Evidence for God #1

[DaveD49]

Two of the constant things I have heard from atheists on other sites is that first "There is no proof of God" and "There is no evidence for God". The first can be dismissed because to the total impossibility of there being "proof". The ONLY things that can be scientifically proven are within the universe. Anything outside of the universe or non-physical can only be theorized about, but NO "theory" is proof of anything. So, just as there can be no "proof" for God, nor can there be proof of alternate universes, membranes producing endless universes, etc. etc. In as far as the second assertion, that there is no evidence for God, that one is blatantly false as evidence for Him exists in many, many different categories. It is my intention to list some of them one at a time so as to get everyone's reaction as to the viability or lack thereof of the evidence presented. I realize that some, if not all, of these you have heard before and may have actually responded to. I already listed a few of the in a response to a earlier question, but I think that they will only get the attention they deserve if listed individually.

Topic for Debate: Do you agree or disagree with the following being evidence for the existence of God?
In answering please state clearly whether you agree or disagree
Your reasoning for doing so
Please rate from 1 to 10 with 10 being the strongest what you feel the strength of the evidence is.
If you have something further to add please let me know.

#1 The Existence of Scientific Laws

Everything about mathematics involves intelligence. One cannot add 1+1 without the intelligence to do so. Randomness cannot produce intelligence. No matter how many monkeys you have banging away on typewriters for whatever length of time, it is highly unlikely that any of them will ever produce the complete works of Shakespeare. They won’t produce even one of his sonnets. But even if they did that would be a semblance of intelligence, not the real thing. Intelligence would only be shown if the task could be repeated many times.

Therefore, the very existence of scientific LAWS, such as the Law of Gravity or the Law of Thermodynamics, is firm evidence of an intelligent being who is in some way responsible for the existence of everything. In our society are human laws just random words on a piece of paper? No. They show purpose and meaning which positively proves an intelligence behind them. In reality man-made "laws" are not laws at all, but rather rules which can be broken. However scientific laws can not be broken thus making them unlike civil laws. But they BOTH show a purpose. But in the case of scientific laws without them the universe could never exist. There is no reason why a universe created by randomness should be compelled to obey ANY laws, let alone display complex mathematics. Intelligence is absolutely necessary.

[Diagoras]

I submit that a creator is counter-intuitive but not logically absurd, while something from nothing is "counter-intuitive" and logically absurd.

A creator is special pleading. You have something ‘outside’ of time and space as First Cause, which for some unspecified reason wasn’t itself caused.

In place of God, I’ve got ‘the universe’ (at a singularity) so at least my answer survives Occam’s Razor.

You could argue along ‘God is eternal’ lines, but I can adapt the self-causing universe argument to have it be simply a part of a similarly endless cycle of universes. Same result: we don’t need to posit extra godness.

[DaveD49]

[Replying to William in post #135]

William: "First causes only apply to things which have a beginning, and along an infinite line, beginnings
and ends occur as 'time' and the line becomes a series of 'timelines' which have been going on infinitely along/branching from infinities line.
Therefore, it can be said that timelines are finite, and they are an aspect of an infinite timeless line.
The infinite timeless line. has a series of begin/end lines popping in and out of it.
The infinite timeless line is in this sense, 'uncaused source of all caused things' and caused things have both a beginning and an end, unless they are caused not to end, but to branch out alongside/with the infinite timeless line.
Agreed?

I can agree with that. This is actually why I refer to God as "timeless" rather than "eternal". The word eternal generally refers to an endless series of years. I do not believe that God experiences a "year" as we do. The Psalms say "a thousand years in your site are like yesterday now that they are gone, of a watch in the night". A night watch was generally 3 hours. I look on God as not being constricted by space or time at all. Past, present, future are all the same to Him. He could spend your entire life holding your hand while at the same time holding the hand of an alien thousands of light years away.
Some people ask how could Jesus' sacrifice be for our sins seeing that it happened 2000 years ago. But for the timeless it didn't happen just "then". It is happening now, then and in every moment of the future.

[DaveD49]

[Replying to DaveD49 in post #134]

Something can be in two different places at once.

Entangled atoms can transfer information about their respective states faster than the ‘speed limit’ of the universe.

A month for you is the same as a week for me (when I’m moving very fast relative to you).

…

The universe is self-caused?

My point is that some things that we have discovered about the universe were at first glance, absurd and illogical. But they have been verified through experiment to be real properties. Wholly relying on logic would have set us back scientifically by many decades. So it seems prudent for cosmologists to keep working the problem.

