Is faith a reliable path to reality?

[Angry Ukulele Girl]

Hi there!

This is my first post
This is according to Hebrews 11:1
How exactly can "confidence in what we hope for"
and an "assurance about what we do not see"
be a reliable path to reality?
For example,
Would it be advisable to approach my bank account balance in such a way?

Thanks!

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #145]

We are very familiar with this inverted Faithbased reasoning. I may have become a bore in explaining it.

Well, Good I am glad you are familiar with the gospel.

I'll just touch on the eternal universe, which is quite an interesting discussion. First, the universe - our universe - apparently had a cause. This cause (Big Bang) does not need a god. It only needs assembly of existing particles from a wider cosmos. That is the Real cosmic origins question, and there is a theory as to how that could be eternal.

Oh - as to timing, Our universe may expand, die (the Entropy apologetic) and contract to BB a new universe. Entirely possible - naturally, and does not have the problem of what God was doing before he made everything.

Universe without a god in fact leaves less problems than a god - claim does,.

So, you believe in a wider cosmos. Where is that wider cosmos? The Big Bang theory proposes a universe that creates space as it expands. What are the physical laws in that wider cosmos? How does an eternal universe overcome the effects of entropy? How does anything occur without the flow of time? Time is a construct of this universe. I would say your "physical universe" (I am not sure how that is possible outside of our universe, but I will let you have your fantasies.) has enough problems to overcome.

God is not physical; He is spirit. Therefore, He can exist and produce action without needing time or space. There is no evidence of space outside of this universe or that time exists outside of this universe.

Now as to the god - claim. The burden of proof falls on the one who claims a god exists. They also have to show which one it is because if you dismiss all the others without consideration, we can dismiss your claim without consideration.

Which God is a different discussion than "Is there a God?" I am not a Muslim, but they would agree that there is a God. The burden of proof falls on the one who believes the material is all there is. In this post, you have testified that there is more to this universe than the material. You have declared that something must exist outside of this universe. Whatever exists outside of this universe has to be able to exist and cause action without time or space and be all-powerful.

Thank you for proving God does exist. GOOD JOB.

There's a nice example of trying to steal the debate. The comic origins problem is not what I believe, but a problem created by theists who keep asking 'what (or whom) did that? They rarely seem to think this far, but the materialist BB theory must require pre existing matter for the BB event molecule to be made out of, as there are problems with making it appear out of nothing - as the Theists are well aware.

I think you misunderstand the outside the universe idea, too. Space and time within tis universe is dictated and measured by the explanation of the universe and the sequence of events within it. Whatever happens outside is dictated by the conditions of whatever is outside - assuming a finite expanding universe from a 'creation', which i suppose you do or Creation isn't Thing.

It is theism that requires the BB to appear out of Nothing and materialism that argues for a wider cosmos. That in no way makes 'more to this universe' anything 'spiritual;. You have perpetrated a very obvious trick through equivocation, strawmanning and putting words, or ideas, into my mouth, and that will hurt your case, not mine.

Your argument that Muslims also believe in a god doesn't get you very far, either. Their god, like the Christian god, is derived from the Jewish God, and so it is all the same false and delusionary claim.

However, let's not get misled about what we know or even guess. Nobody knows. And logically, that means that no claims or hypotheses are more than that, are not credible or supported by any real evidence and certainly not support for faith in any god, let alone the Abrahamic one, as a thing to have a firm faith in.

Cosmic origins, or 'Kalam' in one form, is only valid to Theists who suppose that an Origin to this universe can only be done by an uncreated cause and add to that (with no validation whatsoever) an intelligent cause, or at least an act of will. There is actually no reason to conclude any such thing as a viable hypothesis, let alone a credible claim.

Cosmic origins, like origins of life, at best is an argument for an intelligent creator, which atheists can accept as an unvalidated possibility, which sinks the accusation that we (goddless) claim there is no god and thus the burden of proof (disproof) is on us, when actually we make no claim either way, and it is theism makes the claim 'an intelligent creator did this' and, therefore, the burden of proof falls on them.

