THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

Stop lying. The last version of the post is the last version of post. I've deleted and reposted it that I do it sometimes because corrected the writing mistakes.

Sure, a "writing mistake" like saying all I do is use posts for personal attacks.
Did you find it a bit hypocritical to say that in a post which was just a personal attack.
But that sure does seem to be part of your way. When you are defeated and have no more excuses, you resort to insults.

Now how about you stop the insults and address what I said?

Again, what is the point of all the suffering? What is it trying to teach and why do we need to be taught that?

We find that among sensible  things  there  is  an  ordering  of  efficient  causes,  and  yet  we  do  not find—nor is it possible to find—anything that is an efficient cause of its own self. For if something were an efficient cause of itself, then it would be prior to itself—which is impossible. But it is impossible to go on to infinity among efficient  causes.  For  in  every  case  of  ordered efficient  causes,  the  first  is  a cause of the intermediate and the intermediate is a cause of the last—whether the  intermediate causes  are  many  or only  one.  When,  however, a cause  is removed,  its  effect  is  removed.  Therefore,  if  there  were  no  first  among  the efficient  causes,  then neither  would  there  be  a  last  or  an  intermediate.  But  if the  efficient  causes  went  on  to  infinity,  there would  not  be  a  first  efficient cause,  and  so  there  would  not  be  a  last  effect nor  any  intermediate  efficient causes—which  is  obviously  false.  Therefore,  one  must  posit  some  first efficient cause—which everyone calls God.

No, not everyone calls it God.
People attach quite specific things to a god, such as being a sentient being.
All that argument can show is that there is a first cause. It does not show that the first cause is god.
The first cause could be the singularity at the big bang. Or it could be a prior universe.

If you wish to ignore what words mean and assert that whatever the first cause is, it is god, even if it is one of the simplest things imaginable, which isn't sentient at all, go ahead. But all you are doing is stripping the meaning from the word and it means all the other attributes one would normally apply to a god do not necessarily apply to this first cause.

He has to be Timeless

Which removes it from causality.
As your first cause argument appeals to causes, they precede their effect.
It has causes being temporal phenomena.
If your god is timeless, it is unchanging, incapable of doing or causing anything.
That means your god can't be the first cause.

But there is no such starting day, and from any day in the past one can get to the present one in a finite number of steps.

Only if you have your steps be a single day or the like.
A similar line of reasoning was used in Zeno's paradoxes.
Say you want to go to some location. Before you get there, you need to reach the half way point. But then when you reach there, you will now be in a new location, with a desired destination which to reach you must again first reach the half way point. This continues ad infinitum, with no matter how far you have gone, how many steps you have taken, there will still be the halfway point you must reach before you reach your destination.
This by the same reasoning would indicate all forms of travel are impossible, as you must go through an infinite number of steps before you reach your destination, yet we know that is not the case.
So can we traverse the infinite?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 25, 2019, 05:28:51 AM

We find that among sensible  things  there  is  an  ordering  of  efficient  causes,  and  yet  we  do  not find—nor is it possible to find—anything that is an efficient cause of its own self. For if something were an efficient cause of itself, then it would be prior to itself—which is impossible. But it is impossible to go on to infinity among efficient  causes.  For  in  every  case  of  ordered efficient  causes,  the  first  is  a cause of the intermediate and the intermediate is a cause of the last—whether the  intermediate causes  are  many  or only  one.  When,  however, a cause  is removed,  its  effect  is  removed.  Therefore,  if  there  were  no  first  among  the efficient  causes,  then neither  would  there  be  a  last  or  an  intermediate.  But  if the  efficient  causes  went  on  to  infinity,  there would  not  be  a  first  efficient cause,  and  so  there  would  not  be  a  last  effect nor  any  intermediate  efficient causes—which  is  obviously  false.  Therefore,  one  must  posit  some  first efficient cause—which everyone calls God.

No, not everyone calls it God.
People attach quite specific things to a god, such as being a sentient being.
All that argument can show is that there is a first cause. It does not show that the first cause is god.
The first cause could be the singularity at the big bang. Or it could be a prior universe.

If you wish to ignore what words mean and assert that whatever the first cause is, it is god, even if it is one of the simplest things imaginable, which isn't sentient at all, go ahead. But all you are doing is stripping the meaning from the word and it means all the other attributes one would normally apply to a god do not necessarily apply to this first cause.

We have to be intellectually honest to ourselves and admit that materialistic Universe (space - time) must be unimaginably intelligent in order to be so incredibly neatly (orderly) designed by itself *(can something be designed by itself!?!?!?!?)* (fine-tuning argument) so to be able to sustain even much more complex forms of life within himself. In other words : Universe which pretends to be God must be unimaginably *intelligent* being, which presumes PERSONALITY, because, *only personal (self-conscious) entities can be (highly) intelligent* (animals are not self-conscious beings)! So, by saying that Universe might not have been created doesn't contradict the fact that NOTHING CAN COME OUT OF LITERALLY NOTHING!!! - Accompanying video : *EX NIHILO NIHIL FIT* :

If we presumed that something else (some other form of space-time) had existed (pre-big-bang cosmology) before our universe came into being, then we should redefine "big-bang" as such, since "big-bang" presupposes (means) BEGINNING (not TRANSFORMATION). Those who promote "big-bang" cosmology can't have it both ways : either they assert that space-time continuum started (began) with "big-bang", or they want to claim something completely different : "big-bang" wasn't a beginning at all, it was rather some form of new beginning (cyclic universe a.k.a. multiverse, string theory and other alike bullshit theories) which in that case can't be taken as "a beginning" at all!!!

When we ask : What pre-existed before "big-beng", physicists respond like this : "There is a logical error in the very question which you have asked, since it's nonsensical to ask *had something existed BEFORE space-TIME continuum has been created,* because there's no sense to talk about the concept of BEFORE before TIME is created, in the first place!"

So, physicists basically claim that something can (and must) come out of nothing!?!?!

You judge for yourself how sensible their claim is...

And that is only a tip of iceberg of their delusional beliefs.

