Christianity

[Harry Baird]

I pointed out that non-human beings behave in ways that are explicable in one of only two ways: firstly, that they are capable of joy and suffering, or, secondly, that as robots they have been deliberately designed by your deist God - presumably as some sort of perverse trick - to mimic beings who are capable of joy and suffering.

The third option (#3), of course, is when you or AJ or Dubious see animals joyous or suffering you guys are anthropomorphizing (projecting).

That's too vague to be an alternative option. The options are explanations of behaviour. The first option explains the behaviour as being motivated by actual joy and suffering. The second option explains the behaviour as being mindlessly robotic but deliberately designed by a deist God to mimic behaviour motivated by actual joy and suffering in an actual mind.

Your third option explains the behaviour as...?...

[henry quirk]

I pointed out that non-human beings behave in ways that are explicable in one of only two ways: firstly, that they are capable of joy and suffering, or, secondly, that as robots they have been deliberately designed by your deist God - presumably as some sort of perverse trick - to mimic beings who are capable of joy and suffering.

The third option (#3), of course, is when you or AJ or Dubious see animals joyous or suffering you guys are anthropomorphizing (projecting).

That's too vague to be an alternative option. The options are explanations of behaviour. The first option explains the behaviour as being motivated by actual joy and suffering. The second option explains the behaviour as being mindlessly robotic but deliberately designed by a deist God to mimic behaviour motivated by actual joy and suffering in an actual mind.

Your third option explains the behaviour as...?...

...nonexistent. *Your behavior, on the other hand...

You anthropomorphize. Your behavior is grounded in compassion coupled with innate pattern/meaning making. You care. You're compassionate. Also: you're drawn to -- and where you can't find it, are wont to create or impose -- patterns or meaning. You likes things to make sense.

You see joy and suffering becuz you're empathizing and imposing meaning.

*not you specifically

[Harry Baird]

Your third option explains the behaviour as...?...

...nonexistent.

The behaviour definitely exists. Examples of it have been given in this thread. Plenty more - effectively an unlimited number - could be provided if you want more. Just ask.

The question is what explains the behaviour.

The vast majority of people (sensibly and rightly) explain it as being motivated or provoked by joy or suffering (or some other emotion).

You reject that explanation, and you deny that non-human living beings even have minds (with perhaps some exceptions), so it seems to me that you must then explain the behaviour as the outcome of a mindlessly robotic programme deliberately "coded" by the deist God in whom you believe to mimic behaviour motivated by actual joy and suffering in an actual mind.

You apparently reject that explanation too, asserting that there's a third explanation which you endorse.

OK then: so, what is that explanation?

[henry quirk]

The behaviour definitely exists.

I don't think it does. I think you see what you wanna see.

OK then: so, what is that explanation?

You're anthropomorphizing: that's the explanation.

[iambiguous]

Okay, IC, the fourth video:


The Kalam Cosmological Argument - Part 1: Scientific
https://youtu.be/6CulBuMCLg0

What we have here is basically God being "deduced" into existence. Only, we are assured, there's science behind it.

Though, again, the argument in no way comes around to demonstrating that even if a God, the God is "thought up" into existence "scientifically", it is the Christian God. Why not one of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...instead?

Okay, we are told, the universe exists. And it simply makes more sense that something caused it to exist. Then the narrator points to the second law of thermodynamics which [we're told] tells us that the universe is "slowly running out of usable energy". And if the universe had been here forever, it would have run out of energy by now. On the other hand...

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe." nasa

So, who is to say how that is factored in here.

Then the claim that this second law "proves" that the universe had to have had a beginning. And scientists have discovered that the universe is expanding so it must be expanding from whenever that beginning was. And yet others argue that the Big Bang itself is just one of an infinite number of prior Big Bangs. And depending on whether dark matter or dark energy wins out it will continue to expand forever or will begin to contract again.

So, how on Earth does any of this demonstrate that a God, the God is behind it all? And [of course] it is just assumed that God Himself is an uncased cause.

Oh, and all of this, we are assured, is applicable in turn to the multiverse "if there is one".

Finally, "since the universe cannot cause itself, its cause must be beyond the space-time universe."

Then this particular "leap of faith":

"It must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused and unimaginably powerful. Much like...God. The cosmological argument shows that in fact it is quite reasonable to believe that God does exist."

Again, this is simply asserted to be true as though in asserting it that makes it true.

Though, again, which God?


Anything to add, IC?

