Topic awaiting preservation: Formal Debate for "Does God Exist?"

Notice:
This thread is for a Formal Debate. If you are not a debate participant, please make your posts in the related Peanut Gallery thread. Thank You!

Subject:
The subject for this Formal Debate is: Does God Exist?

Participants:
Taking the side of ?Yes, God does exist? are: Counterfeitbacon and Bugimus.

Taking the side of ?No, God does not exist? are: InSiDeR and Webshaman.

Refereeing this debate will be me, BeeKay.

Debate Background:
There have been many threads throughout the years here at the Asylum concerning religion in general and the existence of God in specific. However, these threads had the tendency to wander all over the map. Many relevant points wound up being buried in amongst the miscellaneous off-the-wall remarks made by anyone who felt like throwing in their opinions. This ?Formal Debate? has been created in an effort to provide a platform from which participants could present their best and brightest thoughts on the subject in a controlled format. The participants are expected to arm themselves with clear minds, organized thoughts, research, and references. What we hope to gain by the end of the debate is an understanding not of what the participants believe, but rather WHY they believe what they do, and how they SUPPORT those beliefs.

Debate Format:
I have randomly chosen counterfeitbacon to start the debate. He will submit an argument supporting his side of the subject.

Next up will be Webshaman. He will be expected to address points in counterfeitbacon?s argument and present arguments for his own side of the argument.

Next will be Bugimus. He will continue the debate by addressing Webshaman?s post and arguing for his own side.

The final part of the arguments will belong to InSiDeR. He will address Bugimus? post and write arguments for his own side.

The next part of the debate will be a question and answer session.

I will select a question posed in the ?Peanut Gallery? thread and post it here. Bugimus will be the first to answer. Webshaman will then follow up with his answer to the question.

I will then select a second question from the ?Peanut Gallery? thread. InSiDeR will be the first to answer followed by counterfeitbacon.

Debate Guidelines:
There is no time limit on how long a participant can take to post his arguments or answers, however, the participant is expected to post a notice here when it is his turn acknowledging his understanding that it is his turn and an estimate as to how long it will be until he can post his argument/answer.

There is no limit on the length of the arguments or answers. Participants are encouraged to keep the post to a reasonable length ? make it too long and risk completely losing the reader and burying your best points among inferior ones ? make it too short and risk leaving out important points or providing easy targets for your opponents.

Please be kind to the readers by breaking up your post into paragraphs and keeping spelling and grammar mistakes to a minimum.

Participants need to take their time and provide well-thought-out arguments. Be prepared to back up any statements of fact you make. This is not meant to be a place to spout off thoughts from the top of your head.

Kickoff:
With all that said, let?s get this debate rolling.

Counterfeitbacon, you are up. Please post here that you understand it is your turn. Then get busy!


Cell Number: 494

Ok...I'm going to research this very thouroughly...I really have no idea when you can expect a responce but It will be good...

Expect a post sometime around 4 or 5 tommorow, or the next morning...

[This message has been edited by counterfeitbacon (edited 06-17-2002).]

Before I start throwing out points, arguments and points for debate, I would like to clear one thing up: Whenever I refer to ?God? in a singular sense, unless otherwise noted, I am referring to the Christian God.

That said, one of the biggest problems for people who do not believe in God is that they can?t see him, or feel him, or have any type of physical contact with God. And, that problem will prove to be, I think, one of the biggest obstacles in proving that there is a God.

But, Is their a God? Well?Hopefully I will prove this to you:

Mr. Clayton of South Bend, IN says:

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If we do exist, there are only two possible explanations as to how our existence came to be. Either we had a beginning or we did not have a beginning. The Bible says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1 :1). The atheist has always maintained that there was no beginning. The idea is that matter has always existed in the form of either matter or energy; and all that has happened is that matter has been changed from form to form, but it has always been. The Humanist Manifesto says, ?Matter is self-existing and not created," and that is a concise statement of the atheist's belief.?

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The best was to decide whether or not the non-believer is correct is to see what science has discovered about this topic. This quote is by the same person:

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The picture below on the left represents our part of the cosmos. Each of the disk shaped objects is a galaxy like our Milky Way. All of these galaxies are moving relative to each other. Their movement has a very distinct pattern which causes the distance between the galaxies to get greater with every passing day. If we had three galaxies located at positions A, B. and C in the second diagram below, and if they are located as shown, tomorrow they will be further apart. The triangle they form will be bigger. The day after tomorrow the triangle will be bigger yet. We live in an expanding universe that gets bigger and bigger and bigger with every passing day.
]http://www.doesgodexist.org/Phamplets/universe.gif[/img]
Now let us suppose that we made time run backwards! If we are located at a certain distance today, then yesterday we were closer together. The day before that, we were still closer. Ultimately, where must all the galaxies have been? At a point! At the beginning! At what scientists call a singularity!

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Singularity has many different theories, the most common being the Big Bang. The Big Bang states that all of matter was confined to an extremely small space, and it suddenly exploded and suddenly, poof, over the course of billions or trillions years, planets were created. Now, lets take a look at Genesis, the first book of the Bible:

quote:

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1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was [1] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning-the first day.
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning-the second day.

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It is logical to say that the universe came from wherever God was stationed at the time, and that point would have been the center of our known universe. The Big Bang Theory, used to dispute the bible, actually backs it up by confirming that the universe was created pretty much instantaneously.
But those statements above are not extremely credible unless you have confirmed that matter had to have come about as a Godly creation. When the bible states that GOD CREATED the heavens and the earth, it is implied that it was created with a purpose and with a plan in mind. The non-believer says that ?matter self-exists? and not created. If matter had a beginning and yet was uncaused, one must logically maintain that something would have had to come into existence out of nothing, since everything has to come from something. From empty space with no force, no energy, no matter and no intelligent, matter became existent. That just isn?t plausible.
In order for matter to come out of nothing, every single one of human kind?s matter/energy laws and theories/theorems would have to be wrong, and therefore un-credible. Our laws dealing with the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter would have to be wrong, which would invalidate a lot of upper and mid level chemistry and the laws of conversion of momentum would have to be wrong, which would invalidate much of physics. Some of the other laws and principles that would be invalidated would be our laws of conversion of electrical charge, which would invalidate almost all of electronics, and it would also mean that your TV doesn?t work. Turn it on, last time I checked it was working pretty good, although my TV is a bit fuzzy .
The non-believers assumption that matter is eternal is wrong. The non-believers assumption that the universe is uncaused and self existent is also incorrect due to lack of evidence. The writing of the Bible, written over 3000 years ago has much more evidence supporting it than the non-believers views. According to the U.S. Government?s Judicial System the side with more supporting evidence is right?Figure it out folks!
Since we now have argued that the creation of matter, and therefore the universe had a planned beginning, there is a question to answer: What was the cause? The Bible tells us that God was the cause and we are further told that the God who did the causing did so with much planning, reason and logic. Romans 1:20 tells us that we can tell who God is

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Through the things he has made.

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The non-believer, taking the other side will try to convince us that we are a product of chance, or evolution. Julian Huxley once said:

quote:

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We are as much a product of blind forces as is the falling of a stone to earth or the ebb and flow of the tides. We have just happened, and man was made flesh by a long series of singularly beneficial accidents.?

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The idea of being created by God is one that has been explored in many different ways by many different people. For an adult:

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?simply looking at our newborn child is enough to rule out chance.

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Says Paul Davies. Paul Davies and Frederick Hoyle are raising some very valid points to the use of evolution and chance to explain mans creation. A scientific theory emerged in 1980 called the Anthropic Principle. The jist of this theory says that chance is not a valid way to explain the atom or life. If chance is not valid, then we are restrained into rejecting Huxley?s statement/claim and to realize that we are the product of an extremely intelligent God.
There is another theory/idea that came around in the past decade called: ?Intelligent Design.? Intelligent Design simply states that as we have delved deeper and deeper into the world of microbiology, scientists have come to say that cells, atoms, quarks and everything is just too complex to have been created by accident. Look at these quotes:

quote:

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Fred Hoyle, often referred to by creationists, that the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 10^40,000 to one (Hoyle, 1981).

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quote:

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If any one of the components of the mousetrap (the base, hammer, spring, catch, or holding bar) is removed, then the trap does not function. In other words, the simple little mousetrap has no ability to trap a mouse until several separate parts are all assembled.

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The last quote is an example saying that if one single part of our cells didn?t work, like the mitochondria or the plasma, each which have complex systems inside of them, then our body would cease to function properly. Look at this extremely complex system that is called a cilium:

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Now, let us sit back, review the workings of the cilium, and consider what it implies. Cilia are composed of at least a half dozen proteins: alpha-tubulin, beta-tubulin, dynein, nexin, spoke protein, and a central bridge protein. These combine to perform one task, ciliary motion, and all of these proteins must be present for the cilium to function. If the tubulins are absent, then there are no filaments to slide; if the dynein is missing, then the cilium remains rigid and motionless; if nexin or the other connecting proteins are missing, then the axoneme falls apart when the filaments slide. ?the cilium, as it is constituted, must have the sliding filaments, connecting proteins, and motor proteins for function to occur. In the absence of any one of those components, the apparatus is useless.