Watchmaker analogy :

Sir Isaac Newton, among other leaders in the scientific revolution, including René Descartes, upheld "that the physical laws he had uncovered revealed the mechanical perfection of the workings of the universe to be akin to a watch, wherein the watchmaker is God."

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. ... There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.
— William Paley, Natural Theology

I am like a man who sees the works of a watch for the first time; he is never weary of admiring the mechanism, though he does not know the use of the instrument and has never seen its face. I do not know what this is for, says he, but I see that each part of it is fitted to the rest, I admire the workman in the details of his work, and I am quite certain that all these wheels only work together in this fashion for some common end which I cannot perceive. Let us compare the special ends, the means, the ordered relations of every kind, then let us listen to the inner voice of feeling; what healthy mind can reject its evidence? Unless the eyes are blinded by prejudices, can they fail to see that the visible order of the universe proclaims a supreme intelligence? What sophisms must be brought together before we fail to understand the harmony of existence and the wonderful co-operation of every part for the maintenance of the rest? - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Quote from: cikljamas on September 25, 2019, 06:30:18 AM

He has to be Timeless

Which removes it from causality.
As your first cause argument appeals to causes, they precede their effect.
It has causes being temporal phenomena.
If your god is timeless, it is unchanging, incapable of doing or causing anything.
That means your god can't be the first cause.

That means we can't even begin to grasp his nature, the way he is, but it doesn't mean we can't conclude that He exists, better to say that He must exist.


This is why we can't know about God anything else besides that He exists :

Being = Dynamics = Motion = Change = Presence = Existence
Non Being = Non Dynamics = No Motion = No Change = Absence = Non Existence
If Being (God) Is (Exists) then He is Nothing (Here "Nothing" means Incomprehension, our inability to understand analogically)
If Being (God) Is Not (Doesn't Exist) then He is Something (Here "Something" means Comprehension, our ability to grasp analogically)
Being = Non Being which is contradiction = Knowledge is impossible (because Timelessness is not analogical to Time)

We can rely on our logic as far as we talk about our reality which we can describe as "Time and Space", since we know that to anything which is bound by Time and Space we can justifiably apply the principle of impossibility of infinite regression of causes. However, once we attempt to step out from our reality (Time and Space), we instantly find ourselves totally helpless, since our logic all of a sudden completely falls apart.

1. PROBLEM : Time is coeval with the world. Hence, if the world began, there must have been a first moment of time. But this cannot be because it is the nature of time to join past and future (this argument is from Aristotle).
--- ANSWER : It is true that once time has begun it joins past and future, but this does not apply to the first moment of time. So, the universe has been created, but applying Aristotle's argument to God's existence we have to notice the following consequence : God can not exist in MetaTime (that is to say : God can not exist in any kind of Time), He has to exist OUT of Time!!! Since OUT of any Time is (for human reason) tantamount to Nothingness, then God is equal to Nothingness, as far as the power of our reasoning is concerned!

    2. PROBLEM :  Motion is always caused by a previous motion. Hence, there cannot have been a first motion, that is, motion must be eternal. Consequently, what is in motion must be eternal as well (this argument is also from Aristotle).
--- ANSWER : Creation does not involve any sort of motion because creation is not any sort of change. In addition, God does not change in creating the world. However, if God himself is not in motion it is tantamount to Nothingness again, because :

Being = Dynamics = Motion = Change = Presence = Existence
Non Being = Non Dynamics = No Motion = No Change = Absence = Non Existence

If Being (God) Is (Exists) then He is Nothing because He can't be in motion, since if He is in motion (if he thinks/creates/becomes) he is in Time (which is measure of change which is motion), and if He is in Time then He can't create Universe at any certain point of Time, since whichever point of time He chooses to be that certain moment (of creation of (our) Time) He has to wait infinite number of preceding moments to elapse before that moment (of creation).

If Being (God) Is Not (Doesn't Exist) then He is Something because He is Not in motion and as such (motionless, timeless, non dynamic, absent (of existence)) He can't create anything, He can't think, He "is" Absent Existence which is Nothing.

Aquinas is arguing that things that only have partial or flawed existence indicate that they are not their own sources of existence, and so must rely on something else as the source of their existence. The argument makes use of the theory of transcendentals: properties of existence. For example, "true" presents an aspect of existence, as any existent thing will be "true" insofar as it is true that it exists. Or "one," insofar as any existent thing will be (at least) "one thing." The premise which seems to cause the most difficulty among interpreters of the fourth way is that the greatest in a genus is the cause of all else in the genus. This premise does not seem to be universally true, and indeed, Aquinas himself thinks that this premise is not always true, but only under certain circumstances : namely, when 1) the lesser things in the genus need a cause, and 2) there is nothing outside the genus which can be the cause. When these two conditions are met, the premise that the greatest in the genus is the cause of all else in that genus holds, since nothing gives what it does not have. Since Aquinas is dealing specifically with transcendentals like being and goodness, and since there is nothing outside the transcendentals, it follows that there is nothing outside the genus which could be a cause (condition 2).

In Why there almost certainly is a God : Doubting Dawkins, philosopher Keith Ward claims that Richard Dawkins mis-stated the five ways, and thus responds with a straw man. For example, for the fifth Way, Dawkins places it in the same position for his criticism as the Watchmaker analogy- when in fact, according to Ward, they are vastly different arguments. Ward defended the utility of the five ways (for instance, on the fourth argument he states that all possible smells must pre-exist in the mind of God, but that God, being by his nature non-physical, does not himself stink) whilst pointing out that they only constitute a proof of God if one first begins with a proposition that the universe can be rationally understood.

Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart says that Dawkins "devoted several pages of The God Delusion to a discussion of the 'Five Ways' of Thomas Aquinas but never thought to avail himself of the services of some scholar of ancient and medieval thought who might have explained them to him ... As a result, he not only mistook the Five Ways for Thomas's comprehensive statement on why we should believe in God, which they most definitely are not, but ended up completely misrepresenting the logic of every single one of them, and at the most basic levels." Hart said of Dawkins treatment of Aquinas' arguments that:

Not knowing the scholastic distinction between primary and secondary causality, for instance, [Dawkins] imagined that Thomas's talk of a "first cause" referred to the initial temporal causal agency in a continuous temporal series of discrete causes. He anachronistically mistook Thomas's argument from universal natural teleology for an argument from apparent "Intelligent Design" in nature. He thought Thomas's proof from universal "motion" concerned only physical movement in space, "local motion," rather than the ontological movement from potency to act. He mistook Thomas's argument from degrees of transcendental perfection for an argument from degrees of quantitative magnitude, which by definition have no perfect sum. (Admittedly, those last two are a bit difficult for modern persons, but he might have asked all the same.)"

Quote from: cikljamas on September 25, 2019, 06:30:18 AM

But there is no such starting day, and from any day in the past one can get to the present one in a finite number of steps.

Only if you have your steps be a single day or the like.
A similar line of reasoning was used in Zeno's paradoxes.
Say you want to go to some location. Before you get there, you need to reach the half way point. But then when you reach there, you will now be in a new location, with a desired destination which to reach you must again first reach the half way point. This continues ad infinitum, with no matter how far you have gone, how many steps you have taken, there will still be the halfway point you must reach before you reach your destination.
This by the same reasoning would indicate all forms of travel are impossible, as you must go through an infinite number of steps before you reach your destination, yet we know that is not the case.
So can we traverse the infinite?

We can't traverse the infinite, however, even though Zenon's paradoxes have some similarity to my argument, they aren't the same. So, if you want to disprove validity of my argument you have to deal with it directly and meticulously (step by step)!!! Forget Zenon's paradoxes, this is a whole new ballgame.

If we now recall Aristotle's arguments in favor of the hypothesis of eternal universe we can't not to notice how his argument from motion directs us towards the problem of TIME.

Any motion presumes physical dimensions (as we know it).
Any physical dimension (as we know it) presumes motion, as well (and any motion presumes time (as we know it)), because if there would be no motion, there would be no time, and if there would be no time, there would be no physical dimension, and vice versa.
Our universe (bounded by inherent Time (as we know it)) can't be infinite (timeless = eternal) because even if we supposed that the Universe is eternal (having no beginning), this very time (present-day) would have never come.
Why?
Because one whole eternity would have preceded to this very moment of time, so had we had to wait one whole eternity to pass by before our time could have been actualized then we would have waited in vain for our time to arise, since our time would have never come into existence.

So, motion which constitutes our time couldn't have come out of the same kind of motion as we know it, that is to say : our universe can't be the consequence of time as we know it, and the nature of our time is a successive snapshot of sequences, is it not? And if it s a successive snapshot of sequences than we have to argue like this :

If in successive snapshot of sequences it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first snapsshot of sequences, neither will there be this very moment of time. Therefore it is necessary to admit that Universe has come into existence out of something which is not in motion as we know it, that is to say : out of something which is not bounded by time as we know it.

Now, someone can argue that time is cyclical (not linear), and that CHANGE IS TIMELESS which is tantamount to TIME IS TIMELESS! This point of view implies that our impression of time isn't correct representation of what time really is.

However, if change is timeless, and if time is timeless, then someone who is watching us from some another dimension (let's say God) could be able to see successive snapshots of infinite number of human generations passing by through infinite, timeless Universe. And this is how we get right back to where we started from.

In short :

*If an infinity of days had to pass before today, then today would never had arrived because it's impossible to traverse the infinite.*

*Thomas Aquinas* replied even to this argument with the following words :

*Reply* : *This presupposes a starting day by adding to which we get to today. But there is no such starting day, and from any day in the past one can get to the present one in a finite number of steps.*

However, his response doesn't make any sense to me.

Why?

Because this presupposes *an absence* of a starting day by adding to which we get to today, and exactly because of this *absence* (a.k.a. because there is no such starting day in the context of a hypothetical infinitely old universe) there is no point to talk about infinitely old universe. So, what is the point of saying that since there is no such starting day we can get to the present day in a finite number of steps??? How does this address the essence of my argument?

Once again :

3. PROBLEM : If an infinity of days had to pass before today, then today would never had arrived because it's impossible to traverse the infinite.

--- ANSWER : According to Thomas Aquinas this problem presupposes a starting day by adding to which we get to today. But there is no such starting day, and from any day in the past one can get to the present one in a finite number of steps. However, Aquinas is wrong because this problem doesn't presuppose starting day, and since there would be no starting day (if universe were eternal) one could not get to the present day in a finite number of steps. However, for the same reason God can not exist in MetaTime, He has to exist OUT of Time, because no Universe whatsoever could ever be created nor any event (any dynamics) could happen if God's mode of existence would be interchangeable to our notion of Time which is measure of change, which is motion.

IN ADDITION :

In  later  texts  Aquinas  seems  to  allow  for  the  possibility  of  an actually  infinite  multitude  of  spiritual  entities. This  suggests  that  Aquinas  would concede  that  an  actually  infinite  multitude  of  necessary  beings  having  their  necessity from another, such as angels, is possible. Indeed, later in the Summa Aquinas also allows that  certain  causal  series  that  are  not  wholly derivative  can  be  infinite  while  in  the Quaestiones de quolibethe suggests that the existence of an actual infinite would not be contrary to God’s power.

STIa.46. 2; Quaestiones de quolibet 12.2.2 [3], 400, 12-3. Aquinas does, nevertheless, maintain that the formlessness of an actual infinite precludes God from actually creating it. R.-A. Gauthier dates this work to 1272, implying that it would be the final time Aquinas addresses this question. (Dewan 2001, 130

We have to be intellectually honest to ourselves

Yes, we do.
And in order to do so, we need to admit that a god solves nothing.
All it does is push the problems back and compound them.
This also means not just arbitrarily changing definitions to make anything your god even if it is nothing like people have presented a god.

materialistic Universe (space - time) must be unimaginably intelligent in order to be so incredibly neatly (orderly) designed by itself *(can something be designed by itself!?!?!?!?)* (fine-tuning argument) so to be able to sustain even much more complex forms of life within himself.