That's before we even ask 'which god?' and Creationists know this. After the Dover trial, Creationists tried to hive Creationism off from religion by saying that ID did not claim to know or say what the Creator was (though they had Faith themselves that it was Biblegod).

So your arguments fail is every way, both in substance and logical validity, and that's being polite about it.

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #150]

I am going to start right here,

"Most all" is strong, but at least a majority as long as you don't try to smuggle in any more qualifiers, like a physical encounter or that "alive" necessarily meant "alive in the flesh." The academic consensus is that the early followers of Jesus believed that they encountered Jesus in some form.

Okay, let's go with that. So then, where did these scholars get this from? That would be by reading what is contained in the NT. If this is the case, then the authors were reporting what they believed to be true and were not in any way attempting to write what you call "fiction as genre" or "allegorical fiction about their demigod hero". We cannot have it both ways here. In other words, we cannot say they were truly convinced in what they saw, and also say the authors intended to write "allegorical fiction about their demigod hero". The point is the scholars are convinced that we have enough facts and evidence to know that the authors were reporting upon what they believed to be true. If this is the case, we can eliminate "fiction as genre" and "allegorical fiction about their demigod hero".

The next thing I would like to focus on is this,

This isn't a fact. The evidence is extremely poor and the counterevidence strong enough that the "author who addressed Theophilus" didn't know Paul or any first-generation Christians.

Please give us this "counterevidence" which is "strong enough" to suggest the author was not alive at the time of the events recorded. Exactly what evidence do we have that this would be the case? I will assure you that we have very strong evidence from the writing itself the author was a traveling companion of Paul which would demonstrate he was alive at the time of the events recorded. One of the strongest reasons we can know we have this evidence is the fact that there are those opposed who understand this to be the case, which is why they understand they must, and have to give some sort of alternative explanation for this evidence. It's pretty simple. If there was no such evidence, then there would be no need for the alternative explanation in an attempt to explain away the evidence. In the meantime, I will be waiting eagerly on this counterevidence which is strong enough to suggest the author was not present.

You haven't demonstrated that the reports were intended to be historical. You can't rightly insist that the reasons to believe the reports overcome their inherent implausibility.

My friend, even if I were to demonstrate the reports were intended to be historical, this would not "overcome their inherent implausibility". Moreover, I think we have demonstrated that the material was at the very least intended to be historical, otherwise the scholars would not be telling us that the early followers were convinced in what they saw. Please explain how the material being historical could possibly overcome the inherent implausibility. Again, no one is making the argument that the resurrection is plausible, probable, or the most likely. Rather, I clearly understand that it is implausible, improbable, and the least likely, and yet this is what these folks were proclaiming, and we have enough evidence to convince the scholars they truly believed what they saw, and these common folks continue to report this very same thing well into old age, suffering for what they were proclaiming. What you need to keep in mind here is, we are not talking about those who simply believed what others had to say, but rather those who were claiming to have witnessed the event themselves. I am not really one who pays attention to the odds, but you certainly seem to be one who would bet your life on the odds. So then, what are the odds that one would give up their life for what they know to be false? Notice carefully, it is not what they believe to be true, but rather what they know to be false?

In the course of our discussions, I've given you several.

The only thing I can see you have offered is a discussion concerning the odds. Again, no one is making the argument that the resurrection is the most probable answer. I mean, if this is where you would like to stop, then I have no problem with that. In other words, if you simply look at the odds and go with what you believe the odds would be, then have at it. I do this myself at times, when I am not really interested in what the truth would be. In other words, someone may share with me some sort of strange news, and I will simply shrug it off by saying this news is farfetched, and I choose not to believe it, but I can assure you that I would not then go on a debate site attempting to debate the topic simply based upon what would be more likely.

Allow me to end with this.

Walking on water? Water to wine? Raising Lazarus from the dead? Being resurrected from the dead? I'd bet the farm that none of those happened in a historical sense and I'd bet a substantial amount that the stories about them were intended to be fiction as genre.