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Lets assume that that is just one string of DNA, although they are much more complex than that, but I couldn?t find any exact facts on that. There are over 50 thousand cilium in the human body, so the odds of all of the cilium working, as they would in a healthy person, is 50,000*(10^40,000). That?s a pretty big number. If Slime wants to figure out the odds, then he is welcome to .
But wait, people, a lot of this information is useless if the Bible has been proven to be false, so, people, here it goes, I have several statements:

quote:

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From ?Evidence that Demand a Verdict? During the excavations of Jericho (1930-1936) Garstang found something so startling that a statement of what was found was prepared and signed by himself and two other members of the team?the walls fell outwards so completely that the attackers would be able to clamber up and over their ruins into the city?why so unusual?because the walls of cities to not fall outward?Joshua 6:20 read??The wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city , every man straight ahead, and they took the city.??The walls were made to fall outward.

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In the Jericho story, people marched around a city for 7 days calling Gods name and singing songs, generally making ruckus, and God made the walls fall down outwards. This is solid archeological proof of a Biblical event backed up by archeology. Another Biblical event backed up by archeology is:
[quote]From the same book as above: ?Sir William Ramsay is regarded as one of the greatest archaeologists ever to have lived?he was a student in the German historical school of the mid-19th century. As a result, he believed that the book of Acts was a product of the mid-second century A.D?In his research to make a topographical study of Asia Minor he was compelled to consider the writings of Luke?As a result he was forced to do a complete reversal of his beliefs due to the overwhelming evidence uncovered in his research?he spoke of this when he said: ?I may fairly claim to have entered on this investigation without prejudice in favor of the conclusion which I shall now seek to justify to the reader. On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavorable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tubingen Theory had at one time quite convinced me. It did not then like in my line of life to investigate the subject minutely; but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvelous truth, in fact, beginning with a fixed idea that the work was essentially a second century composition, and never relying on it?s evidence as trustworthy for fist century conditions, I gradually came to find it a useful ally in some obscure and difficult investigations.?
This conversion of the ?greatest archaeologists? from atheism to Christianity because of historical writings spurred great interest in other archaeologists, they found that many of the Bibles writings could be backed up by archaeology, from genealogy trees to actual inscriptions on buildings, the Bible has been proven to be extremely accurate. One last thing that I want to say is that in the Old Testament (the first section of the Bible). Look here:

quote:

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?prophecies relating to Jesus' death. Psalms 34:20 says, "He keeps all his bones; Not one of them is broken." The fulfillment of this prophecy is found in John 19:33 where it is said, "But coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs." The Romans were not novices when it came to crucifixion and death. They knew a dead person when they saw one?p

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quote:

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Zechariah 12:10 says, "They will look on me whom they have pierced."
John 19:34 offers the fulfillment of this prophecy. It reads, "But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear."

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The time span between the books of Psalms and Zechariah to John is over 1,000 years. Now, that got to be either a GREAT hoax or true.
In conclusion, I have to say that in all of the research that I have done when preparing this debate starter, I have noticed a trend in today?s science: The more that people try to disprove the Bible, the more it gets proved.
PS: WebShaman, have a good time rebutting these! It will be hard, and I know it! A man named Josh McDowell once set out on a mission in 1973 to prove that their was no God, collected evidence, and ultimately came up with this educated conclusion: There is a God. In fact, he published a 300+ page book in 1975 with nothing but pure facts proving that there is a God.

[edit=Ooops, I left something out, there will be a post shortly]

[This message has been edited by counterfeitbacon (edited 06-18-2002).]

[This message has been edited by counterfeitbacon (edited 06-18-2002).]

[This message has been edited by counterfeitbacon (edited 06-18-2002).]

Thank you cfb for that post. I have only skimmed through it (I'll be reading it in detail when I have a bit more time) and it looks like you dug up some worthwhile stuff. Thank you for the time and effort you put into all that!

Webshaman, you are next. Please make a quick post here to indicate you know it is your turn and state approx when you expect to post your arguments.

Cell Number: 494

Ok, my 'reply' is almost ready...hehe...I've really torn cfbs 'evidence' to shreds...wasn't really all that hard...

Here it is...read and weep...

Ok...not bad, CFB...not bad. But as you will see, though the arguments seem sound, and hard to refute
they are actually full of holes and not supportive of the existance of God...rather, they can be used
to support the non-existance, if you will...because all that you posted (and it's a lot...) is based upon disproving
Athiest theory (and there are many...which are not really addressed in your points) and not on proving
that God exists...in other words, disproving one theory does not make another true...otherwise, I could use
the exact same arguments supplied by you against you...disproving your theory. But that would not
prove the non-existance of God...So I must first refute your theory (which is realatively easy...if just one point fails,
than it all fails), and then supply my own...

To the point...Your first mistake is 'reducing' the God topic to the christian God...which means that all other sources
that you could have used cannot be used...which greatly works in my favor. For that, I thank you. Though I suspect that
will play much in Bugs favor. Also, it hampers your ability to 'prove' that God exists...you throw away a lot of 'evidence'
there...

The next mistake is the attempt to use scientific aguments to prove Biblical Scriptures...always a dangerous game, but
in this case, quite ridiculous. But I'll go deeper into that later...

The last mistake is comparing Archeological explorations with Bibical references...though many locations in the Bible have
been located (and explored...), that only proves that the Historical references to places are somewhat accurate...
but to then twist that to such a degree...a major mistake. The flaws are enormous. But more to that later, as well.

On the the first part...

Using so-called 'scientific evidence' to prove that God exists, and using the Biblical Scriptures to support it.

Ok, first of all, the Big Bang :

Well, the Big Bang is just a theory. It hasn't been proven. And if it is indeed true (the Big Bang), then what now follows refutes all
that was in your thesis on the Big Bang to nothing....

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Since the mid-1960s, scientifically informed theists have been ecstatic because of Big Bang cosmology. Theists believe that the best scientific evidence that God exists is the evidence that the universe began to exist in an explosion about 15 billion years ago, an explosion called the Big Bang. Theists think it obvious that the universe could not have begun to exist uncaused. They argue that the most reasonable hypothesis is that the cause of the universe is God. This theory hinges on the assumption that it is obviously true that whatever begins to exist has a cause.

The most recent statement of this theist theory is in William Lane Craig's 1994 book Reasonable Faith.[1] In it Craig states his argument like this:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.[2]
In a very interesting quote from this book he discusses the first premise and mentions me as one of the perverse atheists who deny the obviousness of this assumption:

The first step is so intuitively obvious that I think scarcely anyone could sincerely believe it to be false. I therefore think it somewhat unwise to argue in favor of it, for any proof of the principle is likely to be less obvious than the principle itself. And as Aristotle remarked, one ought not to try to prove the obvious via the less obvious. The old axiom that "out of nothing, nothing comes" remains as obvious today as ever. When I first wrote The Kalam Cosmological Argument, I remarked that I found it an attractive feature of this argument that it allows the atheist a way of escape: he can always deny the first premise and assert the universe sprang into existence uncaused out of nothing. I figured that few would take this option, since I believed they would thereby expose themselves as persons interested only in academic refutation of the argument and not in really discovering the truth about the universe. To my surprise, however, atheists seem to be increasingly taking this route. For example, Quentin Smith, commenting that philosophers are too often adversely affected by Heidegger's dread of "the nothing," concludes that "the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing" - a nice ending to a sort of Gettysburg address of atheism, perhaps.[3]

A Baseless Assumption
I'm going to criticize this argument from scientific cosmology, which is the most popular argument that scientifically informed theists and philosophers are now using to argue that God exists.

Let's consider the first premise of the argument, that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause. What reason is there to believe this causal principle is true? It's not self-evident; something is self-evident if and only if everyone who understands it automatically believes it. But many people, including leading theists such as Richard Swinburne, understand this principle very well but think it is false. Many philosophers, scientists, and indeed the majority of graduate and undergraduate students I've had in my classes think this principle is false. This principle is not self-evident, nor can this principle be deduced from any self-evident proposition. Therefore, there's no reason to think it's true. It is either false or it has the status of a statement that we do not know is true or false. At the very least, it is clear that we do not know that it is true.

Now suppose the theist retreats to a weaker version of this principle and says, "Whatever has a beginning to its existence has a cause." Now, this does not say that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause; it allows that it is possible that some things begin to exist without a cause. So we don't need to consider it as a self-evident, necessary truth. Rather, according to the theists, we can consider it to be an empirical generalization based on observation.

But there is a decisive problem with this line of thinking. There is absolutely no evidence that it is true. All of the observations we have are of changes in things - of something changing from one state to another. Things move, come to a rest, get larger, get smaller, combine with other things, divide in half, and so on. But we have no observation of things coming into existence. For example, we have no observations of people coming into existence. Here again, you merely have a change of things. An egg cell and a sperm cell change their state by combining. The combination divides, enlarges, and eventually evolves into an adult human being. Therefore, I conclude that we have no evidence at all that the empirical version of Craig's statement, "Whatever begins to exist has a `cause'," is true. All of the causes we are aware of are changes in pre-existing materials. In Craig's and other theists' causal principle, "cause" means something entirely different: it means creating material from nothingness. It is pure speculation that such a strange sort of causation is even possible, let alone even supported in our observations in our daily lives.