See, this isn't being intellectually honest.
If you were being intellectually honest, you would realise that if this applies to the universe it has to apply to your god as well.
We have already established that something can't create or cause itself.
That means your god would need a god before it to create it.
But then this god needs one as well, and so on ad infinitum.

If something as massively complex as your god can exist without cause, without being designed and created by an intelligent, then something as simple as the universe should easily be able to do so as well.

Your god LITERALLY SOLVES NOTHING!
To claim otherwise is not being intellectually honest.

The fine tuning argument makes it even worse as it is just problem after problem.
Do you know why so many things need to be fine tuned? Due to the limitations of the universe/system.
For example, if you want to make a car run efficiently in this universe, you are bound by the laws of physics and need to fine tune the car for optimal efficiency.
If you were going to make the universe, there are no restrictions. An example of this which ties back to cars are video games.
For plenty of such games, the cars are not fine tuned for efficiency, they don't even need fuel.
When you are making the system, there is no fine tuning to make it work.
And the same applies to life.

With these simulated universes there are no requirements for life, you can simply create it and have it exist.
So a god that created the universe wouldn't have fine tuned it for life, it would have simply made the universe and made life.
It is only once you have one that you can fine tune the other.

But an equally important issue (some may say bigger, some may say smaller) is that this universe is not fine tuned for life in any way, at least not life like we know.
The vast majority of the universe by volume, area or mass is inhospitable to our life. If I were to take you and place you randomly in the universe, by volume, area or mass, you would almost certainly die.

Again, games are vastly superior in their "design" for life.
That means one of the following:
There is no designer to this universe.
This universe was designed for something other than life and we are just an unintended side effect.
The designer is extremely incompetent, either due to not knowing how to design a universe for life or the life for the universe, or not being able to do (i.e. know how, but be not powerful enough to do so).

So that is yet more intellectual dishonesty.

since "big-bang" presupposes (means) BEGINNING (not TRANSFORMATION)

No it doesn't. The big bang refers to the expansion of space. It does not deal with the origin of the matter and energy.

Regardless this has nothing to do with establishing a god is real.
All you are doing is attacking one thing without considering an alternative. Even if you show the big bang is wrong, it doesn't magically make your god correct.

So, physicists basically claim that something can (and must) come out of nothing!?!?!
You judge for yourself how sensible their claim is...

And the religious claim the same.

Watchmaker analogy :

Is yet another massively flawed analogy which is in no way intellectually honest.
Again, the same arguments apply to your god.

Ultimately it can boil down to a single question:
Can complex entities exist without being created by an entity which is as complex or more complex?
If yes, there is no need for a god. If no, your god needs a creator as well.
Again, YOUR GOD SOLVES NOTHING!

As for the full analogy, notice how the watch is seen as special, distinct from everything else.
If the analogy was correct, they should be thinking EVERYTHING was created, not just the watch.

Do you know the massive difference between the watch and biological life?
The watch has no mechanism to form itself. Life does. That is because life is composed of molecules which will spontaneously react and organise into complex structures. The same applies to the universe as a whole.
No sentience is required to make it happen.
But watches are different. They are made of metals. They have nothing to make them spontaneously react.
That is why it needs a designer. Not because of the complexity of it, but because of the lack of a natural interaction which can cause it to form the way it does.
So this argument is not intellectual honest in any way.

I don't care who you wish to appeal to to try and prop it up. It will not help. If you need to appeal to their authority, you have no argument. That is yet another example of intellectual dishonesty.

That means we can't even begin to grasp his nature, the way he is, but it doesn't mean we can't conclude that He exists, better to say that He must exists.

No, it is far worse to say he must exist, especially as you admitted his existence would be indistinguishable from non-existence. That means it would be much better to say it doesn't exist.
So far all the evidence indicates gods are inventions of mankind, that they do not exist except in the minds of the believers.

things that only have partial or flawed existence indicate that they are not their own sources of existence, and so must rely on something else as the source of their existence.

Which is more special pleading and is in no way intellectually honest.
Why should things which are lesser rely upon something else but the greatest things do not?
There is no basis for it.
It is ultimately quite alike the first cause argument.
It asserts things need a cause and then dismissed it for the very being it is trying to prove.

So it is just more intellectual dishonesty.

We can't traverse the infinite, however, even though Zenon's paradoxes have some similarity to my argument, they aren't the same. So, if you want to disprove validity of my argument you have to deal with it directly and meticulously (step by step)!!! Forget Zenon's paradoxes, this is a whole new ballgame.

The whole point of bringing up Zeno's paradoxes was to show that the infinite can be traversed.
The paradoxes arise by the claim that the infinite cannot be traversed, which rules out the possibility of movement, combined with the clearly observable fact that people can move.
To hold that we cannot traverse the infinite would mean holding that we cannot move.

But I like to think of it like space. If space stretches out infinitely to the left and right, that doesn't mean we can't be here a this point in space.

Your entire argument relies upon how humans perceive time, not the nature of time itself.

Any motion presumes physical dimensions (as we know it).

And there you go with more intellectual dishonesty by contradicting yourself.
This is physical motion, even though you made it clear that that is not what you meant. (at least if by physical dimension you mean spatial, as opposed to others like energy)

Any physical dimension (as we know it) presumes motion, as well (and any motion presumes time (as we know it)), because if there would be no motion, there would be no time, and if there would be no time, there would be no physical dimension, and vice versa.

No, it doesn't.
You can have physical dimension without time. You can have time without spatial dimension Time and space can be separate.

If one wants to be intellectually honest when it comes to a god, they need to admit that there is no rational basis (i.e. from evidence or logic) to conclude a god exists and if this person believes in a god, they would admit they do so on faith, not reason.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:23:03 AM

We have to be intellectually honest to ourselves

Yes, we do.
And in order to do so, we need to admit that a god solves nothing.
All it does is push the problems back and compound them.
This also means not just arbitrarily changing definitions to make anything your god even if it is nothing like people have presented a god.

