Posted on 07/28/2013 3:57:08 PM PDT by spirited irish
American Christian author Dr. Frank Turek notes that Cambridge-trained Ph.D. Stephen Meyer's New York Times best-seller, "Darwin's Doubt," is creating a major scientific controversy. Because Darwinists absolutely hate it, Meyer's well-reasoned argument that an intelligent designer is the best explanation for the evidence at hand elicits irrational accusations that Meyers is anti-scientific and guilty of endangering sexual freedom everywhere. (Darwin's Doubt, Turek, Townhall.com, July 09, 2013)
Meyer writes,
"Neo-Darwinism and the theory of intelligent design are not two different kinds of inquiry, as some critics have asserted. They are two different answers – formulated using a similar logic and method of reasoning – to the same question: 'What caused biological forms and the appearance of design in the history of life?'" (ibid.)
The real issue here is not "anti-scientific" intelligent design or for that matter, the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo ("special creation" as evolutionary materialists call it) versus "scientifically enlightened reason and science," but about creation account vs. anti-creation account (Darwinian materialism).
The reason Darwinists on one hand, and intelligent design and Genesis account proponents on the other, arrive at radically different answers is because Darwinists are neo-pagan materialists and the other two are not.
While intelligent design proponents are open to intelligent causes (just like crime scene investigators are), Genesis account creationists hold that our Creator, the living, personal Triune God, the Divine Source of life who exists outside of the space/time dimension is Jesus Christ, the angel who spoke with Moses at Sinai.
Foremost of His miracles is creation out of nothing – six days of creation rather than the billions of years of evolutionary process out of already existing or spontaneously generated matter:
"The first moment of time is the moment of God's creative act and of creation's simultaneous coming to be." (Philosopher and New Testament scholar William Lane Craig, quoted in "If God created the universe, then who created God?' by Jonathan Sarfati, Creation Ministries International)
"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:27)
As all men are the spiritual image-bearers of the Triune God, it logically follows that each male and female is a trinity of being – of soul, spirit, and body:
"The essence of the human is not the body, but the soul. It is the soul alone that God made in his own image and the soul that he loves....For the sake of the soul...the Son of God came into the world...." (Incomplete Work on Matthew, Homily 25, Ancient Christian Devotional, Oden and Crosby, p. 153)
For fifteen hundred years, Christendom and then later Protestant America had followed St. Augustine (AD 354-430) in affirming that all men are three part spiritual image-bearers of the transcendent Triune God (Gen. 1:27). This unique view of man was affirmed by the brilliant French economist, statesman, and author Frederic Bastiat. Man as God's spiritual image-bearer is the precious gift from God, which includes the physical, intellectual, and moral life:
"He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. Life, faculties, production – in other words, individuality, liberty, property – this is man (and) these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place." (Bastiat, "How Evil Works," David Kupelian, p. 8)
Vishal Mangalwadi, India's foremost Christian scholar, writes that this unique concept of man as God's spiritual image-bearer gave birth to the "belief in the unique dignity of human beings," and this is
"...the force that created Western civilization, where citizens do not exist for the state but the state exists for the individuals. Even kings, presidents, prime ministers, and army generals cannot be allowed to trample upon an individual and his or her rights." (Truth and Transformation: A Manifesto for Ailing Nations, pp. 12-13)
Neo-pagan, anti-human God-haters
Darwinian materialists are anti-Triune God:
"The irony is devastating. The main purpose of Darwinism was to drive every last trace of an incredible God from biology. But the theory replaces God with an even more incredible deity – omnipotent chance...." (T. Rosazak, Unfinished Animal, pp. 101-102, 1975)
They hate the very thought of Him as their Father and seek escape to a nowhere land, an impersonal, collective communal unconscious where man as God's spiritual image-bearer, immutable truth, order, moral law, sexual ethics, authority, hell, heaven, angels, demons, meaning, and purpose do not exist. For these reasons and others, such as Original Sin and the two created sexes, they fiercely reject intelligent design but viciously hate creation ex nihilo, and choose rather to embrace evolutionary and materialist conceptions. The truth of this can be seen in the following quotes:
"The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics. He is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do, or why his friends should not seize political power and govern in the way that they find most advantageous to themselves. The voluntary...reasons for holding doctrines of materialism...may be predominantly erotic, as they were in the case of Lamettrie...or predominantly political as they were in the case of Karl Marx." (Aldous Huxley, "Ends and Means," p. 315, from Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control, E. Michael Jones, p. 27)
"...one belief that all true original Darwinians held in common, and that was their rejection of creationism, their rejection of special creation. This was the flag around which they assembled and under which they marched.... The conviction that the diversity of the natural world was the result of natural processes and not the work of God was the idea that brought all the so-called Darwinians together in spite of their disagreements on other of Darwin's theories." (One Long Argument, 1991, p. 99, Ernst Mayr (d. 2005), Professor of Zoology at Harvard University)
"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." ("Billions and Billions of Demons," Richard Lewontin, PhD Zoology, Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at Harvard University)
Metaphysical nihilism: everything and nothing
Metaphysical nihilism (all that exists is matter and energy) is the metaphysics of both physical materialism and nonphysical materialist conceptions.
What chiefly separates these two is whether matter is physical or nonphysical. If physical, then the Triune God, heaven, hell, soul/spirit, angels, and demons do not exist. But if nonphysical, then for example, spirits, ghosts, divine sparks, Transcended Masters, intra-cosmic deities, Orobouros, astral planes, divine impersonal mind, and Christ consciousness exist but the material world is an illusion.
Brooks Alexander, the founder of The Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP), an evangelical ministry and think-tank in Berkeley, California, identifies both physical and nonphysical materialist conceptions as the two sides of pagan monism. Because they are from the same root, they tend to cross-pollinate and mingle,
"...producing a brood of offspring that exhibits the genetic heritage of its parents in a confused and confusing array. Soon it becomes impossible to say whether a given movement, trend or school of thought is a secular impulse that has absorbed Eastern/occult values, or an Eastern/occult teaching that has dressed itself in secular language." (The Rise of Cosmic Humanism: What is Religion?" Brooks Alexander, SCP Journal, 1981-82, p. 2)
In other words, for many years secular-human physicalists have been quietly crossing over into spiritual or cosmic conceptions of matter and embracing for example, Zen Buddhism and Teilhards idea, which leapfrogs off of Darwin's theory.
The apostate French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) taught that an impersonal god-force emerges from spontaneously generated matter. According to Teilhard, this evolution of a god-force results in evolution becoming "conscious of itself" and ultimately, in the transformation of all physical matter into nonphysical divine matter defined by Teilhard as "Christ consciousness" or "pure spirit." Teilhard called this final stage of evolution the "Omega Point" and "the cosmic Christ."
You can be as God
The perennially persuasive Big Lie underlies both physical and nonphysical conceptions. This thought is expressed openly in the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Dr. Beverly Galyean, leading exponent of occult Luciferian New Age confluent education:
"The Buddhists and the Jains do not depend on God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion: to evolve a God out of man." (Inspired Talks, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center, 1958, p. 218)
"Once we begin to see that we are all God, that we have the attributes of God, then, I think the whole purpose of human life is to reown the Godlikeness within us...So my whole view is very much based on that idea." (Galyean quoted by Francis Adeney, Educators Look East, Radix 12, No. 3, Nov-Dec. 1980, p. 21)
This same idea expressed in secular terms such as self-realization and self-actualization (a term coined by Abraham Maslow) underlies many contemporary psychotherapies.
Nihilism: You are of nothing
"Behold, you are of nothing, and your work of that which hath no being: he that hath chosen you is an abomination." Isaiah 41:24
Though evolutionary materialists congratulate themselves for being scientifically enlightened, cutting edge 'elite' free thinkers, the truth is otherwise, meaning that materialists, whether of the secular physical or occult spiritual school are miserable self-deceived nihilists for whom there is neither source for "self" (conscious life, psyche, individual mind) nor for meaning and purpose in life. They are "of nothing" and the unreality of their own existence is the devastating price they have paid the devil, the father of death and nihilism, for "saving" them from the living God.