An Uncaused Universe
But the more important point is this: not only is there no evidence for the theist's causal assumption, there's evidence against it. The claim that the beginning of our universe has a cause conflicts with current scientific theory. The scientific theory is called the Wave Function of the Universe. It has been developed in the past 15 years or so by Stephen Hawking, Andre Vilenkin, Alex Linde, and many others. Their theory is that there is a scientific law of nature called the Wave Function of the Universe that implies that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features that our universe possesses, such as containing intelligent organisms. This remaining universe has a very high probability - near 100% - of coming into existence uncaused.

Hawking's theory is confirmed by observational evidence. The theory predicts that our universe has evenly distributed matter on a large scale - that is, on the level of super-clusters of galaxies. It predicts that the expansion rate of our universe - our universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang - would be almost exactly between the rate of the universe expanding forever and the rate where it expands and then collapses. It also predicts the very early area of rapid expansion near the beginning of the universe called "inflation." Hawking's theory exactly predicted what the COBE satellite discovered about the irregularities of the background radiation in the universe.[4]

So scientific theory that is confirmed by observational evidence tells us that the universe began without being caused. If you want to be a rational person and accept the results of rational inquiry into nature, then you must accept the fact that God did not cause the universe to exist. The universe exists uncaused, in accordance with the Wave Function law.

Now Stephen Hawking's theory dissolves any worries about how the universe could begin to exist uncaused. He supposes that there is a timeless space, a four-dimensional hypersphere, near the beginning of the universe. It is smaller than the nucleus of an atom. It is smaller than 10-33 centimeters in radius. Since it was timeless, it no more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism. This timeless hypersphere is connected to our expanding universe. Our universe begins smaller than an atom and explodes in a Big Bang, and here we are today in a universe that is still expanding.

Is it nonetheless possible that God could have caused this universe? No. For the Wave Function of the Universe implies that there is a 95% probability that the universe came into existence uncaused. If God created the universe, he would contradict this scientific law in two ways. First, the scientific law says that the universe would come into existence because of its natural, mathematical properties, not because of any supernatural forces. Second, the scientific law says that the probability is only 95% that the universe would come into existence. But if God created the universe, the probability would be 100% that it would come into existence because God is allpowerful. If God wills the universe to come into existence, his will is guaranteed to be 100% effective.

So contemporary scientific cosmology is not only not supported by any theistic theory, it is actually logically inconsistent with theism.


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Notes
William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1994)
Ibid., p. 92
Ibid.
Confirmation of Hawking's theory is consistent with this theory being a reasonable proposal for the form that an (as yet) undeveloped theory of quantum gravity will take, as Hawking himself emphasizes. See Chapter 12, William Lane Craig and Quentin Smith, Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993).

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Quentin Smith is Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University. He has published five books, including Theism, Atheism, and Big Bang Cosmology (Clarendon Press, 1993) with William Lane Craig.


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So...the Big Bang issue is mute...but here some more evidence....

http://www.angelfire.com/az/BIGBANGisWRONG/

So, the entire 'Big Bang evidence' is put into question...

To the next point...the Bible. Well, I use the following evidence to put the Bible as a credible source in question:

http://www.2think.org/hii/matt_err.shtml

I only need to find an error with the Bible, and therefore I put the entire Bible as a credible source in question...

As such, I have found many errors...here is the 'biological evidence', totally destroyed...
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1991/2/2biolo91.html

Onwards to Archeology and the Bible...and this really just knocks holes in Archaological proof for the Bible...

http://www.rense.com/general18/bible.htm

So, in conclusion, I think I have more than just refuted CFBs so-called 'evidence'...which was not really evidence at all.
Just proposed theory, and not very well founded in scientific fact, as I have shown...

And now my beliefs...and how I support them...

The total lack of factual evidence more than supports the view that a 'God' does not exist...though it is nice, maybe, to believe that
a God does exist, history shows us that, as a race, we have formulated 'supreme beings' for all things that we could not
explain (i.e. the supernatural). However, as Mankind advances, science punches repeatedly 'holes' in the supernatural,
reducing that to 'normal' (i.e. explained, or proven). To this 'modern' time, where only death (afterlife) questions really
remain, a great frontier that has yet to be fully explored...and therefore gives 'room', if you will, for belief in a
God (that is really just responsible for the afterlife...).

This, of course, ignores the principles of reincarnation...and enlightenment, and higher consciousness. One could argue that there
must be a being, that through evolution has reached the 'ultimate' point of evolution...however, such a being could hardly
be considered to be God...just a being, albeit an extremely advanced one. However, lack of evidence of such a being reduces
this to a mere hypotheses.

So what about reincarnation, enlightenment and higher consciousness? Now, these topics deserve more attention...for with the absence
of a God, what is then the purpose of Life? And what about after death? Is there something? Well, we will see...

Reincarnation

This man, http://www.childpastlives.org/stevenson.htm has done much research in the area of reincarnation...his evidence is
pretty interesting...but doesn't prove that God exists...more, that God doesn't exist.

Enlightenment

Here is the basic principles of enlightenment http://personal.vsnl.com/ntrasi/index.html2 - doesn't prove that God exists

Higher Conciousness

This topic, if you will, is well explained here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-higher/ - see above...

Zen

Explained very well here http://www.mkzc.org/kubisze.html

Now, why all this? Well, because this follows...

http://spot.colorado.edu/~vstenger/Medicine/Biofield.html

As one can see, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever in the existance of 'spiritual' energy...which means there
is no scientific evidence of a soul. Without a soul, there can be no God...and no afterlife...

To wrap things up, there is absolutely no scientific evidence (or otherwise) to support the existence of God, a God, many Gods, and soforth...therefore, we are left with the fact that there is none. And them's the facts, folks...

Wow, great work from both my partner and one of my oponents. I will need a couple of days to post. I have just gotten over a very bad flu that has had me out of action for the last 4 days. It caught me totally by surprise and I'm just about back to my normal energy levels as I type this.

I just got through reading what we've got so far and I'm working on my stuff.

Opening Remarks

I first want to thank Beekay for organizing this format. I also want to point out that I do not believe we can prove conclusively that God exists. The point of this debate, in my opinion, is to present arguments that will convince us that the existence of God is the most likely reality.

I think it is important to be clear as to what I mean by "God". I will be using this word to describe the Entity that has been understood by three of the world's great religions, namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. At slight variance with my colleague, I will be focusing on a more general definition of God and prefer to leave arguments in favor of the Christian God to another debate. I see this as a reasonable and logical division of effort as by demonstrating the existence of God is a necessary first step to more specific aspects of His nature.

In this post, I will defend CFB's use of the Kalam argument. In the interest of space I will refute only a few of WS's points. I will finish by offering a positive argument for God's existence, which is based on the conscience.


In Defense of the Kalam Argument

The arabic word kalam, literally meaning "speech", has come to refer to philosophical theology that seeks to demonstrate that the world cannot be infinitely old and therefore was created by God. It has been favored by both Christian and Muslim theologians for quite some time. CFB used this argument for God's existence and which I rephrase here:

1. Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, there must have been a first cause for its beginning.

The fact that CFB chose the Big Bang as the "beginning" is not nearly as important as whether in fact there was a beginning to the universe. Perhaps the only draw back to using a scientific theory for this argument is that scientific theories, as we all know, are subject to updates and sometimes complete reversals. So since my very capable partner, CFB, supported this argument with the Big Bang theory, I would like to bolster it with its philosophical counterpart.

In WS's attempted refutation, he cited an article by Quentin Smith. In it, you may recall, Smith first sets out to deny premise number one. Normally this is the safest part of the argument because it is so intuitively obvious. I recently read that "Most people--outside of asylums and graduate schools--would consider it not only true, but certainly and obviously true." Well, I'm not so sure about people in asylums ~cough~ ...but the graduate school part rings true.

I will explain in philosophical terms why the Kalam argument is well supported. The first part of the article is called "A Baseless Assumption" and Smith asks:

quote:

---

Let's consider the first premise of the argument, that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause. What reason is there to believe this causal principle is true?

---

I would ask him whether he can provide one physical example of anything that did not owe its present state of being to something other than itself. He makes this case himself when he describes how everything we see simply undergoes states of "change" as opposed to having causes. Semantics aside, everything we observe scientifically depends on a prior cause or in other words owes its present state of being to something other than itself.

Consider any accomplished action. Let's take for example that we humans successfully landed a man on our moon. There were a series of finite, transitive, and ontic actions that necessarily preceded the landing. Recall Aristotle's Four Causes as these steps would be of the third cause mentioned and known as "efficient causes".

These causes must have each existed and realized themselves prior to their successors and must have followed one after the other. In other words, they are all rigidly structured temporally such that cause a was complete prior to b as was b to c and so on.

Now one more thing has to be true about this series of causes leading up to landing a man on the moon. In order for this final event to happen there must be one prior cause in the series of causes described above that was *not* dependent on a prior cause. This one prior cause that is different from all the rest must be self-existent and necessarily non-physical in nature.