You are well aware how various philosophers can be ridiculous and look stupid when denying existence of Evil, aren't you? Now, all you have to do is to imagine how you look stupid when denying obviousness of inteligent design of our Universe and fine tunning of it's physical laws...

No, the theory of multiverse (cyclical self-regenerating universe) pushes the problem back, God solves it, bacause God is Non-Caused, Necessary (Non-Contingent) Existence, Unmoved (Out of Time) mover, and only such entitiy (which is beyond Time and Space) can be the explanation for any kind of Contingent (Unnecessary) existence which our Universe obviously is.

The definition of science has changed within the last century from an overall search for truth to a more limited scope of natural explanations of natural processes. Using the current narrow scope definition, there is not any scientific proof of God. The truth or untruth of this statement is not based upon evidence or lack of evidence, but by definition alone. Even though there is extensive, solid evidence for God’ s existence, none of that evidence would be admissible in the science court of law using the current definition.

Consequently, to know what evidence really supports the existence of God, we need to base our statements on the old classic definition of science to eliminate the disqualification of the evidence. The kind of evidence we need to consider is the same type that would be admissible in a court of law.

The level of proof is different in a criminal court than a civil court. In a civil court the prosecution only needs to prove that the preponderance of evidence tips the scales in their direction. Alternatively, in a criminal court a higher level of proof is required. The prosecutor needs to provide evidence that proves the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

What types of evidence are admissible in courtrooms? These include direct evidence such as fingerprints, DNA, or eyewitness accounts. Also, circumstantial evidence is normally admissible unless it is abnormally weak. Although circumstantial evidence is indirect, it can be powerful evidence to prove guilt or innocence.

Scientific Proof of God – The Evidence

What evidence exists that could prove the existence or non-existence of God? Does God exist?

First, the non-existence of God cannot be proven. One cannot prove a universal negative. Alternatively, the existence of God is provable.

The concept, design, and intricate details of our world necessitate an intelligent designer.

Over 100 yrs ago, Evolution Theory was plausible for naturalists because of their rejection of God. Biological science was rudimentary and archaic, and provided no information about the operations of the cell. Modern biology has very greatly changed what is known of genetics and biology. It has been discovered that life is based upon information which is digitally encoded and stored in a more compressed form than man's best computer compression schemes.

DNA is a material medium encoded with information which is organized to conform to linguistics laws, posesses algorithmic operations, and posesses the human language properties of phonetics, semantics, punctuation, syntax, grammar, and aprobatics. Information, algorithms, and linguistics are non-physical fundamental entities that are produced by intelligence. The material processes of chemistry and physics cannot create them. This fact is proof that all life was designed by a mind of supreme intelligence. Evolution is impossible and creation has been proved for this reason alone. The information input and output processing of DNA includes the analytical operations of proofreading, information comparison, cut, insert, copy-and-past, backup, and restore, all of which operate by algorithmic operations.

DNA is a 4-dimentional (3 dimentions + time) operating system which is far more complex than man's computer software technology, posessing many thousands of information hierarchies and pathways in the cell. When the DNA molecule is supercoiled as chromatin, some of it's information is available to the cell which is not available when the molecule is uncoiled, and when it is not supercoiled, some of it's information is available to the cell which is not available when it is supercoiled. DNA is a dual-directional information package, providing different information depending upon which direction the machinery of the cell is traveling down the molecule as it transcribes it. Man does not know how to to write computer software that can do this, wherein lines of code provide different information depending upon whether it is read top-to-bottom or bottom-to-top. DNA's individual information sequences are overlapping and nested sharing nucleotides between sequences, and information in different locations of the molecule are interdependant with each other -- a feature which exemplifies why chemical processes cannot design DNA. DNA posesses codes built upon codes which regulate the use of each other, even when they are distant from each other in the molecule.

During an organism's development, the genetic information instructs the cell on how to turn on and off, like chemical switches, many sequences of information of the DNA in a supremely complex and yet to be understood orchestral arrangement of various groupings and orders so as to build the structures of the organism. These patterns of genes being switched on and off is so complex that man will likely never be able to decipher it.

Examples of how atheists refuse to comply with the Scientific Method are nearly countless, and found in all fields of science. I would say that based upon this fact, atheists are incapable of being objective, responsible scientists in any field of science which relates to the universe, organic life, or history.

Anthony Flew, once the word's foremost atheist academic who's former arguments are the posters upheld by atheists today, converted to a theist and creationist because of the biological evidence. See him discuss his conversion:

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:23:03 AM

materialistic Universe (space - time) must be unimaginably intelligent in order to be so incredibly neatly (orderly) designed by itself *(can something be designed by itself!?!?!?!?)* (fine-tuning argument) so to be able to sustain even much more complex forms of life within himself.

See, this isn't being intellectually honest.
If you were being intellectually honest, you would realise that if this applies to the universe it has to apply to your god as well.
We have already established that something can't create or cause itself.
That means your god would need a god before it to create it.
But then this god needs one as well, and so on ad infinitum.

The reason why God has no name, or is said to be above being named, is because His essence is above all that we understand about God, and signify in word.

And as God is simple, and subsisting, we attribute to Him abstract names to signify His simplicity, and concrete names to signify His substance and perfection, although both these kinds of names fail to express His mode of being, for as much as our intellect does not know Him in this life as He is.

The reason why God has no name, or is said to be above being named, is because His essence is above all that we understand about God, and signify in word.

Philosophically speaking God is the one who cannot not to be.

"The metaphysical lie and radical evil is this; A finite will pretends to play God. This existential untruth does not touch or remove the ontological truth that the mortal
individual is dependent upon, canceled by, and preserved and justified in the eternal Being." (Hegel,282)

In the Introduction to his book The Natural History of Religion(1757), Hume stated:
“The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent Author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.” (Hume 1956, 21).

“The order of the universe proves an omnipotent Mind.” (Hume 1978; Treatise, 633n).

“All nature cries to us that He exists, that there is a Supreme Intelligence, a power immense, an order admirable, and all teaches us our dependence.” (Voltaire, as cited in Parton 1884, 554).