The misery inducing "salvation" of "nonself" is not something new but something ancient. It began with Buddha who craved God-like power to deconstruct and reinterpret the soul. Taking power not only requires the murder of God but the teaching of lies.
Jesus to Buddha,
"....you took God away from them (and) your espousal of an absence of self is the most unique and fearsome claim you made...You turned from Hinduism because it said there was an essential self, which they called the atman." (The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha, Ravi Zacharias, pp.59, 67)
Six centuries before Jesus Christ, the Buddha already knew that if all that exists is matter then the human self cannot exist either:
"Therefore, he deconstructed the Hindu idea of the soul. When one starts peeling the onion skin of one's psyche, he discovers that there is no solid core at the center of one's being. Your sense of self is an illusion. Reality is nonself (anatman). You don't exist. Liberation, the Buddha taught, is realizing the unreality of your existence." (The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization, Vishal Mangalwadi, p. 6)
If all that exists is matter and energies working on and through matter, then it logically follows that there is no source for life, conscious life (soul, spirit and will), the two sexes, human dignity and worth, or for unalienable constitutional rights beginning with the right to life, liberty, and property. Without the Triune God, meaning drains into meaninglessness and man is reduced to less than nothing, a conclusion Buddha reached long before Marxist Communists attempted to scientifically re-engineer human beings after the fashion of metaphysical nihilism.
"Thought crime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for awhile....but sooner or later they were bound to get you." George Orwell, 1984
After seizing control of Russia, Marxist materialists utilized propaganda of the lie, re-education with major emphasis on Darwinism, revision of history, and other confusion-inducing, mind-and-thought-control techniques in connection with brain-altering drugs, electro-shock therapy, terror, and other brutal measures to
"...liquidate all expressions of individual identity in favor of an impersonal collective, communal consciousness." (The Book that Made Your World, Vishal Mangalwadi, p. 74)
Following in Buddha's footsteps, Western and American evolutionary materialists took our Creator away and replaced Him with nihilist Darwinian materialism. Then they conceptually reduced His spiritual image-bearers to less than nothing, taught monstrous lies as scientific fact, morally corrupted Westerners and Americans, and brutally ridiculed and demonized anyone who dared speak truth to their lies. By these means they set Western and American civilization adrift in infinite nothingness.
Nihilism is spiritual, moral, intellectual, and cultural suicide. It is the devil's inferno here on earth, the void of everything and nothing in which death is life, evil is good, lie is truth, up is down, male is female, female is male, rolling in filth is good clean fun, bad is good but evil better, and the father of nihilism is god.
Choose eternal blessing and not cursing
The unreality of "self" is a waking nightmare fueled by horrors of conscience, obsession with death, and hellish terrors of mind that make suicide, murder, abortion, euthanasia, and genocide into virtues.
"...I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life...." Deuteronomy 30:19-20
"Thou hast brought forth, O Lord, my soul from hell: thou hast saved me from them that go down into the pit." Psalm 30:3
The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Living Word become Flesh, Jesus Christ the Physician, came to heal the spiritually sick and dying, to save their immortal souls. Just as we are on the verge of going down into the pit, ready to depart to the unseen world, if we will repent and turn back to Him, then by His providence and grace our Lord will revive our souls and deliver us from those accursed horrors of conscience and ghastly terrors of mind which by reason of our sin are as hell searing itself into and possessing our very minds. (Psalm 116:3)
But whoever rejects the Physician, the Divine Source of life and soul, rejects His prescription, thereby destroys him or herself. So we ought to turn back to Him right now, before it is too late.
That is not circular reasoning. My statement wasn’t an argument but a statement of the principles at the base of reason. If you’d like to dispute that statement then please do so.
you can’t talk about what god does or does not do until you prove he exists.