A leap you say? But if this is not the case, the alternative is an infinite number of preceding causes. But an infinite number of prior causes means that the final step of landing on the moon could never have been attained due to the infinite length of time needed to complete the prior steps.

But we know for a fact that we did land on the moon! Therefore, there must be a prior state of being on which this accomplishment depends that was not dependent on a prior cause, i.e. self-existent.

Dallas Willard summarizes this line of thinking very well with:

quote:

---

The dependent character of all physical states, together with the completeness of the series of dependencies underlying the existence of any given physical state, logically implies at least one self-existent, and therefore non-physical, state of being: a state of being, or an entity, radically different from those that make up the physical or "natural" world. It is demonstrably absurd that there should be a self-sufficient physical universe, if by that we mean an all-inclusive totality of entities and events of the familiar or scientific physical variety.

---

Demonstrating the necessity of anything beyond the physical realm, as I have just done, is progress enough for this debate. But I'm going to bring it on home by pointing out that Genesis couldn't fit this situation any better, "In the beginning God"... I present to you our self-existent First Cause.

Now that I have dealt with the first part of Smith's article, I must briefly address the second portion entitled "An Uncaused Universe".

I found Smith's assertion that Stephen Hawking?s Wave Function of the Universe theory *proves* that God couldn?t have caused the creation of the universe to be... simply ludicrous. I literally LOLed the first time I read it. For your reference:

quote:

---

Is it nonetheless possible that God could have caused this universe? No. For the Wave Function of the Universe implies that there is a 95% probability that the universe came into existence uncaused. If God created the universe, he would contradict this scientific law in two ways. First, the scientific law says that the universe would come into existence because of its natural, mathematical properties, not because of any supernatural forces. Second, the scientific law says that the probability is only 95% that the universe would come into existence. But if God created the universe, the probability would be 100% that it would come into existence because God is allpowerful. If God wills the universe to come into existence, his will is guaranteed to be 100% effective.

---

This reasoning is flawed because it is referring to "a universe", namely ours, out of many possible universes. Quentin Smith clearly states that this Wave Function theory governs which universes come into existence. The God for which I argue by definition, would not have just created *this* universe. If Hawking's theory is as Smith says, God would have created the very physical laws, mathematical properties and any other pre-conditions necessary prior to this universe's creation and every other one for that matter! Smith has misplaced the very thing he is arguing against which astounds me because he even describes God as all-powerful and presumably supernatural. How could a God that transcends the physical universe possibly fit into Smith's poorly constructed container?

(Source material for this section:
Dallas Willard's section from "Does God Exist" by Moreland & Kai
Chapter 3 of the "Handbook of Christian Apologetics" by Kreeft & Tacelli
Aristotle, The Four Causes http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/GREECE/4CAUSES.HTM
)


Rebuttal to WebShaman's Attacks on the Bible

While I feel very capable of defending WS's attacks on the Bible itself, I don't think it's the proper scope of this debate especially since I didn't use it in my arguments for God's existence. As I said earlier I prefer to leave that battle for another debate.

Now that I've just told you how I'll not do it, I must single out this one source he used to discredit the Bible's archaeological support: http://www.rense.com/general18/bible.htm

I found this one to be overtly biased. It is clearly driven by an agenda based in the ongoing Middle East struggle and is using that as a filter to decode the the historical facts buried in that region. But don't just take my word for that, the article as much admits it:

quote:

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I personally draw a positive conclusion from this research. As an American-Jew, I have long struggled with the contradictions and problems of Zionism and the unjust policies of the State of Israel towards Palestinians. For those brave enough to seize this research in the right spirit, there is a solution in it for the problems of the Middle East.

---

A far cry from the preferred approach of a scientist tediously unearthing archaeological data and allowing the chips fall where they may all the while insulated from personal agenda be they religious or secular.


Rebuttal to WebShaman's Support of His Beliefs

I want to address this often asserted idea that mankind created God/gods for *everything* science had/has not yet explained. I have no doubt much of that has been done. But it is a logical fallacy to say that because some humans made up a god that didn't exist that therefore God does not exist. You see how they are separate from each other? It is entirely within the realm of possibility that a god could exist that *none* of us has knowledge of or ever will regardless of what we think.

But let me go along with the point as stated for argument's sake. BTW, it was big of you to leave the afterlife to the Almighty Let's say that we humans have attributed to God every *physical* process that our science had not yet explained...fine. But how would you answer what C. S. Lewis put so well when he asked:

quote:

---

Supposing science ever became complete so that it knew every single thing in the whole universe. Is it not plain that the questions, "Why is there a universe?" "Why does it go on as it does?" "Has it any meaning?" would remain just as they were?

---

Science is all about how much, what, when but nothing at all about why my friend.


The Argument from Conscience

How many times have we seen it here in our very own Asylum? "That post was uncalled for!"... "I just had to edit out what was just posted because it was filled with racist hatred."... "Ripping a designer's graphics is wrong! The day it happens to you, you just might understand why that's the case."

I could go on and on, and this was just online comments I've mentioned, let alone what we all hear in our daily lives. What is very interesting about all these comments is that they all presuppose a certain standard of behavior that is expected we all should have some knowledge and/or adherence to.

There was a time when this "standard" was known as the Law of Nature. But that was not the kind of physical laws we are so accustomed to today but rather a Law of *Human* Nature. It was thought that just as inanimate objects obeyed physical laws and living beings were bound by biological laws, so too humans were subject to a similar kind of law... with one very important distinction.

Rocks when dropped off a cliff invariably obey the law of gravity. Organisms when acted upon by certain biological processes react accordingly. Humans too are bound by physical and biological laws. But consider that unlike the laws shared with rocks and vegetables, humans have a choice whether to obey the Law of Human Nature. This is referred to as a law because it is usually assumed that everyone has some knowledge of it and doesn't need to be taught it. That is not to say there are not a few people who don't have this knowledge just as there are people born without sight or hearing. But for the vast majority of our kind, it holds true.

You may be objecting to the idea of a common standard of behavior for mankind on the basis that there are so many different cultures and standards of morality. But this simply is not the case. The world's civilizations, vis-à-vis morality, have far more in common than they differ. We're talking Egyptian, Babylonian, Hindu, Chinese, Greek, and Roman to name some of the biggies. C. S. Lewis provides evidence for this in his appendix to "The Abolition of Man".

Many of my good friends here, including WS if I'm not mistaken, say there is no such thing as right or wrong. But I'm willing to bet he's used the phrase "That's not fair!" or something like it in the past perhaps even more than a few times. (I don't want to put words in your mouth WS so forgive me if I just did)

Think about the time you didn't give your kid enough attention when they really needed you but you more interested in the ball game. When was the last time you lost your temper with someone you love dearly and wished you hadn't said what you did? When was the last time you promised to do something for a friend but just let it slip down the priority list and never got to it?

These types of things for the vast majority of us cause an internal sense of missed opportunity to do what we "ought" or what is "right". I submit to you that we humans, all over this planet, share this and can't seem to get rid of this internal sense. We have a choice as to whether or not to obey this sense and sadly most of us usually don't.

When we talk about physical laws and biological laws, we are really describing how inanimate material and organisms always behave. But when we consider the Law of Human Nature we find it hardly describes what we always do. You drop a rock and the law of gravity predicts what will happen, but this Law of Human Nature tells you what *ought* to be done. There is a clear distinction when it comes to humans when it comes to the facts. On one hand we see "how we do behave" and on the other we see "how we ought to behave". For the rest of the physical world all we need to know is the first type and the second when applied to rocks is absurd.

When you pull into a parking lot and there are no more spaces you are bummed but accept it. When you are in that same lot waiting for someone to pull out of the only spot available and another person cuts in, you *blame* that person because she *shouldn't* have done that.

This Law of Human Nature, this sense of right and wrong, this conscience the vast majority of us experience is REAL. We did not create it and it somehow exists separately from the normal physical and biological laws we humans are otherwise subject to. Science can measure and explain physical laws, but not conscience. It's origin must either remain out of our ability to know it, or it could somehow make itself known to us another way.

What can we know most readily in this world in which we find ourselves? Just that... ourselves! What better way for a Higher Power, or God, to make His most basic wishes known to us than implanting them within us?

But there I took that big leap again and got on your nerves, LOL! Even moral subjectivists and relativists will often agree that we should all follow our conscience. This requires that our consciences have the authority in order for us to obey them. Where can conscience get such authority as to tell us what to do? We have four possibilities:

1. From something less than the individual, nature. How can we be obligated to follow what something less than us dictates? For instance, what sense does it make to say a physical urge has authority to command me with absolutes?
2. From the individual. I'm not obligated to follow my own absolutes. Who am I to dictate absolutes to anyone, even me anyway? I could modify the absolutes but that means they weren't absolute in the first place.
3. From those equal to the individual, society. What right has society to dictate absolutes to an individual? It makes no more sense than the converse. It's a lateral relationship.
4. From something greater than the individual, God. The only option left is a *superior*. Someone with the right to dictate absolutes to the individual. This has to be the best choice.