[attofishpi]

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe." nasa

So, who is to say how that is factored in here.

Here's some food for thought:-
Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

[Dubious]

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe." nasa

So, who is to say how that is factored in here.

Here's some food for thought:-
Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Anyone ever tell god it's not nice to boast with all I did this, I did that BS! After all he/she/it is god; they're supposed to be "doing" things! It's part of the job description. What else is god good for? Sit around all day and listen to his angels sing enforced alleluias? I wonder if they ever went on strike!

I suppose creating evil was the experimental part and likely the most frustrating, meaning all the prior failures before he finally got the hang of it when he first spoke ex cathedra starting on the First Day with the Let There Be Light command...a damned good place to start if you want to see the rest of it!

[attofishpi]

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe." nasa

So, who is to say how that is factored in here.

Here's some food for thought:-
Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Anyone ever tell god it's not nice to boast with all I did this, I did that BS! After all he/she/it is god; they're supposed to be "doing" things! It's part of the job description. What else is god good for? Sit around all day and listen to his angels sing enforced alleluias? I wonder if they ever went on strike!

I suppose creating evil was the experimental part and likely the most frustrating, meaning all the prior failures before he finally got the hang of it when he first spoke ex cathedra starting on the First Day with the Let There Be Light command...a damned good place to start if you want to see the rest of it!

Yes, well when dealing with the wrath of God, its EVIL it is extremely hard to LIVE - God is a force one should steer clear of reckoning with.

[Dubious]

Here's some food for thought:-
Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

Anyone ever tell god it's not nice to boast with all I did this, I did that BS! After all he/she/it is god; they're supposed to be "doing" things! It's part of the job description. What else is god good for? Sit around all day and listen to his angels sing enforced alleluias? I wonder if they ever went on strike!

I suppose creating evil was the experimental part and likely the most frustrating, meaning all the prior failures before he finally got the hang of it when he first spoke ex cathedra starting on the First Day with the Let There Be Light command...a damned good place to start if you want to see the rest of it!

Yes, well when dealing with the wrath of God, its EVIL it is extremely hard to LIVE - God is a force one should steer clear of reckoning with.

Not a problem! For one thing, how could one even start to reckon with god in the first place; and 2nd, what's there to reckon with, god being the very essence of cold-blooded disinterestedness it might as well not exist at all.

The universe made itself forced into being by prior conditions yet to be ascertained, and will eventually unmake itself all inherent in its processes in which god is as useless as an empty can of beans.

[attofishpi]

Anyone ever tell god it's not nice to boast with all I did this, I did that BS! After all he/she/it is god; they're supposed to be "doing" things! It's part of the job description. What else is god good for? Sit around all day and listen to his angels sing enforced alleluias? I wonder if they ever went on strike!

I suppose creating evil was the experimental part and likely the most frustrating, meaning all the prior failures before he finally got the hang of it when he first spoke ex cathedra starting on the First Day with the Let There Be Light command...a damned good place to start if you want to see the rest of it!

Yes, well when dealing with the wrath of God, its EVIL it is extremely hard to LIVE - God is a force one should steer clear of reckoning with.

Not a problem! For one thing, how could one even start to reckon with god in the first place;

Well in my case eating from the Tree of Life (abortion) - although God\sage have since indicated to me, that I did not eat of the Tree of Life..AND then returning many times to eat from the Tree of KnowLedge.
AND, I guess one must have believed in Christ in the first place to know God via the evil reckoning...extremely ironic I know.

...and 2nd, what's there to reckon with, god being the very essence of cold-blooded disinterestedness it might as well not exist at all.

Yes, it does seem disinterested in others...I have stated to God\Sage that they have victimised me!

[iambiguous]

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe." nasa

So, who is to say how that is factored in here.

Here's some food for thought:-
Isaiah 45:7: I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

I'm sure that, as usual, you spent hours and hours thinking this all through. But it's actually Immanual Cant's reactions I'm after here. He's the one who can save my soul, after all.

[Immanuel Can]

Okay, IC, the fourth video:
Have you been watching? Oh, good. Let's go with this one.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument - Part 1: Scientific
https://youtu.be/6CulBuMCLg0

What we have here is basically God being "deduced" into existence. Only, we are assured, there's science behind it.

We are shown the logic, actually, and we are invited to consider the data for ourselves. Seems fair.

Though, again, the argument in no way comes around to demonstrating that even if a God, the God is "thought up" into existence "scientifically", it is the Christian God.