Einstein rejected the label atheist, which he associated with certainty regarding God's nonexistence. Einstein stated: "I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one.

You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being."

Jack, stop being professional atheist, because you look stupid, very stupid!!!

According to Prince Hubertus, Einstein said, "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

Einstein had previously explored the belief that man could not understand the nature of God. In an interview published in 1930 in G. S. Viereck's book Glimpses of the Great, Einstein, in response to a question about whether or not he believed in God, explained:

Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist.The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things.

Today’s dogma holds that matter is eternal. The dogma comes from the intuitive belief of people who don’t want to accept the observational evidence that the universe was created – despite the fact that the creation of the universe is supported by all the observable data astronomy has produced so far. As a result, the people who reject the data can arguably be described as having a ‘religious’ belief that matter must be eternal. These people regard themselves as objective scientists.

You are well aware how various philosophers can be ridiculous and look stupid when denying existence of Evil, aren't you?

Yes, just like how they can be ridiculous and look stupid when they assert there is a logical argument for the existence of a god.
I have already explained that the universe isn't fine tuned, so why bring it up again?
Like you so often do, you have ignored everything I have said and just assert the same nonsense.

Just like your thread on rockets, this too can be destroyed with a simple question, which I already asked:
Can complex entities exist without being created by an entity which is as complex or more complex?
If yes, there is no need for a god. If no, your god needs a creator as well.
Again, YOUR GOD SOLVES NOTHING!

All your god ever does to these problems is push them back onto it and compound it.
Instead of explaining how the universe or life or whatever exists, you need to explain how your god does.
If your god doesn't need a creator there is no reason to think the universe does.

Do you know why evolution is accepted? Because unlike your god, it is supported by mountains of evidence and actually solves the problem.

Now why should I bother wasting more time with your nonsense when you completely ignored everything I said?

Over 100 yrs ago, Evolution Theory was plausible for naturalists because of their rejection of God.

Evolution is supported by great amounts of evidence, that's why evolution is accepted by the vast majority of biologist and scientist in general, religious and non-religious.

Creationism on the other hand has zero evidence.  It's a backwards idea supported by a bunch of religious zealots.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:23:03 AM

since "big-bang" presupposes (means) BEGINNING (not TRANSFORMATION)

No it doesn't. The big bang refers to the expansion of space. It does not deal with the origin of the matter and energy.

So, why don't you teach us about the origin of the matter and energy.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:23:03 AM

So, physicists basically claim that something can (and must) come out of nothing!?!?!
You judge for yourself how sensible their claim is...

And the religious claim the same.

Wrong, religious claim is that something (space and time) comes from something which is totally beyond our comprehension (as far as nature - the principle of existence/ontological motion/metatime which is heterologous to any Time (as we know it),  if you want - of that something is concerned), however which Necessary Existence is necessary for any unnecessary existence to come out (from).

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:23:03 AM

Watchmaker analogy :

Is yet another massively flawed analogy which is in no way intellectually honest.
Again, the same arguments apply to your god.

Ultimately it can boil down to a single question:
Can complex entities exist without being created by an entity which is as complex or more complex?
If yes, there is no need for a god. If no, your god needs a creator as well.
Again, YOUR GOD SOLVES NOTHING!

As for the full analogy, notice how the watch is seen as special, distinct from everything else.
If the analogy was correct, they should be thinking EVERYTHING was created, not just the watch.

Do you know the massive difference between the watch and biological life?
The watch has no mechanism to form itself. Life does. That is because life is composed of molecules which will spontaneously react and organise into complex structures. The same applies to the universe as a whole.
No sentience is required to make it happen.

Spontaneously react and organise into complex structures???

You can't be that stupid, can you???

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:23:03 AM

That means we can't even begin to grasp his nature, the way he is, but it doesn't mean we can't conclude that He exists, better to say that He must exists.

No, it is far worse to say he must exist, especially as you admitted his existence would be indistinguishable from non-existence. That means it would be much better to say it doesn't exist.

Just because you father is a maniac (hypothetically speaking), it doesn't mean that he doesn't or didn't exist, does it?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:23:03 AM

things that only have partial or flawed existence indicate that they are not their own sources of existence, and so must rely on something else as the source of their existence.

Which is more special pleading and is in no way intellectually honest.
Why should things which are lesser rely upon something else but the greatest things do not?
There is no basis for it.
It is ultimately quite alike the first cause argument.
It asserts things need a cause and then dismissed it for the very being it is trying to prove.

“Again, it is self-evident that truth exists. For truth exists if anything at all is true, and if anyone denies that truth exists, he concedes that it is true that it does not exist, since if truth does not exist it is then true that it does not exist.”

“God is not, like creatures, made up of parts. God is spirit, without bodily dimensions. Firstly, no body can cause change without itself being changed. Secondly, things with dimensions are potential of division. But the starting-point for all existence must be wholly real and not potential in any way: though things that get realized begin as potential, preceding them is the source of their realization which must already be real. Thirdly, living bodies are superior to other bodies; and what makes a body living is not the dimensions which make it a body (for then everything with dimensions would be living), but something more excellent like a soul. The most excellent existent of all then cannot be a body. So when the scriptures ascribe dimensions to God they are using spatial extension to symbolize the extent of God's power; just as they ascribe bodily organs to God as metaphors for their functions, and postures like sitting or standing to symbolize authority or strength.”

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:25:01 AM

We can't traverse the infinite, however, even though Zenon's paradoxes have some similarity to my argument, they aren't the same. So, if you want to disprove validity of my argument you have to deal with it directly and meticulously (step by step)!!! Forget Zenon's paradoxes, this is a whole new ballgame.

The whole point of bringing up Zeno's paradoxes was to show that the infinite can be traversed.
The paradoxes arise by the claim that the infinite cannot be traversed, which rules out the possibility of movement, combined with the clearly observable fact that people can move.
To hold that we cannot traverse the infinite would mean holding that we cannot move.

But I like to think of it like space. If space stretches out infinitely to the left and right, that doesn't mean we can't be here a this point in space.