I pointed out something similar to William just a few minute ago. I do not look on God as being "eternal" which implies an endless number of years, but rather "timeless" where past, present and the future ate all the same to Him. As a result He could spend you entire life besides you and holding your hand while at the same time be holding the hand of an alien who was thousands of light years away. So I agree that something could be in two places at one time. What we call "Quantum entanglement" may be just the way that God works but on a much smaller scale.

Everything physical needs a cause of its existence, this includes the universe or how many other universes that may exist. So the universe cannot be "self-caused". Likewise an cycle of the universe that you referred to has already been disproven by science. If that were the case then the rate of the expansion of the universe, which is going on right now should be at least slowing down before it stops and then starts to collapse in on itself. But that is not the case. Science has shown that the expansion of the universe is actually speeding up. So our universe won't end in a collapse but rather through over-expansion. As time goes on there would be fewer and fewer stars visible.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to William in post #135]

William: "First causes only apply to things which have a beginning, and along an infinite line, beginnings
and ends occur as 'time' and the line becomes a series of 'timelines' which have been going on infinitely along/branching from infinities line.
Therefore, it can be said that timelines are finite, and they are an aspect of an infinite timeless line.
The infinite timeless line. has a series of begin/end lines popping in and out of it.
The infinite timeless line is in this sense, 'uncaused source of all caused things' and caused things have both a beginning and an end, unless they are caused not to end, but to branch out alongside/with the infinite timeless line.
Agreed?

I can agree with that. This is actually why I refer to God as "timeless" rather than "eternal". The word eternal generally refers to an endless series of years. I do not believe that God experiences a "year" as we do. The Psalms say "a thousand years in your site are like yesterday now that they are gone, of a watch in the night". A night watch was generally 3 hours. I look on God as not being constricted by space or time at all. Past, present, future are all the same to Him. He could spend your entire life holding your hand while at the same time holding the hand of an alien thousands of light years away.
Some people ask how could Jesus' sacrifice be for our sins seeing that it happened 2000 years ago. But for the timeless it didn't happen just "then". It is happening now, then and in every moment of the future.

But if you do that then you are postulating a possible and not illogical endless alternative to time. But why should that apply to an intelligence with creative powers and not to the originating potential energy of the cosmos? As I said, that only occasions one problem, a being and an intelligence that wasn't created brings up two.

I know what you are trying to do - make God look the better option. But you can't do by special pleading 'matter from nowhere is illogical but a god from nowhere isn't. That just doing some magic to make an uncreated intelligence is not a hypothesis but a faith - claim, and no less so by having Bible quotes about it.

Same incidentally applies to 'Jesus' sacrifice'. Apart from that is not why we are all guilty of Jesus' death. It is because we had sin dumped like nightsoil on all of us and someone came to give us tickets to the showers if we joined the club, whatever the timeline looks like to God, (supposedly) it makes no difference to the timeline we live is, where the children are not morally responsible for the wrongs their fathers did. That's if God's morality is anything like the one He supposedly gave us.

[DaveD49]

[Replying to William in post #135]

William: "First causes only apply to things which have a beginning, and along an infinite line, beginnings
and ends occur as 'time' and the line becomes a series of 'timelines' which have been going on infinitely along/branching from infinities line.
Therefore, it can be said that timelines are finite, and they are an aspect of an infinite timeless line.
The infinite timeless line. has a series of begin/end lines popping in and out of it.
The infinite timeless line is in this sense, 'uncaused source of all caused things' and caused things have both a beginning and an end, unless they are caused not to end, but to branch out alongside/with the infinite timeless line.
Agreed?

I can agree with that. This is actually why I refer to God as "timeless" rather than "eternal". The word eternal generally refers to an endless series of years. I do not believe that God experiences a "year" as we do. The Psalms say "a thousand years in your site are like yesterday now that they are gone, of a watch in the night". A night watch was generally 3 hours. I look on God as not being constricted by space or time at all. Past, present, future are all the same to Him. He could spend your entire life holding your hand while at the same time holding the hand of an alien thousands of light years away.
Some people ask how could Jesus' sacrifice be for our sins seeing that it happened 2000 years ago. But for the timeless it didn't happen just "then". It is happening now, then and in every moment of the future.

Transponder: "But if you do that then you are postulating a possible and not illogical endless alternative to time. But why should that apply to an intelligence with creative powers and not to the originating potential energy of the cosmos? As I said, that only occasions one problem, a being and an intelligence that wasn't created brings up two."