I have no problem with what you say above, and I am fine with you stopping at what the odds would be. I can tell you this though. You are betting way more than the farm, and you are doing so simply based upon what the odds would be, and no one, even those making the claims were attempting to convince anyone that the odds of a resurrection were great. Rather, they certainly seem to clearly understand that what they were proclaiming would be extraordinary, and they continued to proclaim the extraordinary in the face of those who would have had every reason to put the claims down, and these claims these ordinary folks were making go on to have an enormous impact upon history. Exactly what would be the odds of this occurring?

I'm just telling you that the facts and evidence we have demands some sort of explanation, and you seem to agree. You have an easy answer and that seems to be that we should just go with the odds. I am certainly fine with those who simply want to go with the odds, but the odds do not in any way explain all the facts and evidence we have.

One last thing. I noticed that you seem to have avoided the question as to whether you were a convinced Christian at one time? If you were not, then you can prove me wrong by simply telling us you were not. However, as I read the questions you posed, and combined the last two, it was these questions that gave me this impression. Again, you can prove me to be in error by simply telling us you have never been a convinced Christian. If you continue to avoid the question that is fine, but it speaks volumes!

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #0]

There's a nice example of trying to steal the debate. The comic origins problem is not what I believe, but a problem created by theists who keep asking 'what (or whom) did that? They rarely seem to think this far, but the materialist BB theory must require pre existing matter for the BB event molecule to be made out of, as there are problems with making it appear out of nothing - as the Theists are well aware.

The cosmic origin problem is called a problem because it is a problem. If you want to put names on ideas, that is fine put names on them. Having names and definitions for concepts does not make them go away.

I think you misunderstand the outside the universe idea, too. Space and time within tis universe is dictated and measured by the explanation of the universe and the sequence of events within it. Whatever happens outside is dictated by the conditions of whatever is outside - assuming a finite expanding universe from a 'creation', which i suppose you do or Creation isn't Thing.

Oh, so you have been reading Sean Carroll again. What time measures has yet to be discovered. One theory is that it measures the increase in entropy, which Carroll believes and has made popular by the books he wrote. However, Einstein proposed that time is an actual dimension like length, width, and height, and there is experimental evidence that space behaves the way Einstein predicted. One of the milestones was the Gravity B experiment/satellite, which took 50 years to build and measured the indention in the fabric of space that the Earth made. Because relativity is such a robust theory, space and time are constructs of this universe. Again, as the universe expands, space is created by the expansion. Carroll's theory is creative. He needed an eternal universe, and to achieve his eternal universe, he imagined a universe in which entropy flows in both directions. And we just happen to be a universe where entropy flows in what we term the forward direction. Why this universe has the physical constants that it has is unknown. In my evaluation, the leading theory on why this universe has the physical that it has is the multiverse theory. There are infinite universes in which it is proposed that anything that can happen has happened. This totality of reality would also contain infinite earth science guys; what a glorious thought. In Carroll's reality, there would be some earth science guys who were atheists. No, no, no, this will not do. (So what is your theory of outside this universe?)

This idea mentioned above is nothing more than a fabricated story that could be used in movies for entertainment. It is currently impossible to prove, but how you explain it above contradicts relativity. Einstein treated the universe as a four-dimensional space, which he called space-time. Treating time as a dimension is why time slows as speed increases, which has been verified by experimentation. Therefore, because of relativity, time and space in this universe did not exist at some point in the past. Consequently, whatever created this universe has to be independent of it. It has to be eternal. It has to be omnipotent, immutable and omnipresent. That my friend is God. If Carroll wants to have his god in the form of a universe, he is free to do that.

His theory only proves the words written in Hebrews 11:3: "By faith, we understand that the universe was formed at Gods command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

You can make your own scripture. It would say something like, "By faith, we understand that the universe was formed by the mother universe so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

Choose your reality.