No one claimed it does. Each argument is designed to deal with a specific question about God, not to answer all possible questions about God (as if any one argument could answer all questions about anything, God or otherwise). The Kalaam is about the existence of God, not about His particular nature. So we can't ask an argument to do for us things that particular argument was not created to do. What we can do is ask if it achieves the particular goal for which that particular argument was offered, among the many other arguments that are offered.

That's why there's more than one video: because there's more than one kind of question about God.

Okay, we are told, the universe exists. And it simply makes more sense that something caused it to exist. Then the narrator points to the second law of thermodynamics which [we're told] tells us that the universe is "slowly running out of usable energy". And if the universe had been here forever, it would have run out of energy by now.

Right. So we can look at it this way: the second law of thermodynamics means that the whole universe is a kind of "clock." We can calculate back from the state of decay of energy in the universe, and arrive at an approximate inception point, where the universe must have begun.

To put it glibly, it's like looking at a piece of cheese from the refrigerator, and saying, "This thing looks about a week past its due date," because it has deteriorated that much. We have a sense of the time from the rate of deterioration, in both cases.

So, who is to say how that is factored in here.

It won't change the second law of thermodynamics. That's one of the most solid, observable scientific principles we have, actually.

Then the claim that this second law "proves" that the universe had to have had a beginning. And scientists have discovered that the universe is expanding so it must be expanding from whenever that beginning was.

This is basically Edwin Hubble's discovery, as a result of the "red shift" effect. It also is a scientific and observable fact, and it proves the universe is not infinitely old.

Hubble essentially ruled out any "infinite universe" hypothesis.

So, how on Earth does any of this demonstrate that a God, the God is behind it all?

Argument to the best explanation.

And [of course] it is just assumed that God Himself is an uncased cause.

The Kalaam proves that something HAS to be. We can still say, "We don't know what it is," but we know for certain that something uncreated had to commence the causal chain. That's because an actual infinite regress of causes is impossible. It never starts.

Oh, and all of this, we are assured, is applicable in turn to the multiverse "if there is one".

Well, because even the proponents of the Multiverse Hypothesis insist that their theory is a conceptual model, not a demonstrable fact. There is, they realize, and can be, no test for a Multiverse, because any "test" can take place only within THIS universe, which means, not THAT universe or THOSE OTHER universes. So it's not even clear how we can speak of them "existing."

But more than that, the Multiverse model, as the video points out, only moves the same problem back one step: from where come all the multi-verses? And again, the infinite regress problem applies to whatever is "generating" the "multiverse."

At this point, you can tell, we're getting to relying on kinds of explanation that are way, way more complicated and question-requiring than, "In the beginning, God created..."

Finally, "since the universe cannot cause itself, its cause must be beyond the space-time universe."

Then this particular "leap of faith":

"It must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused and unimaginably powerful. Much like...God. The cosmological argument shows that in fact it is quite reasonable to believe that God does exist."

Again, this is simply asserted to be true as though in asserting it that makes it true.

Not at all. It's offered for your consideration, not as an assertion you have to accept. The procedure is "inference to the best explanation."

Though, again, which God?

That is not the Kalaam's question. You're asking it to answer a question it did not set out to address.

Anything to add, IC?

It would seem so.

[iambiguous]

Okay, IC, the fourth video:
Have you been watching? Oh, good. Let's go with this one.

The Kalam Cosmological Argument - Part 1: Scientific
https://youtu.be/6CulBuMCLg0

What we have here is basically God being "deduced" into existence. Only, we are assured, there's science behind it.

We are shown the logic, actually, and we are invited to consider the data for ourselves. Seems fair.

No, we are presented with Christian assumptions about the universe. And then after science itself "proves" that a God, the God must exist, we are left to just assume that it must be the Christian God and not one of these...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...paths to immortality and salvation instead.

Thus...

Though, again, the argument in no way comes around to demonstrating that even if a God, the God is "thought up" into existence "scientifically", it is the Christian God.

No one claimed it does. Each argument is designed to deal with a specific question about God, not to answer all possible questions about God (as if any one argument could answer all questions about anything, God or otherwise). The Kalaam is about the existence of God, not about His particular nature. So we can't ask an argument to do for us things that particular argument was not created to do. What we can do is ask if it achieves the particular goal for which that particular argument was offered, among the many other arguments that are offered.

That's why there's more than one video: because there's more than one kind of question about God.

Chuckle, chuckle?