Which god?.. There be a plethora of gods.. and designer gods..
I assume you mean the “REAL” god(for conversation purposes)... but that’s an assumption..
Since you may not believe there is one..
To define god you must know what your talking about..
I know of no one that even knows what this assumed god “IS”...
Describing attributes does not define god.. merely what appears to be so..
I admit that’s not good enough for some people.. they want to “bag” this god..
Having an invisible friend(god) is not good enough for many.. (because “it” is invisible)..
I know their dilemma.. having had the same dilemma..
Me not wanting to be tricked into recognizing some wazoo designer god I was suspicious.. rightfully I think..
Took me years to “see” that I couldn’t know what God was on my best day.. being a glorified primate..
Others still think they are pretty smart and can know what a creator of Universes “IS”.. if they “think” hard enough..
Heck I don’t really know what an atom is, if there are atoms.. “Bagging” god is a bit much for me..
Took me years to get that humble..
SOoo, What “IS” god?, what is “it” made of?..
Is it alive or even mobile?.. Does “it” have(or even need) a Mouth?..
Can “it” think?... or is it some alien(to humans) entity.?..
OR is there no god at all (as a god) but some other committee of beings?..
These are some questions I asked myself...
These kinds of questions drove Kierkegaard and Nietzsche crazy..
better you just take the Ebonics choice cut thru the BS and say there is no god.. or be agnostic..
Could save your sanity.. and save you all the ruminations..
True.. its a bit lazy and apathetic but quite simple as well..
Really, I know where you’re coming from..
If you can’t know what god is then he doesn’t explain anything. You can’t just assume he exists. You can’t assume such a thing when it is the base of your knowledge. Now Alamo says that we can’t know existence so she is pretty much done. She has abandoned reason and so she has no basis to argue anything. This is a highly philosophical question but is an easily understandable one. No one has ever proved the existence of god, not in all the centuries. Until someone does that it is pointless to haggle over what his attributes are because every argument begs the question.
The most fundamental question is: is reality objective or is it subjective? If it is subjective then we can truly know nothing as Alamo girl contends, unless we are told by a supernatural being. Every belief is just faith as Betty Boop contends and our minds are incapable of knowing reality as Alamo is saying.
An attack on man’s ability to know is not an argument for the existence of god.
I hold that reality exists independent from anyone’s consciousness including a supernatural one. I hold that everything exists possessing a specific identity and that our consciousness is capable of knowing it. Now go ahead and try to refute any one of those propositions without first having to accept them and use them.
The concept of a supernatural being that created and maintains existence contradicts all 3 so it is wrong in principle and this is why no one has ever been able to give a rational argument for the existence of god.
Your reflections on the view of God somewhat mirror my own.
As I approached the existence of God from a philosophical standpoint early in life, I was agnostic in that I could not decide what I believed and had not developed faith.
I solved this dilemma later in life with the example of a circle. Now a circle does not exist in the physical universe, yet all of us can equally discuss and consider the circle, being that it is a concept which is universally understood. So does a circle exist?
I say that it does.
In the same way, at the very least, God exists. To the human mind, it matters not whether a thing exists in concept or in physical reality, for they are both the same in the end...in the ability to be perceived by the person.
If therefore, God exists conceptually, what does it matter if he exists physically or not, he is the same to the observer.
You can understand the complications that arise from this point, but I still don’t believe that God is an “entity” which has seperate physical existance somewhere ou there in the vast cosmos, but that He is, in fact, the sum total of all that WE BELIEVE that He is. And that, in my eyes, is indeed a higher power.
You are saying that god exists because we believe he exists. You are done. You are saying he exists for those who believe but not for those who don’t. And of course circles exist all around us in nature. Give me a rational argument for the existence of god.
Circles do not exist all around us in nature. There is no such thing as a circle in the physical world.
you are insane.
Ad hominem.
A circle is a concept. It only exists in the mind of the perceiver. Understanding Plato’s Theory of Forms would be a help here...
from Wikipedia...