[Difflugia]

I am going to start right here,

"Most all" is strong, but at least a majority as long as you don't try to smuggle in any more qualifiers, like a physical encounter or that "alive" necessarily meant "alive in the flesh." The academic consensus is that the early followers of Jesus believed that they encountered Jesus in some form.

Okay, let's go with that. So then, where did these scholars get this from? That would be by reading what is contained in the NT. If this is the case, then the authors were reporting what they believed to be true and were not in any way attempting to write what you call "fiction as genre" or "allegorical fiction about their demigod hero". We cannot have it both ways here.

You're the one that can't have it both ways. If we're just going to accept the scholarly consensus for the sake of argument, then that consensus is all you get to introduce without further examination. I've agreed to accept specific claims (like that Jesus was a real person and was crucified) for the sake of this argument, but that still doesn't mean that I accept that the reasoning of any particular scholar as correct or valid, let alone your mere speculations about their reasoning. If you want me to accept that the authors were "not in any way attempting to write what [I] call 'fiction as genre,'" then you'll have to support that. As far as I'm concerned, while I'm accepting your claim that Jesus was real and the early Christians believed in some sort of experience of Jesus after his death, I still haven't accepted that the Gospels were other than allegorical fiction. If you want to examine more closely the reasoning of the scholars, we can, but I don't have to accept that their reasoning is sound just because I've agreed not to challenge at least part of the conclusion.

In other words, we cannot say they were truly convinced in what they saw, and also say the authors intended to write "allegorical fiction about their demigod hero".

Sure I can. I can agree for the sake of argument that they were convinced of some sort of experience, but then wrote a fictionalized account of it. Those two positions aren't even mildly inconsistent.

The point is the scholars are convinced that we have enough facts and evidence to know that the authors were reporting upon what they believed to be true.

This is why I asked you to qualify what you meant by "reporting." The assertion about the scholarly position that I agreed to is that the early Christians believed in some sort of resurrection and some sort of experience with Jesus after his death. That doesn't extend to accepting any details of any of the resurrection accounts themselves. If you want me to accept any of those, you'll have to support why they're reliable as history. As you've said, you can't have it both ways.

If this is the case, we can eliminate "fiction as genre" and "allegorical fiction about their demigod hero".

"What the authors were reporting on" and the way that they reported it doesn't eliminate the possibility of it being fiction. A fictionalized account of as resurrection that they believed was true in some sense is perfectly consistent with the actual facts.

Please give us this "counterevidence" which is "strong enough" to suggest the author was not alive at the time of the events recorded. Exactly what evidence do we have that this would be the case?

I've done this before and you just repeatedly reasserted your claim. We can talk about it again, but if this is an important item in your set of "facts and evidence," then you're well outside of any sort of scholarly consensus and your case is no longer based on "what we can know."

I will assure you that we have very strong evidence from the writing itself the author was a traveling companion of Paul which would demonstrate he was alive at the time of the events recorded.

Of course you will. You have made such assertions many times before, but without adequate support. I also didn't say that the author wasn't alive, only that he wasn't one of the first generation of Christians.

One of the strongest reasons we can know we have this evidence is the fact that there are those opposed who understand this to be the case, which is why they understand they must, and have to give some sort of alternative explanation for this evidence. It's pretty simple. If there was no such evidence, then there would be no need for the alternative explanation in an attempt to explain away the evidence.

Yes. I remember. Scholars disagree with your synthesis of Acts, and that disagreement proves that you're right. You'll forgive me if I think your reasoning here is a bit unsound.

In the meantime, I will be waiting eagerly on this counterevidence which is strong enough to suggest the author was not present.

You haven't given me any reasons to think that the accounts are reliable, so I hardly have to accept it as something that "we can know." I've already explained the state of the evidence to you, though. If you want to talk about it again, I'll find the explanation when the site search is fixed. I'm not rewriting the whole thing again just to have you handwave it away with a "GOOD GRIEF!"

My friend, even if I were to demonstrate the reports were intended to be historical, this would not "overcome their inherent implausibility".