Therefore, God is the only adequate explanation for the very real and virtually global sense of moral obligation with which we all find ourselves endowed, the conscience.

In anticipation of one of InSiDeR's objections to this, I just want to point out that if you argue there is no supernatural then on what basis can any of us ever address our consciences? What sense could any talk of "ought" and "should" have if the sum of our beings are purely materialistic interactions of atoms and molecules?

In H.W.B. Joseph's Some Problems in Ethics pp. 14-15 (Oxford University Press, 1931) who was an Oxford don and a senior to C. S. Lewis, he wrote:

quote:

---

If thought is laryngeal motion, how should any one think more truly than the wind blows? All movements of bodies are equally necessary, but they cannot be discriminated as true and false. It seems as nonsensical to call a movement true as a flavour purple or a sound avaricious. But what is obvious when thought is said to be a certain bodily movement seems equally to follow from its being the effect of one. Thought called knowledge and thought called error are both necessary results of states of brain. These states are necessary results of other bodily states. All the bodily states are equally real, and so are the different thoughts; but by what right can I hold that my thought is knowledge of what is real in bodies? For to hold so is but another thought, an effect of real bodily movements like the rest....These arguments, however, of mine, if the principles of scientific [naturalism]...are to stand unchallenged, are themselves no more than happenings in a mind, results of bodily movements; that you or I think them sound, or think them unsound, is but another such happening; that we think them no more than another such happening is itself but yet another such. And it may be said of any ground on which we may attempt to stand as true, Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum ["It flows and will flow swirling on forever" (Horace, Epistles, I, 2, 43)].

---

(Source material for this section:
"Mere Christianity" by C. S. Lewis Anybody who's read it will instantly see how heavily I drew from it!
"Handbook of Christian Apologetics" by Kreeft & Tacelli
)


[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 06-22-2002).]

Great job, Bugimus! The debate just keeps getting better and better.

All right InSiDeR, you are up. Please post here a quick "I'm here" and let us know about how long you will need to craft a response. We are all looking forward to your thoughts!

Cell Number: 494

I am here, sorry for the delay in posts for a week, I was in boy scout camp , yes im in the boy scouts and in 1 and 1/2 years I'll be an eagle.

In that case, I have just finished reading most all of what I thought was relative and I will get back ASAP.

No one is yet to answer the question so I guess I will being on the con side as I am

Q: Does god exist?
A: No.

quote:

---

Humans need to lighten up! Their gods and religions are dreary, humorless, wrathful, intolerant, oppressive and generally unpleasant. There is no love, no joy, no fun! Humans are under the dominion of ideologies that are slowly but surely killing them. They need to release them and be free! No one is going to punish them for enjoying life, and there is no point to living if they can't enjoy it. No good god person wants to see people stumbling around in dread seriousness, doing cockamamie rituals and constantly beating up themselves and others. Life is a joke. There is no purpose, so everyone is free to create his or her own, making it as amusing, joyous and scrupulous as possible.

---

Time and time again mankind has developed a theory. And just a theory. But this theory has been over populated and thought of a fact time and time again. This is the theory of God. No one can prove its existance or its non-existance, we are only here to assume and give opinionated facts on the subject. Lets take some theories for example. The "Gods" of the Greeks. So many people believed in those in ancient Greeko/Roman times untill, the theory came out, of a supreme being that is heavenly and perfect, who created all and everything with the smite of his hand and the magic of his will. Many Gods = Dillusion and Confusion, 1 God = Easier to Understand.

How many times have any of us prayed and recieved a response or answer to our prayer? No please those in the peanut gallery, some life-expiriences would help. Well I can safely say that none of my prayers, even my relative ones like "Please help this christmas be a happy one," have never been answered.

So, if this God fellow, is supposed to be a supreme being, who loves us and forgives us of our sins or bad things we do, who cherrishes every savored moment of our lives, and lives up in heaven, why does he let people oh say, "burn in hell for eternal damnation." That's not something I would expect from a supreme andloving being. I still think the threat of eternal damnation can pursuade people into believing anything.

quote:

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You are NOT displaying critical thinking, not using your mind. You are also uneducated as to the world's cultures and history. It is not a sign of great intelligence to blindly believe what someone else has told you is true, especially when such beliefs basically condemn hundreds of millions of other people. Many of these blind believers are simply not very bright, yet they assume that their belief equalizes them with those who are smarter. "Jesus loves you just the way you are!" is the hypocritical hue and cry of those who feel inferior but who will not recognize it and admit it. Yet, according to these same cheerleaders, Jesus DOESN'T love you just the way you are - you must thoroughly change, surrendering your mind and soul to him. A bit of a psychotic extortion racket.

---

Generations ago, people heard of "God." Those people passed their beliefs to their children, and their childrens children, all the way up to today. So many people believe in what people have told them and never have an undependant thought. It is unintelligent of people to just assume that everything they hear is true. So many people have made that mistake.

quote:

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I'm sorry to break it to you but God doesn't exist. Oh, he may have. Many years ago someone or something may have caused a spark that brought about our pathetic existence. But, he certainly doesn't care about us now. Human beings created god, and create religion, so as to not be overwhelmed completely by the nothingness of life and their fear of death. Look at it this way, if you were a god, a being beyond a humans wildest imagination. What would make you sit around and watch a bunch of human beings run around being idiots and killing eachother. It's the old watchmaker theory. If there was a god, he put together the rules, and put everything in motion. Just like a watch. Then, he set it in motion and walked away. We are just existing on the inside of a watch.

---

God is simply a creation of mankind to describe our surroundings when we had to means to understand them. Now that we do, god is no longer needed. We are controlling our enviroment, thus killing god and replacing them with ourselves, similar to the story of Satan being cast out of heaven for challenging the rule of god. Early humans understood this deep down inside in a way, but some humans clung to this faith out of their fear of the unknown, and thus a chain reaction began spawning religion. Does god exist? Maybe, but if he does... He isn't right out of the bible, he is unexplainable, undefiable, and incomprehensible.

Supernatural

Well bugs I have no arguements that there aren't any supernatural beings, I totally believe in aliens, but when we find that in a distant galaxy there are aliens it will draw us closer in the belief in the non-existence of god. In the beginning, god created earth. The bible never mentioned anything other than earth yet it is clearly obvious that there are other planets and stars out in this oblivious and vast universe.

But now here is my turn . In anticipation of bugs or cfb's objection. I can only assume that one of you will bring upon the statement that "In the beginning god created life," defying he created all life elswhere as well. Or that one of you will bring foward "God created the heavens and the Earth," and that the planets aside from Earth are to be considered the heavens.

So to eliminate the possibilities of both of those objections, I say to you: The bible describes heaven, it describes earth, but in its description of either it is hazy and blury and not much relative to as we see it, and heaven definately doesn't sound like other planets and galaxies.

Now, in anticipation of that arguement, I can only assume one of you will say that the unexplored sections of the universe could possibly be the heavens, but we have already proven that most of the unexplored is billions and billions of galaxies relative to our own and what we can see.

My Theories

Since everyone else has thrown in their personal theories in this thread, I will too, but since I have done it once before in my old thread "Do you believe in GOD?" I will first quote myself and then add on to that.

quote:

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What do I believe in? I believe in the strong possibilty of the big bang or the open universe theory or the one that most people know me for and is my own: I believe that quite possibly there is an explination so incomprehensible by our minds. We can only understand so much yet there is an infinate span of knowledge left to aquire. Maybe we will find out when we die maybe we won't but I guess we will all find out won't we (thats a rhetorical statement).

---

Yes, I believe that we cannot prove what we don't know and that we are obviously intelligent beings. I believe that we may not understand what is and why. Because we are simply, so intelligent, but we don't know everything and we are still getting smarter.

quote:

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The bottom line is that those who dare to question and challenge cherished beliefs which are not rational and reasonable, and who live relatively righteous lives without such irrational and intolerant beliefs, should be recognized as being the epitome of what any god person would wish in "his children." They are utilizing all of the gifts that such a god person would provide, were "he" real. And if they have utilized these "God-given" gifts, they know that the interpretation of "God" is a cultural artifact, not an absolute truth that must be defended and beaten into other people. In using these gifts, they will discover that over the millennia, hundreds of millions of people have held differing opinions as to the Infinite, which is only common sense, since it is, after all, Infinite.

---

Quotes and some thoughts were taken from here and here.

[This message has been edited by InSiDeR (edited 07-02-2002).]

^Bumped^

Read the above please.

I spent a long time reading through the Peanut Gallery threads and had a tough time finding a question that can truly be directed at both sides of the debate. Vast majority of questions were directed towards one side or the other, thus I don't think those type of questions would be fair to both sides; one person would get the pointy end of the stick and the other person would get off easy.

Fortunately, there were a few questions posed that are close enough to what we need. I will first be using a question posed by bodhi23:

quote:

---

In proposing proofs as to the existence or non-existence of God, is it realistic to use your own belief system to base your reasearch on? Would not a more universal answer be better found by using a broader selection of sources, even those that do not necessarily agree with your personal dogma? Anyone can find resources to support their own ideas, but what about finding support in other belief systems?