Your entire argument relies upon how humans perceive time, not the nature of time itself.

So, why don't you teach us about the nature of time itself?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:25:01 AM

Any motion presumes physical dimensions (as we know it).

And there you go with more intellectual dishonesty by contradicting yourself.
This is physical motion, even though you made it clear that that is not what you meant. (at least if by physical dimension you mean spatial, as opposed to others like energy)

Any motion (as we know it) presumes physical dimensions. How do you like improved version of that sentence?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 02:25:01 AM

Any physical dimension (as we know it) presumes motion, as well (and any motion presumes time (as we know it)), because if there would be no motion, there would be no time, and if there would be no time, there would be no physical dimension, and vice versa.

No, it doesn't.
You can have physical dimension without time. You can have time without spatial dimension Time and space can be separate.

How Time and space can be separate?

If one wants to be intellectually honest when it comes to a god, they need to admit that there is no rational basis (i.e. from evidence or logic) to conclude a god exists and if this person believes in a god, they would admit they do so on faith, not reason.

Ex nihilo nihil fit!!! This is very rational basis!!! And the following one is also very rational :

Imagine a series of train cars where each one pulls the succeeding one insofar as it is pulled by the preceding one. Since each train car only has the power to pull other cars derivatively, they won’t actually be able to pull each other,no matter how many of them there are, unless there is an engine, a first ontological puller.

So, why don't you teach us about the origin of the matter and energy.

Or you could address the issues I have already raised.
Tell us the origin of your god.
Tell us why something as simple as the universe needs a creator, but something much more complex like your god doesn't.

Wrong

Different religious people claim different things.
Some will claim that their god exists from nothing.
Some will say that their god made the universe from nothing.

Time coming from something makes no sense.
Coming requires time.

Spontaneously react and organise into complex structures???
You can't be that stupid, can you???

And thanks for once again showing you have nothing but insults.
Notice how you completley ignored the question?
Notice how you can't actually provide any rational objection and instead just provide insults?

No. I'm not that stupid. I am not stupid enough to think that a watch needing a designer/maker means that life, which is fundamentally different needs one.
I am not stupid enough to think that just because something is complex it couldn't arise via natural processes.
I am smart and knowledgeable enough to know that chemicals will spontaneously react and that some of the products can be quite complex.

But don't worry, I understand you have no rational objection to this so you need to resort to pathetic insults.

Now care to answer my question and address the issue raised:
Can complex entities exist without being created by an entity which is as complex or more complex?
If yes, there is no need for a god. If no, your god needs a creator as well.

I'm not going to bother going into more of your spam until you have addressed what has already been said. And no, copying and pasting more spam doesn't address the arguments I have made.

So, why don't you teach us about the nature of time itself?

No thanks. That burden is on you.
You want to make an argument based upon the nature of time, the burden is on you to back it up.

Any motion (as we know it) presumes physical dimensions. How do you like improved version of that sentence?

Again, what do you mean by motion?
Do you mean the kind you alleged Aquinas meant which Dawkins didn't use? If so, that does not require space.
If you mean the kind you alleged Dawkins used which you objected to him using, then yes.

How Time and space can be separate?

Again, the burden is on you, but due to how easy this is I will be nice.
Ever heard of a photo?
An ideal one is a snapshot of space in a given moment with no temporal extent.
Pictures have space, but not time.
Yes, in order to take a photo in our temporal existence we need time, but that is not the photo itself, that is our existence.

Then as another example there is sound and music. Ultimately this (as an idea) is variation in the intensity of different frequencies over time. It doesn't actually need space. Yes, in order for us to hear it, air needs to move through space, but again, that is our existence, not sound itself.

Ex nihilo nihil fit!!! This is very rational basis!!!

Which in no way shows your god exists.
Even if accepted all this does is show that something must exist, not your god. There is nothing rational about the last step in your chain, asserting that that something is your god.
It also isn't as rational as you make it out to be.
We have never been able to observe nothing. We do not know the properties of nothing, if it even has properties.
If nothing is literally nothing, with no properties at all, then what is there to prevent something coming into existence? There are no laws of physics like the conservation of matter and energy to prevent spontaneous formation of something from nothing.
So there is no rational basis to conclude that from nothing nothing comes.

In fact, the closest we have to nothing is a vacuum. And in a vacuum do you know what happens? Virtual particles pop in and out of existence, i.e. something comes from nothing. Now you might argue that these are just virtual particles, not real particles, however they are real and capable of interacting with the world, they just have a time limit on the violation of conservation of matter and energy. That can be via annihilation with the virtual particle that was created with them, or with another particle. They have real physical effects, like the Casimir effect.

So while superficially this claim might appear rational, there is actually nothing rational about it.

And this one also boils down to a very simple question:
Why is there something rather than nothing.
The only possible answer to this is NOTHING! There can be no reason. Do you know why?
Any reason that is provided will be a something. This means it isn't the answer as you need to explain why there is this something rather than nothing.

And the following one is also very rational :

And it also is in no way a rational argument for a god.
Your god is just another car in the train, needing another car to pull it.
It is no more rational to have your god as the prime mover as anything else is.
I have already dealt with what amounts to that argument.
All it says is that there must be a first cause. There is no basis to conclude that cause is your god. There is no basis to conclude the universe needs a cause but your god doesn't.


You can pretend all you want. You can manipulate definitions all you want. But the simple fact remains:
All your god does is push the problem back and compound it.
It doesn't solve anything.
There is no rational basis to believe your god (or any god) exists.

An intellectually honest person that believes in a god will admit they believe based upon faith rather than reason or evidence, just like Rab did.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 05:46:56 AM

So, why don't you teach us about the origin of the matter and energy.

Or you could address the issues I have already raised.
Tell us the origin of your god.
Tell us why something as simple as the universe needs a creator, but something much more complex like your god doesn't.

And as God is simple, and subsisting, we attribute to Him abstract names to signify His simplicity, and concrete names to signify His substance and perfection, although both these kinds of names fail to express His mode of being, for as much as our intellect does not know Him in this life as He is.