You're absolutely right.

Moreover, I think we have demonstrated that the material was at the very least intended to be historical, otherwise the scholars would not be telling us that the early followers were convinced in what they saw.

Accepting the latter doesn't demonstrate the first.

Please explain how the material being historical could possibly overcome the inherent implausibility.

I don't think it can, which makes your argument fatally flawed out of the gate. The historicity of the accounts is nonetheless an essential part of your argument, though, so if you can't establish that, we don't even get to plausibility.

What you need to keep in mind here is, we are not talking about those who simply believed what others had to say, but rather those who were claiming to have witnessed the event themselves.

None of the Evangelists claim to have witnessed any of the events themselves.

So then, what are the odds that one would give up their life for what they know to be false?

That anyone would? Joseph Smith apparently did.

The only thing I can see you have offered is a discussion concerning the odds.

Within this very thread we had a discussion about hallmarks of both fiction and historiography and the ways that that they do and don't apply to the Gospels and Acts. If you don't remember, maybe reread some of that.

Again, no one is making the argument that the resurrection is the most probable answer. I mean, if this is where you would like to stop, then I have no problem with that. In other words, if you simply look at the odds and go with what you believe the odds would be, then have at it. I do this myself at times, when I am not really interested in what the truth would be. In other words, someone may share with me some sort of strange news, and I will simply shrug it off by saying this news is farfetched, and I choose not to believe it, but I can assure you that I would not then go on a debate site attempting to debate the topic simply based upon what would be more likely.

I bet that's not true. Let's try something. Let's play "two truths and a lie." I'll give you three statements, one of which is false. Without appealing to probability, tell me which ones are true and which is false:

1. I checked my mail this morning.
2. I flew to the moon for breakfast.
3. My breakfast was a protein bar and mug of tea.

I noticed that you seem to have avoided the question as to whether you were a convinced Christian at one time?

I wasn't avoiding anything. I was a Christian beginning in junior high school until my first year of college. I've said that several times on this site.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #148]

You say that methodological naturalism "has to have a starting point," but it doesn't. Regardless of the philosophical baggage you try to saddle it with, methodological naturalism is the accepted method of science because it works without having to opine about some esoteric feature of the universe. Let's try an exercise

Stop right here. Everything else you say after this is garbage because your original assumption is incorrect. Methodological naturalism is the accepted method of science because that is all that science can test. It is not like scientists are choosing to test only materialistic ideas because they see the evidence leading in that direction. This is because science can only test materialistic ideas. The physical senses limit the measurements science can take to those the senses can perceive. As a consequence, anything outside of this universe would be beyond the limits of science. Physicists like Sean Carroll and others can have theories that extend outside this universe, but these theories cannot be considered science because they cannot be observed or tested. Theories like this would have to be classified as metaphysical theories. The metaphysical can only be explored through philosophy and theology.

This is why there is tension between science, philosophy, and theology. Because the study of origins leads science outside the bounds of naturalism and into the realm of the metaphysical. Scientists who study origins are no longer proposing naturalistic theories but metaphysical theories that are outside of the ability of science to test.

Science cannot be used as proof for the metaphysical, which is what the study of origins has become. It has become a study of metaphysical ideas.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #0]

There's a nice example of trying to steal the debate. The comic origins problem is not what I believe, but a problem created by theists who keep asking 'what (or whom) did that? They rarely seem to think this far, but the materialist BB theory must require pre existing matter for the BB event molecule to be made out of, as there are problems with making it appear out of nothing - as the Theists are well aware.

The cosmic origin problem is called a problem because it is a problem. If you want to put names on ideas, that is fine put names on them. Having names and definitions for concepts does not make them go away.

I think you misunderstand the outside the universe idea, too. Space and time within tis universe is dictated and measured by the explanation of the universe and the sequence of events within it. Whatever happens outside is dictated by the conditions of whatever is outside - assuming a finite expanding universe from a 'creation', which i suppose you do or Creation isn't Thing.