---

Bugimus, the question is all yours ...

Cell Number: 494

<< is it realistic to use your own belief system to base your research on? >>

My answer is it entirely depends on the belief system in question. If you have one that fosters love of truth and intellectual honesty, then I would say YES. If you have one that is based on blind faith and discourages independent thought then absolutely NO.

To use the words in the question, ?my personal dogma? is based in Christianity. I understand that it is a foregone conclusion to many that my faith is only concerned with propagating ignorance and preventing the search for truth, but I must strongly disagree with that. While it is certainly true that the history of the Christian faith has been tainted by misguided brethren, it does not change the fact that the Christian faith is founded upon the love of truth and using God?s gift of intellect to its fullest capacity. I am trained in a field of science and so looking back to the contributions fellow theists have made to science demonstrates that there need not be any enmity between science and faith. I will allow the following quotations speak for themselves in this regard.

quote:

---

"The Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go."
--Galileo Galilei

"I give you thanks, Creator and God, that you have given me this joy in thy creation, and I rejoice in the works of your hands. See I have now completed the work to which I was called. In it I have used all the talents you have lent to my spirit."
--Johann Kepler

"The universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator"
--Copernicus

"I do not approve either the theology or the science of those who are prompt to invoke the supernatural to cover our ignorance of natural causes."
--Asa Gray (Harvard biologist)

---

So I feel entirely comfortable basing my research on a belief system shared by such esteemed individuals who found no problem with pursuing truth with vigor. I would hope all of us here would expect nothing less.

( Source of quotations: The Galileo Connection by Charles E. Hummel )


<< Would not a more universal answer be better found by using a broader selection of sources, even those that do not necessarily agree with your personal dogma? >>

One of the US's greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, said to "Stand with anybody that stands right while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." I hold that admonition in the highest regard. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I have no objection to using a broad selection of sources.

Given the constraints of space in a debate like this however, it forces the participants to pick and choose the best arguments on which to focus. There are anywhere from 11 to 25 well known arguments for the existence of God. The number varies based on how you choose to combine some of the more similar ones. I could have used all of them, and maybe even come up with a few more, but I don?t find each of them equally convincing. I wanted to pick a couple arguments that I thought made the most sense and had the most relevance to the previous posts.

To choose to argue from a position simply to give the appearance of drawing from a wide range of sources would be disingenuous and I have no intention of doing that. I would prefer to use arguments that I find the most logical and powerful. That is not to say that I reject the challenge to find evidence for God in other belief systems as I will expand on in the next section.

But don?t forget that the first argument I presented in my first post is rooted in Muslim thought. I am not a Muslim and so I would say that by choosing to bolster the Kalam argument after CFB?s employment of it satisfies one of the criteria, that is to draw from a source ?even those that do not necessarily agree with your personal dogma?.

Consider the following diagram as to the choices I have for selecting evidence and arguments for the existence of God:



So as I read this question I am struck with the need to explain why I have limited my arguments to a single, transcendent, creator God ? who is represented on the bottom line of the chart. It's really quite simple... the evidence I personally find the most convincing supports this kind of God and not necessarily all *current* theistic belief systems do that. For instance, I can hardly include the current Pantheistic world view held by Hinduism if I?m going to invoke the Kalam argument because Pantheism holds that God is the Universe and is eternal, i.e. no beginning. I am willing to pop up and over to Deism though because that only takes away the personal aspect but certainly lines up with the beginning to the world and its intelligent design.

( Examples of some well known Arguments for the Existence of a God: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theism/arguments.html )


<< what about finding support in other belief systems? >>

As I stated above, instead of rejecting this I have risen to this challenge. I have already shown that my belief system is shared by individuals rich with integrity when it comes to scientific study and so let?s turn our attention to the scientific field of anthropology.

I have found that contrary to what would be intuitive to an evolutionary model of the development of religious thought, there is a far better match to the data which is the converse. When I first heard that religion progressed from primitive (animism and polytheism) to more complex (monotheism), I found it very intuitive and worked on integrating that into my understanding of history. But upon close examination of all of the world's cultures, our earliest anthropological evidence shows a primitive monotheism pre-existed polytheism.

If you recall the argument from conscience in my first post, in it I asked what better way for the creator God communicate to us His concept of morality than to implant it within us. Now consider the possibility that not only did He give us an internal conscience but from our earliest ability to conceive of Him, He revealed Himself to us. If that were the case, which happens to coincide with holy writ, then you would expect to find evidence of that knowledge in our earliest cultures. In other words, assuming man began with knowledge of this God, then we should find evidence of monotheistic religions prior to anything else. I will show how the anthropological data matches this very thing.

I?m going to include excerpts from the following links to highlight the point:

Primitive Monotheism and the Origin of Polytheism
From Monotheism to Polytheism, Appendix: Additional Bibliography
Akhnaten, Moses, Atenism and Judaism
Similar Worldwide Beliefs in an All-Powerful God

Primitive Tribes
Scottish academic Andrew Lang wrote in the The Making of Religion, "Of the existence of a belief in the Supreme Being among primitive tribes there is as good evidence as we possess for any fact in the ethnographic region."

India
Robert Brow, after extended experiences in India, writes in RELIGION: Origins and Ideas that "the tribes have a MEMORY of a "HIGH GOD," who is no longer worshipped" rather, they are obsessed with concerns of "how to appease vicious spirits of the jungle"

In History of Sanskrit Literature, the Oriental expert Max Muller, recognised as the founder of the science of the history of religions, came to the conclusion: "There is a monotheism that precedes the polytheism of the Veda; and even in the invocations of the innumerable gods, the remembrance of a God, one and infinite, breaks through the mist of idolatrous phraseology like the blue sky that is hidden by passing clouds."

Egypt
In The Religion of Ancient Egypt, Sir Flinders Petrie, universally acknowledged as one of the world?s leading Egyptologists, claimed, "Wherever we can trace back polytheism to its earliest stages, we find that it results from combinations of monotheism."

Sumeria
In Semitic Mythology, the Oxford intellectual Stephen Langdon, one of the greatest experts in his field, said, "In my opinion the history of the oldest civilisation of man is a rapid decline from monotheism to extreme polytheism and widespread belief in evil spirits. It is in a very true sense the history of the fall of man."

Stephen Langdon also wrote, ?The history of Sumerian religion, which was the most powerful cultural influence in the ancient world, could be traced by means of pictographic inscriptions almost to the earliest religious concepts of man. The evidence points unmistakeably to an original monotheism, the inscriptions and literary remains of the oldest Semitic peoples also indicate a primitive monotheism, and the totemistic origin of Hebrew and other Semitic religions is now entirely discredited.?

China
In a volume of the The Great Ages of Man, Edward H. Schafer writes, ?One of the oldest and certainly the greatest of the deities was the Sky God Ti'en. In the very early days Ti'en was thought of as a great king in the sky, more magnificent than any earth bound king, more brilliant and more terrible. Later, many viewed him as an impersonal dynamo, the source of energy that animated the world.?

Tierra del Fuego
When the British naturalist Charles Darwin for example, went to Tierra del Fuego in 1833, he believed that he had discovered aborigines with no religion at all. There are atheists today who still lean heavily on this patent falsity, in spite of the fact that a scholar, who went to the region after Darwin, and spent many years learning the language, history and customs of the Fuegians, reported that their idea of God was well developed and that he found, "no evidence that there was ever a time when he was not known to them."

Pygmies, Central Australians, and Californian Indians
In The Origin and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories, Wilhelm Schmidt concludes: ?Going back to the most primitive people, the Pygmies of Africa or the central Australians or the central Californian Indians all have one Supreme Sky God to Whom they make offerings of their blood and their first fruits taken in the hunt or from the soil. All these peoples also have short prayers with, here and there, ceremonies, to the Supreme Creator God before Whom nothing existed.?

And finally to respond to the heart of the question that has been put forth, consider these excerpts from two secular comparative religion books:

First, The Religious Experience of Mankind by Ninian Smart (Collins, 1969; page numbers from Fontana Paperback edition) p.53-55

quote:

---

In any event it is a striking fact that many primitive cultures have a belief in some sort of High God, even though there very often is no specific ritual directed toward such a Being.
...
The existence of such conceptions among folk as far apart as the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego [at the Southern end of Chile] and the Arctic is a significant indication that primitive religion... possesses sophisticated ideas about the beginning and creation of the world, and about a supreme architect of the world.

---

Second, Patterns in Comparative Religion by Mircea Eldiade (trans. R. Sheed; Sheed & Ward Ltd., 1958), p.38

quote:

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What is quite beyond doubt is that there is an almost universal belief in a celestial divine being, who created the universe and guarantees the fecundity of the earth (by pouring rain upon it). These beings are endowed with infinite foreknowledge and wisdom; moral laws and often tribal ritual as well are established by them during their brief visit to the earth; they watch to see that their laws are obeyed, and lightning strike all who infringe them. (emphasis mine of course)

---

The links above are all well footnoted so if you're looking for a broader source base, I think I have delivered. So I am happy to conclude with the well supported assertion that the existence of a single, transcendent, creator God is the ?more universal? solution sought after by our esteemed peanut gallerian. This God is shared by all of creation without exception. You simply don?t get a more Universal Solution than that.

