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If Christ died on the cross for all of humanity

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Posted: #1926
Quote Originally Posted by Rostos:

Just as you guys have convinced yourselves that something can come from nothing in this natural world, i have now convinced myself i could beat the Miami Heat team by myself.......

Hey, the odds are in more of my favour than yours...Ask Mr Penrose...


Once again doging the question...

Btw... "No one is tricking no one" is incorrect
 
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Posted: #1927
Quote Originally Posted by jagerfury:

A link to some sympathetic web site doesn't count. My point being made, real knowledge is hard work, not a google link jack ass. If you think this is what passes as peer reviewed, scientific work you are a bigger idiot then I thought.

I pulled up one simple website, because there is entirely way to much information out there to post in this thread. So, I was being sarcastic in posting that one answer from cha-cha. (I guess I should not have done that, because it was taken the wrong way), so I apologize.

But take  an hour or two and do some research on scholars across the globe and scientists around the world and you will see that what I am stating is accurate.

There is so much information from scholars and scientists stating what, how and why they believe in the historical account of Jesus Christ, that it leads one left to stop doubting and leads one to the validity of it.
 
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Posted: #1928
Quote Originally Posted by Mikniks:




Okay and you can't prove he/she/it does exist so we're right back to where we started...  Essentially, no one can KNOW...


And I'm just curious Rostos...  Let's say, hypothetically of course, that I wanted to live a christian life and attempt to repent for my sins, but I can't bring myself to believe in what I'm doing and all I can do is fake it...  Does this count?...  If not, how is it fair that god gave me a brain that doesn't allow me logically to believe in him...  Then what?  I go to hell because he gave me a brain that won't allow me to believe??  Or is faking it okay??

YOU SAID" Essentially, no one can KNOW." LET'S RE-EXAMINE THIS:

"Is there an argument for the existence of God?"

The question of whether there is a conclusive argument for the existence of God has been debated throughout history, with exceedingly intelligent people taking both sides of the dispute. 

In recent times, arguments against the possibility of God’s existence have taken on a militant spirit that accuses anyone daring to believe in God as being delusional and irrational. 

Karl Marx asserted that anyone believing in God must have a mental disorder that caused invalid thinking.

The psychiatrist Sigmund Freud wrote that a person who believed in a Creator God was delusional and only held those beliefs due to a “wish-fulfillment” factor that produced what Freud considered to be an unjustifiable position.

The philosopher Frederick Nietzsche bluntly said that faith equates to not wanting to know what is true. The voices of these three figures from history (along with others) are simply now parroted by a new generation of atheists who claim that a belief in God is intellectually unwarranted. 

Is this truly the case? Is belief in God a rationally unacceptable position to hold? Is there a logical and reasonable argument for the existence of God?

Outside of referencing the Bible, can a case for the existence of God be made that refutes the positions of both the old and new atheists and gives sufficient warrant for believing in a Creator?
The answer is, yes, it can. Moreover, in demonstrating the validity of an argument for the existence of God, the case for atheism is shown to be intellectually weak. 

To make an argument for the existence of God, we must start by asking the right questions. 

We begin with the most basic metaphysical question: “Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?” 

This is the basic question of existence—why are we here; why is the earth here; why is the universe here rather than nothing? Commenting on this point, one theologian has said, “In one sense man does not ask the question about God, his very existence raises the question about God.” 


 
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Posted: #1929
"Is there an argument for the existence of God?"
Continued...

In considering this question, there are four possible answers to why we have something rather than nothing at all: 

1. Reality is an illusion.
2. Reality is/was self-created.
3. Reality is self-existent (eternal).
4. Reality was created by something that is self-existent.

So, which is the most plausible solution?

Let’s begin with reality being simply an illusion, which is what a number of Eastern religions believe. This option was ruled out centuries ago by the philosopher Rene Descartes who is famous for the statement, “I think, therefore I am.” 

Descartes, a mathematician, argued that if he is thinking, then he must “be.” In other words, “I think, therefore I am not an illusion.” Illusions require something experiencing the illusion, and moreover, you cannot doubt the existence of yourself without proving your existence; it is a self-defeating argument.

So the possibility of reality being an illusion is eliminated.

Next is the option of reality being self-created. 

When we study philosophy, we learn of “analytically false” statements, which means they are false by definition.

The possibility of reality being self-created is one of those types of statements for the simple reason that something cannot be prior to itself.

If you created yourself, then you must have existed prior to you creating yourself, but that simply cannot be.

In evolution this is sometimes referred to as “spontaneous generation” —something coming from nothing—a position that few, if any, reasonable people hold to anymore simply because you cannot get something from nothing.

Even the atheist David Hume said, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.” Since something cannot come from nothing, the alternative of reality being self-created is ruled out.