Oh, so you have been reading Sean Carroll again. What time measures has yet to be discovered. One theory is that it measures the increase in entropy, which Carroll believes and has made popular by the books he wrote. However, Einstein proposed that time is an actual dimension like length, width, and height, and there is experimental evidence that space behaves the way Einstein predicted. One of the milestones was the Gravity B experiment/satellite, which took 50 years to build and measured the indention in the fabric of space that the Earth made. Because relativity is such a robust theory, space and time are constructs of this universe. Again, as the universe expands, space is created by the expansion. Carroll's theory is creative. He needed an eternal universe, and to achieve his eternal universe, he imagined a universe in which entropy flows in both directions. And we just happen to be a universe where entropy flows in what we term the forward direction. Why this universe has the physical constants that it has is unknown. In my evaluation, the leading theory on why this universe has the physical that it has is the multiverse theory. There are infinite universes in which it is proposed that anything that can happen has happened. This totality of reality would also contain infinite earth science guys; what a glorious thought. In Carroll's reality, there would be some earth science guys who were atheists. No, no, no, this will not do. (So what is your theory of outside this universe?)

This idea mentioned above is nothing more than a fabricated story that could be used in movies for entertainment. It is currently impossible to prove, but how you explain it above contradicts relativity. Einstein treated the universe as a four-dimensional space, which he called space-time. Treating time as a dimension is why time slows as speed increases, which has been verified by experimentation. Therefore, because of relativity, time and space in this universe did not exist at some point in the past. Consequently, whatever created this universe has to be independent of it. It has to be eternal. It has to be omnipotent, immutable and omnipresent. That my friend is God. If Carroll wants to have his god in the form of a universe, he is free to do that.

His theory only proves the words written in Hebrews 11:3: "By faith, we understand that the universe was formed at Gods command so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

You can make your own scripture. It would say something like, "By faith, we understand that the universe was formed by the mother universe so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

Choose your reality.

It will be pretty clear to anyone with eyes open where you are going wrong here. The problem of cosmic origins is nobody knows, You don't and I don't. So it is a problem or question because we don't know.

This means it doesn't help your case, because secularists don't make a claim beyond' 'Don't know;' So the speculations and hypotheses and all your attempts to use grubby trick like some fabricated story you reckon I use or some writer you suppose I read (I didn't this is all known material) gets you nowhere because these are all hypotheses that prove nothing, and the bottom line is that the burden of proof is only anyone claiming a god did it as my position is 'we don't know.

So your entire post was at best an ineffective waste of time, and at worst an ineffective string of dirty tricks. Faith, whether in a Biblequote or without, is not a valid guide to where the universe or the stuff it was made from came from.

Congratulations om giving me a chance to show you have no evidence, no grasp of the argument even and that this doesn't even get you to a particular god even if you had made a care.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #156]

It will be pretty clear to anyone with eyes open where you are going wrong here. The problem of cosmic origins is nobody knows, You don't and I don't. So it is a problem or question because we don't know.

So, are you also saying that Sean Carroll, Brain Greene, Max Tegmark, and other Physicists do not know either? If you and some of the top cosmologists in the world do not know, how do you say that there is not a God in Heaven?

This means it doesn't help your case, because secularists don't make a claim beyond' 'Don't know;'

Do you seriously mean this? Who have you been reading? If I were you, I would change books. Have you not heard of string theory, the multiverse theory, or the universe from nothing theory, volumes 1, 2, and 3? (Krauss's current "theory" is not really his theory. It was first proposed in the 1970s and refuted, then again in the late 1980s and refuted, and now here it is again with all of the same problems.) These are far from what I know.

So the speculations and hypotheses and all your attempts to use grubby trick like some fabricated story you reckon I use or some writer you suppose I read (I didn't this is all known material) gets you nowhere because these are all hypotheses that prove nothing, and the bottom line is that the burden of proof is only anyone claiming a god did it as my position is 'we don't know.