But what were the forms? In Plato’s dialogues as well as in general speech there is a form for every object or quality in reality: forms of dogs, human beings, mountains, colors, courage, love, and goodness. Form answers the question, “What is that?” Plato was going a step further and asking what Form itself is. He supposed that the object was essentially or “really” the Form and that the phenomena were mere shadows mimicking the Form; that is, momentary portrayals of the Form under different circumstances. The problem of universals – how can one thing in general be many things in particular – was solved by presuming that Form was a distinct singular thing but caused plural representations of itself in particular objects.[13] Matter was considered particular in itself.
These Forms are the essences of various objects: they are that without which a thing would not be the kind of thing it is. For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them.[14] Plato’s Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality. Super-ordinate to matter, Forms are the most pure of all things. Furthermore, he believed that true knowledge/intelligence is the ability to grasp the world of Forms with one’s mind.[15]
A Form is aspatial (transcendent to space) and atemporal (transcendent to time). Atemporal means that it does not exist within any time period, rather it provides the formal basis for time. It therefore formally grounds beginning, persisting and ending. It is neither eternal in the sense of existing forever, nor mortal, of limited duration. It exists transcendent to time altogether.[16] Forms are aspatial in that they have no spatial dimensions, and thus no orientation in space, nor do they even (like the point) have a location.[17] They are non-physical, but they are not in the mind. Forms are extra-mental (i.e. real in the strictest sense of the word).[18]
A Form is an objective “blueprint” of perfection.[19] The Forms are perfect themselves because they are unchanging. For example, say we have a triangle drawn on a blackboard. A triangle is a polygon with 3 sides. The triangle as it is on the blackboard is far from perfect. However, it is only the intelligibility of the Form “triangle” that allows us to know the drawing on the chalkboard is a triangle, and the Form “triangle” is perfect and unchanging. It is exactly the same whenever anyone chooses to consider it; however, the time is that of the observer and not of the triangle.
I am not a Platonist. I reject his theory of forms. A concept divorced from any concretes is a floating abstraction and is useless. Concepts are tools of cognition that help man to make sense of the perceptual data of his senses. We can come up with an infinite number of arbitrary concepts but what is the point. Now give me a rational argument for he existence of a real god and not some floating abstraction.
Sorry, it matters not to me whether you reject Plato or not.
My only point was that existence is not limited to the physical world, as you posit. Any concept which is capable of moving millions of people to worship, to go to war and kill, and give comfort from the harsh realities of mortality is just as real as the computer keyboard you are typing on.
It’s a clever ploy, to attempt to force others to prove the unprovable, and then pose as their mental superior, but not a game I would be willing to play on this beautiful Sunday morning.
Have a great rest of the weekend.
It is not a ploy it is reason. If something can not be proved then there is no rational reason to believe in it. The fact that millions of people believe something or are willing to fight for a belief or are comforted by a belief are not arguments. You have a great rest of the weekend too.
I don’t mean to be harsh but I think ideas and whether or not they are true are the two most important things in the universe. It is not just entertainment. Everything that happens is the result of ideas. wrong ideas lead to destruction and right ideas can bring about success and happiness for man. I think the principles put forth by religion are absolute poison and we will not have a decent world to live in until they have been abolished.
I want to say further that the Nazis were lead to war and to slaughtering 10 of millions of human beings because of their faith in the idea of some ideal race, of something greater than themselves. That, I’m serious, can be the the result of taking things on faith. They no doubt took comfort in the fact that they were serving a higher purpose and a greater good just as the Muslims who bomb innocents are serving their idea of a supernatural being. If one holds reason and right and wrong as absolutes then none of these atrocities could have happened.
St. Thomas Aquinas came up with five proofs of the existence of God. All are based on our ability to directly observe the world around us; all are thoroughly logical, rational. The influence of Aristotle — specifically his doctrine of causation (i.e., the Four Causes formal, material, efficient, and final) — is evident. As you are an Objectivist, I assume you have some respect for Aristotle — Ayn Rand certainly did.