Now we are left with only two choices—an eternal reality or reality being created by something that is eternal.

An eternal universe or an eternal Creator.
The 18th-century theologian Jonathan Edwards summed up this crossroads:

• Something exists.
• Nothing cannot create something.
• Therefore, a necessary and eternal “something” exists.

Notice that we must go back to an eternal “something.”

The atheist who derides the believer in God for believing in an eternal Creator must turn around and embrace an eternal universe; it is the only other door he can choose...


 
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Posted: #1930
"Is there an argument for the existence of God?"
Continued...

But the question now is, where does the evidence lead? Does the evidence point to matter before mind or mind before matter?

To date, all key scientific and philosophical evidence points away from an eternal universe and toward an eternal Creator.

From a scientific standpoint, honest scientists admit the universe had a beginning, and whatever has a beginning is not eternal.

In other words, whatever has a beginning has a cause, and if the universe had a beginning, it had a cause. 

The fact that the universe had a beginning is underscored by evidence such as the second law of thermodynamics.

The radiation echo of the big bang discovered in the early 1900s, the fact that the universe is expanding and can be traced back to a singular beginning, and Einstein’s theory of relativity. All prove the universe is not eternal.

Further, the laws that surround causation speak against the universe being the ultimate cause of all we know for this simple fact:

An effect must resemble its cause. 

This being true, no atheist can explain how an impersonal, purposeless, meaningless, and amoral universe accidentally created beings (us) who are full of personality and obsessed with purpose, meaning, and morals.

Such a thing, from a causation standpoint, completely refutes the idea of a natural universe birthing everything that exists.

So in the end, the concept of an eternal universe is eliminated. 

 
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Posted: #1931
"Is there an argument for the existence of God?"
Continued...

Philosopher J. S. Mill (not a Christian) summed up where we have now come to:

 “It is self-evident that only Mind can create mind.” The only rational and reasonable conclusion is that an eternal Creator is the one who is responsible for reality as we know it. Or to put it in a logical set of statements: 

• Something exists.
• You do not get something from nothing.
• Therefore a necessary and eternal “something” exists.
• The only two options are an eternal universe and an eternal Creator.
• Science and philosophy have disproven the concept of an eternal universe.
• Therefore, an eternal Creator exists.

Former atheist Lee Strobel, who arrived at this end result many years ago, has commented...

“Essentially, I realized that to stay an atheist, I would have to believe that nothing produces everything; non-life produces life; randomness produces fine-tuning; chaos produces information; unconsciousness produces consciousness; and non-reason produces reason.

Those leaps of faith were simply too big for me to take, especially in light of the affirmative case for God's existence … 

In other words, in my assessment the Christian worldview accounted for the totality of the evidence much better than the atheistic worldview.”

But the next question we must tackle is this: if an eternal Creator exists (and we have shown that He does), what kind of Creator is He? Can we infer things about Him from what He created? In other words, can we understand the cause by its effects? The answer to this is yes, we can, with the following characteristics being surmised: 

• He must be supernatural in nature (as He created time and space).
• He must be powerful (exceedingly). 
• He must be eternal (self-existent).
• He must be omnipresent (He created space and is not limited by it).
• He must be timeless and changeless (He created time). 
• He must be immaterial because He transcends space/physical.
• He must be personal (the impersonal cannot create personality). 
• He must be infinite and singular as you cannot have two infinites. 
• He must be diverse yet have unity as unity and diversity exist in nature.
• He must be intelligent (supremely). Only cognitive being can produce cognitive being. 
• He must be purposeful as He deliberately created everything.
• He must be moral (no moral law can be had without a giver). 
• He must be caring (or no moral laws would have been given).

These things being true, we now ask if any religion in the world describes such a Creator.

The answer to this is yes: the God of the Bible fits this profile perfectly.

He is supernatural (Genesis 1:1), powerful (Jeremiah 32:17), eternal (Psalm 90:2), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7), timeless/changeless (Malachi 3:6), immaterial (John 5:24), personal (Genesis 3:9), necessary (Colossians 1:17), infinite/singular (Jeremiah 23:24, Deuteronomy 6:4), diverse yet with unity (Matthew 28:19), intelligent (Psalm 147:4-5), purposeful (Jeremiah 29:11), moral (Daniel 9:14), and caring (1 Peter 5:6-7)... 


 
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Posted: #1932
"Is there an argument for the existence of God?"
Continued...

One last subject to address on the matter of God’s existence is the matter of how justifiable the atheist’s position actually is.

Since the atheist asserts the believer’s position is unsound, it is only reasonable to turn the question around and aim it squarely back at him. 

The first thing to understand is that the claim the atheist makes—“no god,” which is what “atheist” means—is an untenable position to hold from a philosophical standpoint.

