BIG and many other christians are so hungry for their false certainty that they can't help but give the weight of established fact to their speculations about how physics might prove their god. They act as if they've got some mathematical theorem to back them up.

 

They are completely disingenuous an intellectually dishonest. Theoretical physicists look at the facts and ask what do they mean and where do they lead, whereas theists look at the science and criticize it because it doesn't fit their paradigm. One group 'knows' the answers and thus reverse engineers select facts at the expense of other facts to fit what they already 'know' while the other group doesn't claim to know and seeks to discover.

 

Christianity professes a love for the truth and yet its adherents do everything they can to obfuscate anything that doesn't fit their paradigm. It's dishonest to the highest degree. I find it repugnant.

[Ouroboros]

They are completely disingenuous an intellectually dishonest. Theoretical physicists look at the facts and ask what do they mean and where do they lead, whereas theists look at the science and criticize it because it doesn't fit their paradigm. One group 'knows' the answers and thus reverse engineers select facts at the expense of other facts to fit what they already 'know' while the other group doesn't claim to know and seeks to discover.

 

Christianity professes a love for the truth and yet its adherents do everything they can to obfuscate anything that doesn't fit their paradigm. It's dishonest to the highest degree. I find it repugnant.

And it begins with dishonesty to oneself. When I discovered that I was just lying to myself, then the mind was free to think outside dogma.

[Vigile]

There is a massive difference in academic and intellectual commitment between the two as well. One group spends years in the university and labs and spends their days pouring over research and data while the other group might spend time sitting in front of the computer reading blogs in their own echo chamber, formulating ideas of attack on their enemy, or just watch youtube vids of someone who spends all their time on blogs and chat rooms of their own kind.

[bornagainathiest]

 

 

I imagine these probabilities are based on very bad assumptions. Also, ultimately, our existence is a mathematical certainty. All the conditions that lead to our existence were present during the big bang. It seems as if part of the bad assumptions about a fined tuned universe is a narrow concept about what looks like. A thing or two being different might mean life AS WE KNOW IT wouldn't exist.

 

It means also, that our universe would not exist. the Big Bang had to be finely tuned as well.

 

Correction.

If our observable universe is all that there is, THEN the Big Bang would have had to be finely tuned.

 

Since BBT logically leads to what is probably an infinite ensemble of pocket universes like ours, then there is no basis for claiming that only our observed universe exists. To cite and promote the BBT properly (without selective bias or hidden agenda) is to hold to ALL of it's logical conclusions.

 

Therefore, B.I.G. is once again cherry-picking from Cosmological science only what suits his purposes. He is NOT presenting the whole picture of the full implications of the Big Bang Theory. If he did that he would be forced to accept that Inflation has created a very much larger domain than the tiny portion we can see - our observable universe.

 

http://www.unm.edu/~...finetuning.html

 

Second BIG challenge to naturalism - vanishingly low probability that so many fundamental properties of the universe could be precisely as required for life to exist.

 

There is now broad agreement among physicists and cosmologists that the universe is in several respects ‘fine-tuned' for life.

P. Davies Int. J. of Astrobiology 2(2): 115, (2003).

 

1) Explosive power of the creation event precisely matched to power of gravity; density precisely matched with critical density, cosmological constant

 

If the force of explosion was only slightly higher, the universe would only consist of gas without stars, galaxies, or planets. Without stars, galaxies and planets, life could not exist. The matching had to be to the remarkable precision of one part in 1055. ... Some physicists believe that one explanation can be found in a model of an inflationary epoch at about 10-35 of the first second where a short period of accelerated expansion caused the perfect balance between gravity and the rate of expansion and density and critical density. This could explain the very flat characteristics of the universe given by these precise matchings, but the inflation required in this model would itself require an extraordinary fine tuning to yield the precisely balanced result. If the inflationary model is true, the inflationary epoch would contain enormous fine tuning and the precision of values issue is only removed one step.

 

As I have already explained, the argument for the Fine-Tuned universe only works if it's applied to the vanishingly small region of space that we call our observed universe. Quite why B.I.G. is persisting in this false 'number's game' is unknown to me.

 

I have already called his misuse of Cosmological science and terminology into question.

I'm also waiting patiently on his reply concerning Thermodynamic systems.

 

Simply pretending I'm not here won't work, B.I.G.

 

Please retract or revise the statements I've corrected you on, please cease and desist promoting the false notion of a Fine-Tuned universe, please answer my question and please re-engage in dialog with me so that we can resolve certain issues.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

 

Life as we know it exists because of the way the universe is rather than the universe being what it is simply for the sake of eventually suporting life. I like the water puddle arguement I heard from somewhere. The shape of a water puddle is a result of the shape of the hole it fits in. The hole isn't perfectly designed for the sake of being able to hold a puddle of that specific shape.

 

Of course you must like it. If fits your belief. But its terribly flawed.

 

http://www.philosoph...onary-critique/

 

The evolutionary critique is fine as far as it goes. It does not, however, go very far.

Yes, evolution can provide at least a partial explanation of the appearance of design in biology: biological organisms evolved to fit their environment.

It cannot, however, explain the appearance of design in the circumstances of the Big Bang, our galaxy - solar - moon - earth tuning to life, or in the laws of physics. These, unlike biological organisms, have not evolved. Modern design arguments, which tend to focus on physics rather than biology, can therefore resist the evolutionary critique.

[believeingod]

This question is quite philosophical in nature. Finding an 'explanation' or cause for our existance, we always have to look further down the road. This problem is known as infinite regress. Some people solve this problem by inventing an omnipotent god who does not abide by any laws of nature we know.

 

However, this way of thinking presupposes an eternal and static universe. We know different now.

 

No, it presupposes a eternal and static God, which created and entered time, and so, changed status.