Anyhoot, here's a summary of St. Thomas' Five Proofs:
1) The Proof from Motion. We observe motion all around us. Whatever is in motion now was at rest until moved by something else, and that by something else, and so on. But if there were an infinite series of movers, all waiting to be moved by something else, then actual motion could never have got started, and there would be no motion now. But there is motion now. So there must be a First Mover which is itself unmoved. This First Mover we call God.In my experience, the above observation in bold-italics is certainly true. If one denies God — if this is one's "epistemically prior" commitment — no proof is possible or acceptable.
2) The Proof from Efficient Cause. Everything in the world has its efficient cause — its maker — and that maker has its maker, and so on. The coffee table was made by the carpenter, the carpenter by his or her parents, and on and on. But if there were just an infinite series of such makers, the series could never have got started, and therefore be nothing now. But there is something everything there is! So there must have been a First Maker, that was not itself made, and that First Maker we call God.
3) The Proof from Necessary vs. Possible Being. Possible, or contingent, beings are those, such as cars and trees and you and I, whose existence is not necessary. For all such beings there is a time before they come to be when they are not yet, and a time after they cease to be when they are no more. If everything were merely possible, there would have been a time, long ago, when nothing had yet come to be. Nothing comes from nothing, so in that case there would be nothing now! But there is something now — the world and everything in it — so there must be at least one necessary being. This Necessary Being we call God.
4) The Proof from Degrees of Perfection. We all evaluate things and people in terms of their being more or less perfectly true, good, noble and so on. We have certain standards of how things and people should be. But we would have no such standards unless there were some being that is perfect in every way, something that is the truest, noblest, and best. That Most Perfect Being we call God.
5) The Proof from Design. As we look at the world around us, and ourselves, we see ample evidence of design — the bird's wing, designed for the purpose of flight; the human ear, designed for the purpose of hearing; the natural environment, designed to support life; and on and on. If there is design, there must be a designer. That Designer we call God....
The irony of proving God exists is, to a non-believer it can never be proven, but to a believer, proof of God can be seen just about everywhere.
But remember, that denial is a free choice.
You, speaking when you finally realize the absurdity of your assertion to not be acting on faith ...I must be a silly sight, being such a little mite, standing at the brink of all, thinking I am very tall.
Either side trying to 'prove' their position even mathematically, is folly, because neither side has the whole picture of all the variables involved in the complete system.
I can illustrate this notion very simple using a sheet of paper, iron filings, and a magnet. If you were a 2D spatial being living on the paper surface (the 2D universe of your sensing), the iron filings would represent imprints one the paper, but not the complete filing, since each of those iron filings have 3D characteristics that are un-sensed by the 2D world. If a 3D or 4D being uses the magnet to move the filings around, those in the 2D universe will have no clue why the filings are behaving as they collect along the magnetic lines of force.
We humans live in what is described as a 4D universe, where three "Ds" are spatial and one "D" is temporal. we have a somewhat primitive concept of dimension Time and have not much clue regarding spatial variable beyond 3. But we do have some 'gathering' clues regarding dimensional expression variable greater that what we have been fabricated to sense directly. The inability to 'see' magnetic lines of force is an example, but there are examples of crystalline structures like the non-stick coating on cookware which give indications that the crystalline deposits are being 'influenced' by dimensional realms we have yet to detect directly [see Lisa Randall's book, Warped Passages, specifically pages 18 and 19].
Because neither side of the God as Creator versus blind random chance evolution origins argument have the entire system in which our being has arisen, neither side can 'prove' anything and both sides are based in faith not proofs.
The only thing we are viewing with your blather is your massive, artificially inflated ego. You hold to your perspective on faith, not proof. So you are at your very basis illustrating the notion you claim to eschew. Your reasoning is immature.
Also, I already addressed the "proof" issue at post 74 and 79 on this thread.
In sum, we cannot make you see what we see. We can only present things to you. Indeed, "eyes to see" and "ears to hear" - spiritual perception as compared to sensory perception - are gifts of God.