 As legal scholar and philosopher Mortimer Adler says, “An affirmative existential proposition can be proved, but a negative existential proposition—one that denies the existence of something—cannot be proved.” 

For example, someone may claim that a red eagle exists and someone else may assert that red eagles do not exist.

The former only needs to find a single red eagle to prove his assertion. But the latter must comb the entire universe and literally be in every place at once to ensure he has not missed a red eagle somewhere and at some time, which is impossible to do. 

This is why intellectually honest atheists will admit they cannot prove God does not exist. 

Next, it is important to understand the issue that surrounds the seriousness of truth claims that are made and the amount of evidence required to warrant certain conclusions.

For example, if someone puts two containers of lemonade in front of you and says that one may be more tart than the other, since the consequences of getting the more tart drink would not be serious, you would not require a large amount of evidence in order to make your choice.

However, if to one cup the host added sweetener but to the other he introduced rat poison, then you would want to have quite a bit of evidence before you made your choice. 

This is where a person sits when deciding between atheism and belief in God.

Since belief in atheism could possibly result in irreparable and eternal consequences, it would seem that the atheist should be mandated to produce weighty and overriding evidence to support his position, but he cannot.

Atheism simply cannot meet the test for evidence for the seriousness of the charge it makes.

Instead, the atheist and those whom he convinces of his position slide into eternity with their fingers crossed and hope they do not find the unpleasant truth that eternity does indeed exist. 

As Mortimer Adler says, “More consequences for life and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from any other basic question.”



 
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Posted: #1933
"Is there an argument for the existence of God?"
Continued/Conclusion...

So does belief in God have intellectual warrant? Is there a rational, logical, and reasonable argument for the existence of God?

Absolutely. 

While atheists such as Freud claim that those believing in God have a wish-fulfillment desire, perhaps it is Freud and his followers who actually suffer from wish-fulfillment...

The hope and wish that there is no God, no accountability, and therefore no judgment.

But refuting Freud is the God of the Bible who affirms His existence and the fact that a judgment is indeed coming for those who know within themselves the truth that He exists but suppress that truth (Romans 1:20). 

But for those who respond to the evidence that a Creator does indeed exist, He offers the way of salvation that has been accomplished through His Son, Jesus Christ...

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13)!!!

 
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Posted: #1934
Once again Rostos - no matter how many times you say we believe "something came from nothing," 2 things are 100% indisputable facts.

1. So did your god, or your supernatural world, or whatever it is you think was the first "thing" ever.

2. Just because we don't know how it started, doesn't mean it is any god, let alone yours.
 
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Posted: #1935
Quote Originally Posted by Mikniks:


Once again doging the question...

Btw... "No one is tricking no one" is incorrect

Mate, you are the only one tricking yourself...

 
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Posted: #1936
Quote Originally Posted by Rostos:

Mate, you are the only one tricking yourself...


he still doesn't get it
 
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Posted: #1937
Quote Originally Posted by KittyKatz286:

Once again Rostos - no matter how many times you say we believe "something came from nothing," 2 things are 100% indisputable facts.

1. So did your god, or your supernatural world, or whatever it is you think was the first "thing" ever.
 
That is an illiogical question. The only reason we KNOW something cannot come from nothing in this NATURAL WORLD / UNIVERSE is because we are able to observe it, test it, see the physical laws that govern it. By definition, God is outside our space, time and material dimension. His "world" is a world we have not and CANNOT observe....That is why the question is illogical.
 
Consider this. Say for example that you were the first human being on this earth, you are the first and only one, lets just say, you woke up one day and you are here, dont know how, when why nothing. You dont know anything. But you notice you can breath, walk and talk, you cant float, fly etc etc.......You know this because you start to realise this as time goes along. Then for the first time, you see the ocean. You havent been in it, just see it.
 
Do you know that if you went under the water and breathed as per normal that you will drown? No you dont because you have NOT observed the environment under the water. Do you know that you can float on water? No you dont because you have tried it yet. Remember you havent been in the water YET. At this point in time, you dont know that the environment under the water is completely different to that outside it.
 
What you are doing when asking," well if something cannot come from nothing, then who made God?" is you are making an assumption that the environment OUTSIDE the water is the SAME inside / under it. When you go inside under the water, you will realise that the environments are completely different, you can float on water, you cant float on air, you cant breath under water, but you can outside it.
 
Same thing if you think, well, i can breath on this earth, that means i can breath in space with no suit?
 
What you are trying to do is equivocate the same laws and rules of this universe to the dimension / realm where God is by definition. We dont know any of the laws except it is eternal. That is why the question is illogical. Why stop at who made God? Why dont you ask, what does he eat, what does he drink, how does he protect himself deom the cold, the sun etc etc? These questions are the same thing as who made God because you are equivocating our world to another dimension.