All "known material" had to originate somewhere, even if you did not know where it originated. So, in this case, you do. Any theory that extends outside the existence of this universe is, by definition, metaphysical. And now, since it is generally agreed that the origin of the universe extends beyond the confines of this universe, any proof of the origin of the universe has to be a metaphysical argument that science is not equipped to give. So, do you have a philosophical argument for the existence of a purely materialistic universe?

So your entire post was at best an ineffective waste of time, and at worst an ineffective string of dirty tricks. Faith, whether in a Biblequote or without, is not a valid guide to where the universe or the stuff it was made from came from.

Congratulations om giving me a chance to show you have no evidence, no grasp of the argument even and that this doesn't even get you to a particular god even if you had made a care.

AquinasForGod strikes again. (Aquinas gives an old but good argument for God in his 5 ways)

[Difflugia]

Stop right here.

Sure.

Everything else you say after this is garbage because your original assumption is incorrect.

Which assumption is that?

Methodological naturalism is the accepted method of science because that is all that science can test. It is not like scientists are choosing to test only materialistic ideas because they see the evidence leading in that direction.

What kind of evidence isn't materialistic evidence? Do you have any statements by scientists that they see some sort of nonmaterialistic evidence and feel hamstrung by methodological naturalism? Do they have an alternative to methodological naturalism, like

This is because science can only test materialistic ideas.

Jesus bucks are materialistic. We can test for those.

The physical senses limit the measurements science can take to those the senses can perceive. As a consequence, anything outside of this universe would be beyond the limits of science. Physicists like Sean Carroll and others can have theories that extend outside this universe, but these theories cannot be considered science because they cannot be observed or tested. Theories like this would have to be classified as metaphysical theories. The metaphysical can only be explored through philosophy and theology.

I suspect that your definitions here involve some equivocation, but I don't really care. You're still trying to turn this into some sort of slippery slope where if you can make up something and call it "outside of this universe" or "metaphysical," then you get to claim that it has some appreciable probability of existing. Methodological naturalism or no, claiming that an event defies statistical analysis is just special pleading.

This is why there is tension between science, philosophy, and theology. Because the study of origins leads science outside the bounds of naturalism and into the realm of the metaphysical.

The "realm of the metaphysical" seems an awful lot like "the realm of the made up" and that sufficiently explains the tension between science, philosophy, and theology.

Scientists who study origins are no longer proposing naturalistic theories but metaphysical theories that are outside of the ability of science to test.

In the absence of you offering any support, I'll just take your word for it.

Science cannot be used as proof for the metaphysical, which is what the study of origins has become. It has become a study of metaphysical ideas.

There it is. You've asserted that the "study of origins" is in the same realm as things that are made up, so Jesus bucks are just as plausible as, say, string theory.

That explains why you didn't like my proposed experiment. Zero Jesus bucks in a thousand or a million trials starts to look uncomfortably like the same amount of evidence that we have for gods. If you can convincingly declare that there's no way to test for Jesus bucks, then maybe gods defy statistical analysis enough to be real, too.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #158]

What kind of evidence isn't materialistic evidence? Do you have any statements by scientists that they see some sort of nonmaterialistic evidence and feel hamstrung by methodological naturalism? Do they have an alternative to methodological naturalism, like

No, they do not, and that was my point.

Jesus bucks are materialistic. We can test for those.

No, they are not. They are a figment of your imagination. Just like your probability argument, you like it so much.

I suspect that your definitions here involve some equivocation, but I don't really care. You're still trying to turn this into some sort of slippery slope where if you can make up something and call it "outside of this universe" or "metaphysical," then you get to claim that it has some appreciable probability of existing. Methodological naturalism or no, claiming that an event defies statistical analysis is just special pleading.

All materialism says is that we exist. (well, kind of anyway, because reality is not really a sure thing in materialism), But I, being the gracious person that I am, will give you the benefit of the doubt and say that materialism can confirm that we exist (sort of). Relativity says that materialism has to stop at creation. Therefore, science and materialism have no input or discovery power. So, you have nothing to base your probability on except your imagination, which you have used quite a bit in this discussion. You might say that we do not see God in our materialistic universe; therefore, He does not exist. But you also do not see evidence of whatever you believe is the universe's cause. Using your probablity the universe cannot exist because it does not have a cause.