[believeingod]

The question of how all that physically exists came to be is, I think, the ultimate question that humanity has always sought to answer. From what I understand, no one has the definitive answer; though I think science does a good job of coming forward from the big bang and explaining things in naturalistic terms to today.

 

I think it does a good job to show, how naturalistic explanations cannot account for the coming into existence of the universe, the fine tuning of it, it falls short of explaining how life started without god, and to present hard evidence for macro evolution, and many phenomenas, like sex, conscience, morals, etc.

 

 

1. If there was one such being, then why couldn't there be more than one?

 

that can be. With the doctrine of the trinity, we actually believe in a triune God.

 

2. And if there was more than one such being, then why couldn't they have worked in concert with one another to be the first causes (rather than there being only one first cause)?

 

That seems indeed to be the case. If we read Genesis, we can see that God is always in plural form : Let us cread this and that.

 

 

3. If this being or beings was or were the first cause or causes of all that is physical, why does that require that it or they exist today? Maybe it or they somehow transformed themselves from non-physical to physical thus ending their non-physical existence and resulting in the physical universe in which we live today.

 

that would make God temporal. This universe is however heading to heat death. But we christians believe, for a limited time, God became flesh in Jesus Christ.

 

 

And one's subjective experiences with this alleged creator (or creators) proves nothing more than that a person had some sort of subjective experience.

 

that is true. And there are many of them. I had many experience of God interveening in my life. If someone sees a blue strawberry, how would you convince that person, blue strawberrys do not exist ?

[believeingod]

The Creator may be conceived to be causally, but not temporally, prior to the origin of the universe, such that the act of causing the universe to begin to exist is simultaneous with its beginning to exist.

There's a logical error in your argument. Can you see it? Try to think about what the word "prior" means.

 

substitute it with beyond.

[Emilie]

 

if you think science can explain the cause of the universe, and life, please present the explanations. I am all ear.....

 

This is a bit of a loaded question. Someone can say that big bang cosmology, abiogenesis and evolution are the best 'causes' of the universe, life, and evolution of life; but science is only able to go back so far and may not have a 'cause' for how the universe came to be and how life formed that will satisfy any theist. A theist will keep on going and going, asking: "what caused the big bang" or "what caused life to arise/evolve", as if there needs to be some kind of eternal 'causer' at the end of the road. Will the naturalistic answer satisfy you, believeingod? Probably not. Science has explained how this vast universe has formed, the origins of life in this universe, and how life has evolved once formed in this tiny corner of the universe that we life in., but at the end it's all up to whether or not you accept the answer, that that there is some 'cause' that can be explained without injecting a god into the equation.

 

I don't think science needs to actually explain the 'cause' of the universe and life. All science needs to do is explain how the universe and life in it...is. All it needs to do is explain, and has: 1) how the universe was (to steal term used by many theists) created; 2) how it is possible for life to arise through natural processes; and 3) how life is able to evolve once is has formed.

 

If you think there needs to be a cause then you are indirectly leading that there needs to be a causer, in which you will simply place is a god. But science has said how things might've happened based on scientific research. If you think science hasn't done a good enough job explaining the 'cause' of the universe and life then you are completely ignorant of the scientific theories that do explain the "cause" you are looking for.

[believeingod]

 

 

This is a bit of a loaded question. Someone can say that big bang cosmology, abiogenesis and evolution are the best 'causes' of the universe, life, and evolution of life; but science is only able to go back so far and may not have a 'cause' for how the universe came to be and how life formed that will satisfy any theist. A theist will keep on going and going, asking: "what caused the big bang" or "what caused life to arise/evolve", as if there needs to be some kind of eternal 'causer' at the end of the road.

 

So you think it doesn't ? So nothing created everything ?

 

 

 

Will the naturalistic answer satisfy you, believeingod? Probably not.

 

 

If its more compelling than theism, sure. So far naturalism has failed in my view to present consistent answers. But if you have any, i am all ears.....

 

 

Science has explained how this vast universe has formed, the origins of life in this universe

 

It has explained abiogenesis and its mechanisms ? thats hot news to me. Would you like to present the facts ?

 

 

and how life has evolved once formed in this tiny corner of the universe that we life in.

 

if science showed it, it has absolute proofs on hand. wow !! please present them.

 

 

, but at the end it's all up to whether or not you accept the answer

 

if science has shown it in a absolute proven manner, who are i to doubt ?

 

 

that that there is some 'cause' that can be explained without injecting a god into the equation.

 

explain it then......

 

I don't think science needs to actually explain the 'cause' of the universe and life. All science needs to do is explain how the universe and life in it...is. All it needs to do is explain, and has: 1) how the universe was (to steal term used by many theists) created; 2) how it is possible for life to arise through natural processes; and 3) how life is able to evolve once is has formed.

 

you've just asserted there are absolute proofs. Are there, or are there not ? please decide......

 

But science has said how things might've happened based on scientific research.

 

" might have " ? i thought things beyond the universe belong to philosophy ? since science cannot see behind the courtine......

 

If you think science hasn't done a good enough job explaining the 'cause' of the universe and life then you are completely ignorant of the scientific theories that do explain the "cause" you are looking for.

 

educate me, then..... i am all ears.....

[Vigile]

So far naturalism has failed in my view to present consistent answers.

 

What is lost on you and no doubt will remain lost, is it provides the only answers. Theism is a non answer. It says, we don't know, it's magic. You want a complete explanation and you are satisfied with plugging up the gaps in our knowledge with god. No different than wild-eyed tribesmen who used god to explain volcanoes and the cause of rain. We, oth, can comfortably acknowledge we don't have all the answers, yet are willing to keep searching. The trend is 100% in our favor as we have already proven and answered much and with each new discovery, your god shrinks in size.