Come on IC, it is your contention that beyond "the Christian God exists because the Christian Bible says so 'leap of faith'", these YouTube videos provided the evidence you needed to be convinced that in fact the Christian God does exist. Sure, there are 13 more videos to go here. But the first four utterly fail to be convincing in my view.

Or, instead, are you able to note how in fact they are convincing proof that the Christian God does exist?

Okay, we are told, the universe exists. And it simply makes more sense that something caused it to exist. Then the narrator points to the second law of thermodynamics which [we're told] tells us that the universe is "slowly running out of usable energy". And if the universe had been here forever, it would have run out of energy by now.

Right. So we can look at it this way: the second law of thermodynamics means that the whole universe is a kind of "clock." We can calculate back from the state of decay of energy in the universe, and arrive at an approximate inception point, where the universe must have begun.

To put it glibly, it's like looking at a piece of cheese from the refrigerator, and saying, "This thing looks about a week past its due date," because it has deteriorated that much. We have a sense of the time from the rate of deterioration, in both cases.

Again, you note all of this "scientifically" as though if one takes these conclusions to the scientific community itself, it will scoff at Atheists: "You fools!"

And then when they note that...

"It turns out that roughly 68% of the universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the universe."

...you glibly remind them that "God does work in mysterious ways"?

Then the claim that this second law "proves" that the universe had to have had a beginning. And scientists have discovered that the universe is expanding so it must be expanding from whenever that beginning was.

This is basically Edwin Hubble's discovery, as a result of the "red shift" effect. It also is a scientific and observable fact, and it proves the universe is not infinitely old.

Hubble essentially ruled out any "infinite universe" hypothesis.

So, of course the Christian God does exist!!! Again, IC, if it doesn't embarrass you to make these ridiculous leaps of logic to the Christian God here it doesn't embarrass me to suggest that it ought to.

But what remains peculiar [to me] in regard to you is that you have demonstrated to me that you do have an intelligent mind in some respects and can exchange some rather sophisticated posts with others here pertaining to Christianity historically and/or up in the spiritual clouds philosophically.

But here you are in turn claiming to have proof that might bring me back around to the Christian God. That my own soul might be saved again once I too have come to grasp that there is, in fact a Christian God "out there" somewhere. And, whether you believe me or not, I truly do want to believe that. I truly am searching for a path that will allow me to jettison the grim belief that my own existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless, that there is a path to objective morality, that immortality and salvation are within reach.

But with you, chuckles aside: Where Is The Beef? Note the video that nailed it down for you.

And [of course] it is just assumed that God Himself is an uncased cause.

The Kalaam proves that something HAS to be. We can still say, "We don't know what it is," but That's because an actual infinite regress of causes is impossible. It never starts.

Blah, blah, blah? The existence of the Christian God can be definitively established -- proven -- by simply accepting your assertion here that "an actual infinite regress of causes is impossible. It never starts"?

As though this is now accepted across the board in the scientific community as, unequivocally, an ontological and teleological fact!!!

Besides, it must be an ontological and teleological fact because you believe it "in your head" to be?

Then just more of the same sheer speculation about the multiverse...

...even the proponents of the Multiverse Hypothesis insist that their theory is a conceptual model, not a demonstrable fact. There is, they realize, and can be, no test for a Multiverse, because any "test" can take place only within THIS universe, which means, not THAT universe or THOSE OTHER universes. So it's not even clear how we can speak of them "existing."

But more than that, the Multiverse model, as the video points out, only moves the same problem back one step: from where come all the multi-verses? And again, the infinite regress problem applies to whatever is "generating" the "multiverse."

At this point, you can tell, we're getting to relying on kinds of explanation that are way, way more complicated and question-requiring than, "In the beginning, God created..."

Again, if we do take all of this to the scientific community, to those astrophysicists who grapple with all this empirically, experientially, experimentally, there will be a broad consensus that one way or another, multiverse or no multiverse all of this...

Light travels at approximately 186,000 miles a second. That is about 6,000,000,000,000 miles a year.

The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.75 light-years away. 28,500,000,000,000 miles.

So, traveling at 186,000 miles a second, it would take us 4.75 years to reach it. The voyager spacecraft [just now exiting our solar system] will take 70,000 years to reach it.

To reach the center of the Milky Way galaxy it would take 100,000 light-years.

Or consider this:
"To get to the closest galaxy to ours, the Canis Major Dwarf, at Voyager's speed, it would take approximately 749,000,000 years to travel the distance of 25,000 light years! If we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take 25,000 years!"