I am not suggesting anything that science has not suggested. Space/time are one of OUR dimensions. But what if science is correct and there could be life forms completely different than our own which did not have our space/time dimension? They could be everywhere (omnipresent) and timeless. Even "Deep Space Nine" spoke about the "wormhole" aliens who were not linear in time but could affect events in our space/time. Yes, it is beyond our comprehension as we are stuck in our lineal time and space. But that doesn't make it impossible. And if this lifeform left hints of His existence it would become probable. Think outside of our little box. What you said is correct when only thinking of our space/time. But if science is correct and other dimensions are possible about which we can know nothing then the possibilities are endless.

T: "I know what you are trying to do - make God look the better option. But you can't do by special pleading 'matter from nowhere is illogical but a god from nowhere isn't. That just doing some magic to make an uncreated intelligence is not a hypothesis but a faith - claim, and no less so by having Bible quotes about it.

Same incidentally applies to 'Jesus' sacrifice'. Apart from that is not why we are all guilty of Jesus' death. It is because we had sin dumped like nightsoil on all of us and someone came to give us tickets to the showers if we joined the club, whatever the timeline looks like to God, (supposedly) it makes no difference to the timeline we live is, where the children are not morally responsible for the wrongs their fathers did. That's if God's morality is anything like the one He supposedly gave us.

That we are not guilty of our father's sins I agree with you 100%. The old definition of "original sin" was a black mark on the soul and that were were born with that evil and in need of salvation. This is why the Church had infant baptisms. But the newer definition makes far more sense. It states that we are born good, but can be led to evil. That is far more understandable and fits far better in the Adam & Eve story. What we "inherited" from our ancestors was not their sin but rather their ability to commit sin, that is a conscience. The A & E story describes it as eating from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil" which is what the conscience gives us. We are the only creatures on Earth that do not live by instinct but by an endless search for the greater good or the greater evil and this is the main reason why we have developed all that we have as well as thermonuclear weapons.

[Athetotheist]

[Replying to Diagoras in post #141

A creator is special pleading.

It isn't special pleading; it's a process of elimination extrapolated from the logical impossibility of material existence accounting for itself.

In place of God, I’ve got ‘the universe’ (at a singularity) so at least my answer survives Occam’s Razor.

Occam's Razor tells us not to multiply agencies beyond necessity. A singularity has a causal necessity.

You could argue along ‘God is eternal’ lines, but I can adapt the self-causing universe argument to have it be simply a part of a similarly endless cycle of universes. Same result: we don’t need to posit extra godness.

.....in which case you're merely positing an infinite regression, which itself fails to account for the phenomenon of material existence.

[Diagoras]

I look on God as not being constricted by space or time at all.

It’s certainly a convenient workaround for any pesky questions starting with ‘how, where, what, why or when’.

This speaks strongly to a point I made earlier (might have been in a different thread - I’m losing track): scientists try to narrow down their hypotheses based on observation. It seems apologists have no problems doing the opposite. If something looks to contradict God being in the universe, or being there at the start of time - no worries! Just grant him extra powers to ignore things like space and time!

[Diagoras]

It isn't special pleading; it's a process of elimination extrapolated from the logical impossibility of material existence accounting for itself.

How’s God accounting for himself, then?

Some resources here on the Cosmological Argument:

https://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences ... ogical.htm

Why is there something rather than nothing ?" and the answer might be because nothing is an unstable state.

[JoeyKnothead]

...
But any natural "origin" needing an origin of its own undermines that case.

That same problem applies to supernatural origins as well.

We gotta remember, we observe an expansion of the universe and infer that expansion as coming from some smaller previous point, so we date the expansion, not the prior condition. Any attempt to declare how long that smaller point existed, whether eternal or not, has yet to be confirmed.

We may apply causality to a creator after applying it to the universe, but we can't apply causality to a creator instead of applying it to the universe.

Then we're back to asking how we can know the universe was created, as opposed to being the cause of its own existence, as implied for your 'creator'.

[William]

[Replying to Diagoras in post #148]

How’s God accounting for himself, then?

It occurs to me that perhaps one of the problems is the idea that a creator of this universe should be seen as 'supernatural' when in actuality such an entity would be better regarded as natural, and anything the entity creates - should be regarded as ... not 'supernatural' but some other word.

The universe could be seen as a natural enough occurrence from a natural enough source...which is basically the argument folk are making when they say that there is no need for a 'supernatural being' to fill in the gaps.

Whereas the argument being presented by the theists is saying that there has to be that requirement, as it is the best explanation for why the universe began, and current exists.

The problem with the theistic answer is that they tend to say that "GOD" is "Supernatural" while at the same time argue that it is a natural thing to think that the universe was created by a creator, and that sufficiently muddies the waters.

Why is there something rather than nothing ?" and the answer might be because nothing is an unstable state.

An unstable state is something.