Let's use your example sort of because it really is not an origins theory. :

There it is. You've asserted that the "study of origins" is in the same realm as things that are made up, so Jesus bucks are just as plausible as, say, string theory.

String theory is not an origins theory. It was developed to answer the question of the universe's fine-tuning. However, it has become a colossal failure because of its many solutions, like 10E400th. If we use your probability paradigm with 10E400 solutions, then the possibility of the universe existing is 10E10000, 20000, or 100000. There would have to be an infinite number of universes in the totality of reality for our universe to exist. So yes, Jesus bucks are much more plausible than uninverse bucks.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #156]

It will be pretty clear to anyone with eyes open where you are going wrong here. The problem of cosmic origins is nobody knows, You don't and I don't. So it is a problem or question because we don't know.

So, are you also saying that Sean Carroll, Brain Greene, Max Tegmark, and other Physicists do not know either? If you and some of the top cosmologists in the world do not know, how do you say that there is not a God in Heaven?

This means it doesn't help your case, because secularists don't make a claim beyond' 'Don't know;'

Do you seriously mean this? Who have you been reading? If I were you, I would change books. Have you not heard of string theory, the multiverse theory, or the universe from nothing theory, volumes 1, 2, and 3? (Krauss's current "theory" is not really his theory. It was first proposed in the 1970s and refuted, then again in the late 1980s and refuted, and now here it is again with all of the same problems.) These are far from what I know.

So the speculations and hypotheses and all your attempts to use grubby trick like some fabricated story you reckon I use or some writer you suppose I read (I didn't this is all known material) gets you nowhere because these are all hypotheses that prove nothing, and the bottom line is that the burden of proof is only anyone claiming a god did it as my position is 'we don't know.

All "known material" had to originate somewhere, even if you did not know where it originated. So, in this case, you do. Any theory that extends outside the existence of this universe is, by definition, metaphysical. And now, since it is generally agreed that the origin of the universe extends beyond the confines of this universe, any proof of the origin of the universe has to be a metaphysical argument that science is not equipped to give. So, do you have a philosophical argument for the existence of a purely materialistic universe?

So your entire post was at best an ineffective waste of time, and at worst an ineffective string of dirty tricks. Faith, whether in a Biblequote or without, is not a valid guide to where the universe or the stuff it was made from came from.

Congratulations om giving me a chance to show you have no evidence, no grasp of the argument even and that this doesn't even get you to a particular god even if you had made a care.

AquinasForGod strikes again. (Aquinas gives an old but good argument for God in his 5 ways)

I debated Aquinas for god and he got beat, soundly (because the old Ontological arguments are passe, and flawed, just like kalam, and so far as i know has left the building. The victors are still here.

As to those authors with their theories... they are theories. Hypotheses. We do not know for sure, not Dark matter, string theory or multiverses, even if there is evidence for them. Dammnit - we haven' even proven Abiogenesis, despite a worked out mechanism. Thus nobody knows, for sure. This means that at best, there is no case for a theist or materialist belief either way, at worst (for theism) things work without a god, so materialism is the go - to potential hypothesis and the belief of theism which I will bet Texas swinging to Blue on, that Goddunnit is the default hypothesis, is supported neither by evidence nor logic.

I get your kalam - point that all materials had to originate somewhere. We know where basic elements came from and heavy elements, too. We know about the origins of the Universe. though the BB seems to have developed in theory from a whopping explosion to a simultaneous change. There is still a lot of debate.

But the Real Cosmic origin Q is where the stuff came from to make the matter of the BB event? I won't get into My personal theory/hypothesis, but just say that origin of cosmic stuff is a problem. Origin of a creator to make this stuff and intelligent too, and uncreated is two or three problems.