The Andromeda galaxy is 2.537 million light years away.

...clearly demonstrates the existence of the Christian God? The Christian God on steroids?

Finally, "since the universe cannot cause itself, its cause must be beyond the space-time universe."

Then this particular "leap of faith":

"It must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused and unimaginably powerful. Much like...God. The cosmological argument shows that in fact it is quite reasonable to believe that God does exist."

Again, this is simply asserted to be true as though in asserting it that makes it true.

Not at all. It's offered for your consideration, not as an assertion you have to accept. The procedure is "inference to the best explanation."

No, what I am after here is what you promised us: demonstrable proof that your "spaceless, timeless, immaterial, uncaused and unimaginably powerful" Christian God does in fact exist. Then back to the fact that if you are not embarrassed to suggest that the first four videos provides us with that proof then I am not embarrassed to suggest that you ought to be.

Though, again, which God?

That is not the Kalaam's question. You're asking it to answer a question it did not set out to address.

Okay, so what are you saying here, that one of the next 13 videos will provide us with the proof reasonable men and women need to accept Jesus Christ as their own personal savior?

How about this: note which of them had the most powerful impact in establishing it for you.

[Immanuel Can]

...not one of these...

That's simply not the Kalaam's proposed job. For that, you need to look to other arguments.

Okay, we are told, the universe exists. And it simply makes more sense that something caused it to exist. Then the narrator points to the second law of thermodynamics which [we're told] tells us that the universe is "slowly running out of usable energy". And if the universe had been here forever, it would have run out of energy by now.

Right. So we can look at it this way: the second law of thermodynamics means that the whole universe is a kind of "clock." We can calculate back from the state of decay of energy in the universe, and arrive at an approximate inception point, where the universe must have begun.

To put it glibly, it's like looking at a piece of cheese from the refrigerator, and saying, "This thing looks about a week past its due date," because it has deteriorated that much. We have a sense of the time from the rate of deterioration, in both cases.

Again, you note all of this "scientifically" as though if one takes these conclusions to the scientific community itself, it will scoff at Atheists: "You fools!"

. Not at all. I'm just pointing out these scientific facts. If you find a person who calls himself a "physicist" or "chemist," and does not believe in the second law of thermodynamics, then you can be certain he's no scientist at all.

...you glibly remind them that "God does work in mysterious ways"?

. These are not words of mine. I have no idea where you got them from.

But here you are in turn claiming to have proof that might bring me back around to the Christian God.

No, I am not. I think you're totally uninterested in that, and I'm quite confident I can't change your mind. You aren't interested in changing.

But that was not what we originally started debating. You asserted that there was no such thing as scientific evidence to support the existence of God. Now you know that there is.

The existence of the Christian God can be definitively established -- proven -- by simply accepting your assertion here

I'm quite bemused by your continual attempts to make me to have said something I never said. it's pretty much clear evidence that you can't handle what I DO say, and have to invent your straw men instead.

...that "an actual infinite regress of causes is impossible. It never starts"?

If you understand either basic logic or basic maths, you know I'm right: an actual infinite has not beginning, by definition. It never starts.

As though this is now accepted across the board in the scientific community as, unequivocally, an ontological and teleological fact!!!

It's accepted as axiomatically obvious, by everybody who can do basic maths, actually. (Again, I find myself bemused by your felt need to bring in words I didn't use, like "unequivocally, ontologically and teleologically," but that again just reminds me of how badly you're doing at handling the actual argument.)

I think I see a pattern here. I offer you a reasonable explanation: you reword it into something you view as less reasonable -- often something more absolute, or invoking language I never used -- then you ridicule your own version of the answer, and suppose you've won something.

Amusing, but a waste of both my time and yours.

So I'll just step out here, and leave you to make what you will of the evidence. I've lost interest in explaining to you things you're clearly determined to first mishear and then refuse anyway.

[attofishpi]

But here you are in turn claiming to have proof that might bring me back around to the Christian God. That my own soul might be saved again once I too have come to grasp that there is, in fact a Christian God "out there" somewhere.

Well, you do real eyes that first you must believe in the Jewish God - Yahweh? or "---". and then you need to believe in the life\death\resurrection of Christ, and then hope that God converted to Christianity once all that was done.

btw - God is not just 'out there, somewhere' - its in there in every atom of your being, and everything you perceive of reality.