[This message has been edited by Bugimus (edited 07-19-2002).]

In proposing proofs as to the existence or non-existence of God, is it realistic to use
your own belief system to base your reasearch on? Would not a more universal answer be
better found by using a broader selection of sources, even those that do not necessarily
agree with your personal dogma? Anyone can find resources to support their own ideas, but
what about finding support in other belief systems?

Because of the complexity of the original question(s), I've decided to deal with the different
parts one at a time. So on with the show.

Is it realistic to use your own belief system to base your research on?

In this case (and perhaps all cases), it is not only my opinion, but one in general to say
no, it is not realistic to use ones own belief to base any type of research on. One would
call such an approach a 'biased' one...and is not only unprofessional, but hardly allows
room for a truthful basis. In this, I am supported by all scientific methods of research.

One may ask, why this is. It is to allow for the simple fact that maybe the research
could turn up anything...which must be approached objectively. By injecting bias into
findings, one purposely 'bends' the findings to that which one expects, thus invalidating
the objectivity, and therefore the actual facts that come out of the research.

Therefore, one must 'suspend' any and all belief systems when doing research so that the
findings have a basis in fact.

This also applies to our Formal Debate here. Though my personal belief system is much
different than that in which I have been debatting, the 'facts' of my research have lead
to my findings, and conclusions. An open, objective mind is imperative for this. That is
also one of the reasons speaking against the belief in God...for if I hold this to be true,
then I must be able to find evidence of this. But exactly there lies the mistake. Because
I have then gone with the belief that I will find evidence of this. Should that be lacking,
then one tends to start 'grasping at straws', i.e. fitting things together to support the
belief. Also, the research is flawed from the beginning, for whatever does not support the
original belief, is not considered, therefore 'skewing' the final results. One could call
this 'narrow-mindedness', a constraining of the facts to give a specific result.

Only by comparing all the evidence (and investigating all leads thoroughly) can one then
come to a reliable conclusion.

Because most believers in 'God' cannot do this (at least, not without 'doubting' their own
beliefs), the conclusions are therefore, in their cases, suspect. Especially research
attempting to 'prove' something else...and 'bending' evidence to fit the 'facts' (read -
belief).

In conclusion, one can see that it is very easy to 'lose' ones way when attempting to research
something, when that research is biased by belief. That, in turn, leads to unfounded (and
unsupported) findings, that won't stand up to close scrutiny. Only an objective approach
which is as unbiased as possible, is acceptable.

On to the next question 'Would not a more universal answer be
better found by using a broader selection of sources, even those that do not necessarily
agree with your personal dogma?'.

To answer the question, one must first discern between Belief, Belief systems and Science.

First of all, maybe we should spend a little time with the word Belief itself...

According to the Britannica, Belief is defined as so:

quote:

---

belief
a mental attitude of acceptance or assent toward a proposition without the full intellectual
knowledge required to guarantee its truth. Believing is either an intellectual judgment or,
as the 18th-century Scottish Skeptic David Hume maintained, a special sort of feeling with
overtones that differ from those of disbelief.

---

The Kant manual explaines it this way:

quote:

---

BELIEF
[L:74] Belief, for Kant, is a form of judging something to be true, intermediate between
mere opinion and certain knowledge. To believe something in this sense is to judge that it
is true by virtue of "a ground that is objectively insufficient but subjectively sufficient
" in mere opinion neither are sufficient, in knowledge both conditions are met.

---

Here is a link to all the major Belief systems -
http://www.cftech.com/BrainBank/OTHERREFERENCE/RELIGION/MajorReligion.html

So, now let's define Science:

quote:

---

science
1. A continuous process whose basic purposes are to make phenomena recognizable and to
predict outcomes, and whose fundamental activities comprise: (a) observing and describing
phenomena and developing general conclusions about them; (b) integrating new data with
organized observations that have been confirmed; (c) formulating testable hypotheses based
on the results of such integration; (d) testing such hypotheses under controlled, repeatable
conditions; (e) observing the results of such testing, recording them unambiguously, and
interpreting them clearly; and (f) actively seeking criticism from participants in science.
2. Knowledge from science. 3. A scientific domain (e.g., genetics). 4. Knowledge from a
particular scientific domain. 5. Any system or method characterized by the application of
scientific principles to practical ends (e.g., culinary science). 6. Any disciplined,
systematized area of study. 7. Methodological activity, training, or study. 8. Any activity
that ostensibly requires study and method. 9. Knowledge from experience. 10. A developed
ability. 11. The state of knowing.

---

So, as one can see, Belief (and therefore systems of belief) are mostly static, meaning they
do not change in and of themselves. Rather, one changes Belief.

Science, on the other hand, does change, and that change is continual, based on new findings,
etc.

One could say, that Beliefs (and therefore systems of Belief) do not evolve, whereas Sciences
do. And therein lies the problem of Beliefs. They, because of their innate nature, cannot change.
Therefore, a Belief (or system of Belief) must refute change, otherwise the Belief loses its
ground for being. Also, because of this inability to change, Beliefs (and Belief systems) are
always at war with one another, and any other threat from inside or outside. This failure to
change can be used to advantage, however, to 'lock' happenings, areas, names, etc. into them,
allowing such 'tidbits of fact' to last the ages...however, in the ara of Media, print, and
video, this is hardly necessary anymore. In fact, since the dawn of world-wide literacy and
print/Media, there have been no 'new' Belief systems...rather, there are only the 'surviving'
Belief systems from before this time. This is, in and of itself, very interesting. Why is it
that no 'new' Belief systems have been able to grow in this modern ara? Though it is true
that there are 'new' offshoots of Belief that have come into being, there has been, however,
no new 'stand-alone' Belief systems introduced in modern times. This, in and of itself, is
strange.

Now, one may ask, what has this to do with the question 'Would not a more universal answer be
better found by using a broader selection of sources, even those that do not necessarily
agree with your personal dogma?'.

Well, it's quite simple, really. All the Belief systems are old. And have not grown, or changed. Therefore, though many Belief systems certainly do contain worthwhile information in them, as a source of information they are mostly 'outdated' by Scientific findings. Even if one goes through all of the Belief systems, an answer to the question 'Does God exist?' is hardly more credible than the latest Scientific findings - we just don't have any proof, whatsoever, that a God, Gods, or Supreme Being(s) exist. This lack of proof is confounding, for if we had proof, no matter how small, then the system of Belief that had it wouldn't be a belief anymore. Which would then, in turn, erode the foundations for all other Belief systems. But on this point, so far we have none. This very lack of evidence in and of itself, brings most Belief systems in question.

To the point - most (practically all, as my esteemed sparring partner Bugs so eloquently pointed out)
Belief systems rely on a 'Creator' as the origin of everything (all existence). What he didn't point
out (and probably would like the question to disappear altogether) is, that Science has eroded just
about all Belief systems, again and again, with new findings, etc, pushing the reason for a God, Gods,
or Supreme Being(s) ever further into the 'shadows'...i.e. into the 'unexplained' areas where Science
not yet has answers for.

Examples of this are more-fold...such as assigning natural happenings (such as lightning, thunder,
earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural forces of nature) to the anger of a God, Gods, or Supreme
Being(s). As Science explained these happenings as natural occurances of nature, and then discovered
and researched the mechanics behind these forces, this ascribation of such to a God, Gods, or Supreme
Being then became moot, if not laughable. One must consider, however, that before Science had done
this, that it was not only commonplace to ascribe such actions to such 'beings', but normal. This is
because it was easy to ascribe such events to these 'beings', pointing out that
this is indeed proof of their existence. Only by 'de-mystifying' such events, could Science then
prove that this is not so. Only in light of Scientific evolution (i.e. advancements), did such things disappear, as darkness disappears
in light. But Belief systems die hard, and so these 'Beings' received other 'areas'
of mystery used to 'support' their existence that Science has not yet explained, or investigated fully.

So the only areas left that can be assigned to such 'beings' are those not yet explained by Science.
These areas include Death, the origin of Existence (though this area is hotly debated), Life (also
hotly debated), intelligence (also hotly debated), and reason for being. One can clearly see that
Science is making progress into most of these areas, peeling back the skin of the unknown, which
has always been the hiding place of God, Gods, and Supreme Being(s). As these mysteries become
more and more 'explained', i.e. known instead of unknown (with the mechanics behind them explained),
God, Gods, and/or Supreme Being(s) have a much harder time of 'existing'.

And that is why Science is a better way of revealing the truth, because it evolves. It evolves, and
builds (sometimes superceeding) on what came before, i.e. findings, research, etc. Things found to
be not true, are corrigated. Belief (and Belief systems) do not have this privilage, because of their
innate nature. Rather, Beliefs (and Belief systems) often get in the way of the truth, preventing
progress and research, esp. that which would undermine it.

One must also understand, that Belief (and therefore Belief systems) have a lot to do with emotion...for
that is the nature of belief. As one knows, emotion clouds reason, which is why Belief is not a reliable
research tool. The Scientific method, however, relies on logic, research, findings, facts, and the
ability to re-create results. This is a much more reliable method of fact-finding, and explaining the
mysteries that surround us.