TXnMA, my brother in Christ and a highly recognized scientist, and I have presented scientific observations from the cosmic microwave background radiation in posts 66, 68 and 83 and correlated those observations to the first few verses of Scripture.
To many of us Christians, Jews and Noahides this underscores the truth of Scripture, even more specifically that God is the only observer of creation and the author of His own words. He confirms their authenticity even by modern science though the words were recorded by mere men thousands of years ago.
To recap:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." - Gen 1:1
Space/time does not pre-exist, it is created as the universe expands.
All of the steady state theories were debunked and physical cosmologists turned instead to multi-verse, multi-world, cyclic, ekpyrotic, imaginary time models - all of which result in an infinite regress falsely demanding prior universes comply with the physical laws and constants of this one.
The only closed physical cosmology known to me is Max Tegmark's Level IV parallel universe which posits that 4D is a manifestation of mathematical structures which actually do exist outside of space and time.
And on this thread, TXnMA brought up isotropy v anisotropy - that "without anisotropy we could not exist; without isotropy we cannot survive."
In the first 300,000 years after the Big Bang from our present space/time coordinates, the universe was an isotropic hot watery soup.
If you read the article TXnMA presented at 66 and we discussed at 68 and 83 - and the additional article I posted at 68 - or listened to the sounds I linked at 68, you might have noticed that the Cosmic Microwave Background records the sound waves at the exact moment (300,000 years after the Big Bang from our space/time coordinates) at which photons decoupled from electrons and neutrons, atoms formed and light went its way.
And God said "Let there be light."
If you don't see this as evidence, we can't make you. But it practically screams to TXnMA and to me - and perhaps others on this thread.
By the way, light is used throughout Scripture as a metaphor for God's Shekinah glory. The metaphor is perfect because photons travel a "null path" - for the photon, no time elapses at all. Space/time are part of the creation, not a restriction on or property of the Creator of them.
Obviously, we cannot make you see what we see - nor can you stop us from putting such things in your field of view. So if you want to walk away, that's fine.
Show me which part of my blather is false. Religious people never say as you do that they can’t prove that god exist. They tell me I am wrong in no uncertain terms, that I am immoral and that I am going to burn in hell for all of eternity if I don’t believe as they do. Since your reasoning is more mature than mine is will you show me where it is wrong. You are making the same old fallacious arguments, the argument from ignorance and the false dichotomy of it either had to be created or it is the result of blind forces and molecules bumping together by chance and the whim of the winds. When you say that neither side knows everything so that all belief is just faith and there is no way to sort out the right from the wrong unless we can know everything that is the argument from ignorance. I hold that we don’t need to know everything in order to know that what we know is right. That is the power that logic gives us. Now can you make a rational argument for the existence of a god.
Alby..
MAN their killin you... dude.. good fight but you’re gettin beat up..
Nothing from nothing leaves nothing, surely you must agree?..
Looks like you’re over matched.. like I tried to tell you..
You are indeed a “true believer”.. I respect that..
I respect your faith in “science” but you reject the ultimate Scientist..
A kind of dissonance.. You’re chasing your tail “Dog”..
You’re response to the “circle thing” was humorous..
went completely over your head.. Now thats funny..
You have provided some serious entertainment here.. Thanks..
I am enjoying the heck out of this....
I leave you(for now) with THIS—>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuaG-TCpbtw
Thank you. I will respond to each of the five arguments and your observation later as I am off to work now and don’t have time to do it justice.
Thank you. I will respond later as I am off to work and I want to do more than give you a short response.
If you can’t know what god is then he doesn’t explain anything. You can’t just assume he exists. You can’t assume such a thing when it is the base of your knowledge.
I assume YOU exist... because these words MUST come from somewhere.. I don’t know who or what you ARE... If I can assume YOU exist why not God?.. Actually theres more evidence God exists than YOU do.. (to me)..
YOU “could be” trojan-bot(program) trolling conservative threads.. injecting “platitudes”.. and “negative vibes” who knows..
I accept “by faith” you are a person..
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