2. Just because we don't know how it started, doesn't mean it is any god, let alone yours.
 
I never said that the KCA in ISOLATION proves the Christian God, but as i have said it certainly renders atheism false. As i said 100 billion times here, scientists, physicists and cosmologists AGREE the universe began to exist, space,time and matter BEGAN to exist. Unless you want to believe things can create itself out of nothing, by nothing for nothing, then this open up the door for a spaceless, timeless and ,materialess dimension. It comes down to those 2 options. The problem for the atheist / naturlist is that they do not believe anything OUTSIDE space, time and material. But current scientific knowledge pretty much buries this view. But if you want to believe things can come from nothing, good luck to you, but dont go around thinking that you are the source of truth and reason.
 
1. All things that beging to exist have a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. The universe has a cause
 
Its quite simple.
 
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Posted: #1938
KittyKatz286,

You said "So did your god, or your supernatural world, or whatever it is you think was the first "thing" ever."

This is 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.

Our finite minds find it hard to comprehend that before the universe was created, God existed alone.

We know from John 1:1 that Jesus also existed: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The preincarnate Christ was intimately united with the Father, so as to partake of His glory and to be appropriately called God. 

He has Himself explained it in John 17:5: “And now Father, glorify Me with Yourself with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”


 
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Posted: #1939

, "the odds against such an occurrence were on the order of 1010123 to 1."

Do you really really know what this means? I dont think you do.

I will assure you the odds of me beating the Miami Heat by myself is less than that......Guarantee it is less than that...even if it is the same for arguments sake, the very thought of me beating the Heat by myself is absurd to say the least. Yet,t here is a possibility that somehow they all die of a heart on the floor OR i just nail jumper after jumper even when quadripled teamed.........Hey, taking a line from KK, "it is possible"........

Oh dear

 
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Posted: #1940
If something renders atheism false, THAT MEANS god exists...  You can stop saying this now...
 
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Posted: #1941
It renders atheism false because the atheist ONLY believes in the natural world and NOTHING OUTSIDE IT.
 
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Posted: #1942
Quote Originally Posted by Rostos:

It renders atheism false because the atheist ONLY believes in the natural world and NOTHING OUTSIDE IT.

Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity THEREFORE if something renders Atheism false IT MEANS that a deity (god) exists...
 
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Posted: #1943
Quote Originally Posted by Mikniks:


Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity THEREFORE if something renders Atheism false IT MEANS that a deity (god) exists...

No, if atheism is false, that leaves theism and agnostocism

 
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Posted: #1944
Rostos, I will use your own analogy to prove my point. I cannot possibly know what the water is like until I experience it by going in it. This is true. The problem with your analogy to god is that we cannot go to this alleged supernatural world. We cannot go there and see what it is like. Since it is not possible to go there (without dying I presume) there is no point in contemplating it at all. I don't care about what happens when I die because I'll be dead. As a living human being, I can't be concerned about "testing out waters" so to speak that I can't test out until I die. Surely you must understand this?

And yes, by definition "Atheism" is false because no one on this planet knows for certain whether a god exists or not. So technically speaking, if I acknowledge the possibility of a god existing, no matter how small I think it is, I am, by definition, agnostic. I guess that is true. However, that does not give any additional credence to your god's existence. All it does is establish that no human being can be certain.

Matt - if you wanna call "that which always existed - God," that is perfectly acceptable. But as we've said many times, that does not mean this "god," this "initial creator," this thing that always existed, whatever it is, is anything more than that. Whatever it was that always existed is not necessarily the Christian god, jesus, moses, allah, mohammed, the flying spaghetti monster, a superbestfriend, david blaine, i can go on forever lol. The initial "thing" can be ANYTHING, literally ANYTHING. So even if there does exist some initial "creator," we have no idea what it is.
 
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Posted: #1945
Quote Originally Posted by Rostos:

No, if atheism is false, that leaves theism and agnostocism



Theism = YES there is a god

Agnosticism = MAYBE there is a god

Atheist = There is NO god

So you've eliminated "NO"...  That leaves us with YES there is a god or MAYBE there is a god...

So it is either definitely or maybe...  interesting...
 
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Posted: #1946
What have we learned so far?

That there is more god damn unread copy-and-pasting in this thread than all other threads combined

Why the fuck do you select few keep at this?
Really
 
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Posted: #1947
The better question is what are you contributing to the discussion? Asking why the discussion is occurring is not contributing.
 
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Posted: #1948
Great point kitty

Carry on till the end of time guys


Oh shit! I just added 500 copy and pastes of unoriginal thoughts of discussion on that topic.

And you say I do not contribute
 
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Posted: #1949
What is your purpose in visiting this thread?
 
 
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Posted: #1950
Maybe you will get what I am saying by post 4000 that rostos will not give up.
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