After all, where would we be without the Scientific method? Somewhere in a dark age, suckling on Beliefs.
Not a pretty picture, is it?

So one last remark regarding the Table of Belief systems in Bugs post...interesting enough, it is a table of
beliefs...and as such, does not contain other types of systems (such as philosophical and Scientific ones).
This Table is also an example of what can happen when someone researches something under the influence (bias)
of Belief...it is not complete, nor could one say with any reliability that it is correct. However, there is
a kernal of truth in what he says, that most Belief systems do have a 'Creator' in them, and are dependent on
this as a basis for their existence.

Also, one must consider the time-line of the Table...one can see that these Belief systems have been around
for a very long time, and do not necessarily follow the line that Bugs laid out time-wise.

This is a great example of what can happen to research that is 'Biased'.

All right ... next question:

This question comes in two parts, please read carefully.
A - What would it take to change your mind concerning your belief? If you believe in God, what would it take to convince you that there is no God; and if you don't believe in God, what would it take to convince you that there is a God?
B - If you were then convinced, how would it change your life? Would it change your entire life, or would it only make a small dent in your life, or would it make no practical difference at all in the way you live?

The purpose of this question is to force you to think about "how the other half lives." Should prove to be a stimulating mental exercise ...

Insider has asked to be pulled out of this formal debate. As such, counterfeitbacon, you are now up. Once CFB is done, then I will leave it up to Bugimus and WebShaman as the whether they have any desire to tackle this question; it's completely voluntary on their parts. Should they both decline, then once CFB submits his answer, the debate will be over.

CFB ... it's all you now ...

Cell Number: 494

Ok, sorry about the large wait, I just haven't had time to get around to the computer lately...I'm going to answer the first part of the question now, and the second in a little while. Ok, here it goes:

"A - What would it take to change your mind concerning your belief? If you believe in God, what would it take to convince you that there is no God; and if you don't believe in God, what would it take to convince you that there is a God?"

That is a really hard question for me to answer. You see, my whole life I have been brought up beleiving in God. And, I truly do beleive that their is a God, and not just for the reason that my parents do. Books such as Josh McDowells "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" and "More Evidence that Demands a Verdict" have further reinforced my beleifs. Truly though, I think that the reason that I beleive in God is because I just know that he exists.

In order to truly convince me that their is no God, someone would have to give and explain to me in detail, including all of their sources, some type of statement. And I really don't know what this would be, because every time someone brings something like that up, it is easily rebutted. But, in order to fully sway my beleifs, someone would have to have solid, hard, unrefutable proof that their is no God. And that is really the end of story on that, because I would not easily change my mind.

-------------

Ok, expect the second responce soon!

B - If you were then convinced, how would it change your life? Would it change your entire life, or would it only make a small dent in your life, or would it make no practical difference at all in the way you live?

Wow...If I was thouroughly (sp?) convinced that their was NO God, my life would be very diffrent than it is now. Right now I am a fairly moral person, perhaps becuase I know that those things are right, but for the most part because I grew up knowing that I should do and not do certain things. Those rules/guidelines were based on Christian belief, and since they were, most of that would be totally disregarded by me. Things that I have been brought up beleiving in would also be gone. I probably would be doing things that right now I wouldn't do. But, untill I know that their is no God, this wouldn't happen. And up untill now, nobody has proven that, and they've had two thousand years.

sorry about that, I had trouble installinga second partition on my hard drive, and I put this up in quite a hurry at the Public Library. I accidentally reformatted the wrong drive because my NT boot disk switched the c and e drives around. So I reformatted the e drive instead of the c drive...oops...

Seriously though, these are hard questions for me. I mean, I don't think that I could be thouroghly convinced that their is no God. For me it's almost a gut feeling, and not because of how I was raised. I have kinda a problem with questions regarding things such as this, but logical and research questions I have no problem with.

What would it take to convince me that there is a God? Concrete proof, either first hand or evidence that is irrefutable. Since belief alone is not an acceptable solution for me, it would have to be cold, hard facts that could be proven or a personal experience that for me would leave absolutely no doubt whatsoever that there was, indeed, a God. Nothing else could convince me.

As for how that would change my life...well, it would help answer some questions that I still have...for example, why Mankind exists and where we are going...so in that regard, it would only make a small dent in my life. Though I do not particularlly believe in God, I do live my life according to my own personal code of honor...and that wouldn't be particuarly changed in the event that God exists...the impact would be rather minor, in my case. It would also help to organize my belief that it is time that Mankind 'break away' from God...especially if he exists...I feel that Mankind needs to take responsiblity for itself, and to stop relying on a supreme being to 'organize' everything for us...it is time for Mankind to grow up, to mature. Existing under the 'ownership' of a supreme being is very much the same as being a slave...though I would more consider it being as a child...there comes a time when the child grows up, and needs to 'make it' on its own...it's really just a question of freedom...the choice of making ones own decisions, irregardless of what consequences that brings...a part of being mature...and learning. For me, 'hanging on' to the 'crutch' of a supreme being hinders Mankinds ability to grow up...time to cast the crutch aside...

[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 09-04-2002).]

What can change my mind you ask? Well it isn't concrete proof, since there will never be any of the sort. Well, after thinking real long and hard, I came up with a valid response as I like to call it. Nothing. Nothing can truly persuade my self consciousness to believe in that of a supreme being relative to any "God."

Now you may be thinking, "But what about a paranormal experience? What if you saw an angel?" If I did I would blame it on my own delusional thoughts... And sure, go ahead and call me a skeptic, I don't care if I am pessimistic.

"What if you died and then came in contact with God? Or even Satan?" Well that would be after death now wouldn't it? It wouldn't have to be convincing if it was already there. Even if I did I could just go the skeptical way and say it's delusional, I am dead and my mind is playing tricks on me because I have feared this moment.

"What if, scientist discovered something in the stars, perhaps another species that is possibly more intelligent than us?" Pfft, the only devil we will ever know is human intelligence. It is the life and death of us. In the event that happened (and this is tough for me to say), I would convince myself that of "extra terrestrials," none of the sort that would be considered a "God."

You see it is the fact that there is no concrete proof that strikes me hard. None at all... Now I am not one of those, I don't believe it unless I see it kind of people... No no far from that... I am more of a logically inclined thinker. It cannot be proven nor disproved, and that will always stay the same through out time. No one will dis/prove that. I am convinced that there is no God. I could be wrong but I won't ever think that way because I am just so naive. Because religion has proved itself to be so negatively influential I have decided to schism. And I am 6 mounths church sober. It's funny though, since then people seem to ask me if I want to go to church with them more than before. You can't help my absence of faith. Only I can, and I won't help myself either so don't waste your breath.

quote:

---

Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Beliefs kill. Believe in nothing.

---

I know I haven't been arguing this debate from a strictly Christian position but I can't pass up pointing out just how easy it would be to destroy my faith in it.

If anyone could prove to me beyond a reasonable doubt that they found the physical remains of the man, Jesus Christ, I would give up the faith I've embraced for 25 years in an instant. It's a tall order, of course, and extremely unlikely even if they are still here but that is what it would take. So if that happened I would most likely take up the cause of Ethical Monotheism sans the Christian specifics.

So what would it take to convince me that *no* higher power or God, existed? Seeing as how I place a lot of stock in logic, I would have to remind everyone that it is impossible to prove a negative. The reason it is impossible, or virtually so, is that one would have to examine every single possibility of God's existence of which there are countless multitudes.

But now to the second part of the question, which is what if the impossible became possible and I were convinced 100% that no god existed.

Knowing with certainty that all the times I've felt that huge black hole in my core were justified would be quite a downer. I don't know how some of you deal with such hopelessness because the idea of living a measly few decades only to become worm food strikes me as supremely depressing. So I would embark on a quest to find things to fill that void and take my mind off of the darkness. I would probably choose to try all the things that so many have tried before along that road. I would explore different combinations of excesses in food, sexual gratification, drugs, entertainment, philanthropy, self exaltation, art, etc. There is really quite a lot to choose from, all of it fleeting of course. But by switching gears often and with a little luck I would probably do pretty well at forgetting the nihilistic reality of my existence... for a while anyway.

I would do my best to fulfill my desires and aspirations. I would be very angry at anyone that stood in my way, especially religious types. I would want to shape my world so that I could maximize the pleasure I could get from it. I have a friend who explained in very pragmatic terms how he lives his life precisely like that. He wants to do whatever it takes to squeeze as much as he can out of this life because this is all there is... period... end of story.

Put simply, I would live for *me*.

. . : slicePuzzle

My statement is this: The Bible says that God created Earth, not the universe or other bodies in our universe. Perhaps the big bang is what "created" Him, who then used the resulting energies to further create us.

quote:

---

Notice:
This thread is for a Formal Debate. If you are not a debate participant, please make your posts in the related Peanut Gallery thread. Thank You!

---

^ And about 8 months old.

PS: And BTW, it says the heavens and the Earth.

Heavens = Universe

[This message has been edited by counterfeitbacon (edited 04-07-2003).]