Aquinas insists that "what God is not, is clearer to us than what God is" (ST I.1.9.3). He argues that the Bible is written in metaphors that render the divine mystery meaningful for finite human minds. We depend on material objects for our knowledge, and therefore we can only speak of God as if God, too, were part of the material world.

This is why we can't know about God anything else besides that He exists :

Being = Dynamics = Motion = Change = Presence = Existence
Non Being = Non Dynamics = No Motion = No Change = Absence = Non Existence
If Being (God) Is (Exists) then He is Nothing (Here "Nothing" means Incomprehension, our inability to understand analogically)
If Being (God) Is Not (Doesn't Exist) then He is Something (Here "Something" means Comprehension, our ability to grasp analogically)
Being = Non Being which is contradiction = Knowledge is impossible (because Timelessness is not analogical to Time)

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 05:46:56 AM

Wrong

Different religious people claim different things.
Some will claim that their god exists from nothing.
Some will say that their god made the universe from nothing.

Time coming from something makes no sense.
Coming requires time.

You still insist (like Dawkins) on claim that Thomas's proof from universal "motion" concernes only physical movement in space, "local motion," rather than the ontological movement from potency to act?

Time coming from some preceding "MetaTime" (which is still sort of Time, just not our worldliness Time), makes more sense?

If one has to speak of the existence of God Greek philosophy provides the means to do so with its idea of an unmoved mover, an uncaused cause, a necessary being to account for contingent beings, a transcendent source of reality to explain our awareness of reality, and an intelligent first principle that orders the world in such a way that we can understand it. In other words: being has an origin and a purpose, and that is God's being.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 05:46:56 AM

Spontaneously react and organise into complex structures???
You can't be that stupid, can you???

Now care to answer my question and address the issue raised:
Can complex entities exist without being created by an entity which is as complex or more complex?
If yes, there is no need for a god. If no, your god needs a creator as well.

We must, however, avoid any suggestion that God is a being like other beings, only more perfect. That is like saying that Mozart must have been a perfect symphony, because his symphonies are so sublime. Aquinas might say that we know no more of God through creation than we know of Mozart through his music. We can only allow our wonder to be awakened by the beauty of what has been created. The being of God is better understood as a verb than a noun. It is the dynamism of being that sustains all beings, so that were God to cease the activity of holding creation in being, "all nature would collapse" (ST I.104.1).

Again, what do you mean by motion?
Do you mean the kind you alleged Aquinas meant which Dawkins didn't use? If so, that does not require space.
If you mean the kind you alleged Dawkins used which you objected to him using, then yes.

So, you are able to understand the problem, otherwise you just pretend not to understand it. So, stop being intellectually dishonest person, at least once in your lifetime.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 05:46:56 AM

How Time and space can be separate?

Again, the burden is on you, but due to how easy this is I will be nice.
Ever heard of a photo?
An ideal one is a snapshot of space in a given moment with no temporal extent.
Pictures have space, but not time.
Yes, in order to take a photo in our temporal existence we need time, but that is not the photo itself, that is our existence.

Then as another example there is sound and music. Ultimately this (as an idea) is variation in the intensity of different frequencies over time. It doesn't actually need space. Yes, in order for us to hear it, air needs to move through space, but again, that is our existence, not sound itself.

So, you are talking about our awareness of something that exists only in our imagination (like a unicorn, for example)?

Ask yourself, when were you aware/when are you aware/when are you going to be aware of what is represented in the picture which you took with your camera as a snapshot of space?

Ask yourself, where (in your brain), and how is your awareness (of what is represented in that picture) being processed?

Ask yourself, is there a moon when nobody looks, not even God?

The net effect of Bell's Theorem is profound. Reality is somehow dependent upon how we observe it.
http://www.drchinese.com/David/Bell_Theorem_Easy_Math.htm

When God is thinking about something (when he is aware of Himself and everything that He created or will create), does He think about that something in the context of some Time (even if that Time is MetaTime/beyond our worldliness time) or He has to think (about) it Out of Time? If his awareness occurs Out of Time, then WHEN precisely does it happen???

We can say, He thinks all at once, but what does this actually mean? Could it be that when we use such phrases (He thinks all at once), we actually just pretend to be smart assholes, when in reality we only fool ourselves, assuming (in all fairness) that such phrases don't make any sense, whatsoever?

Since all attempts to (analogically) grasp God's nature completely fail, isn't that just one other aspect of the problem of evil (just one of Moby Dick's special methods of torturing human beings)

Quote from: cikljamas on September 26, 2019, 05:46:56 AM

Ex nihilo nihil fit!!! This is very rational basis!!!

Which in no way shows your god exists.
Even if accepted all this does is show that something must exist, not your god. There is nothing rational about the last step in your chain, asserting that that something is your god.
It also isn't as rational as you make it out to be.
We have never been able to observe nothing. We do not know the properties of nothing, if it even has properties.
If nothing is literally nothing, with no properties at all, then what is there to prevent something coming into existence? There are no laws of physics like the conservation of matter and energy to prevent spontaneous formation of something from nothing.
So there is no rational basis to conclude that from nothing nothing comes.

At some time or another most of us have asked the question, "How did God come to be?" The question is actually an intelligent one and reveals deep thought on behalf of the inquirer. Unlike us, God did not have a beginning. He has always existed. Yet how can this be? What did he do before He created the heavens and the earth? What was His existence like?

Ex nihilo nihil fit is the Latin for 'out of nothing, nothing comes'. Even the famous Scottish skeptic, David Hume, wrote, "But allow me to tell you that I never asserted so absurd a Proposition as that anything might arise without a cause."

Atheist philosopher, Quentin Smith writes:

    The idea that the Big Bang theory allows us to infer that the universe began to exist about 15 billion years ago has attracted the attention of many theists. This theory seemed to confirm or at least lend support to the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Indeed, the suggestion of a divine creation seemed so compelling that the notion that "God created the Big Bang" has taken a hold on popular consciousness and become a staple in the theistic component of ‘educated common sense’. By contrast, the response of atheists and agnostics to this development has been comparatively lame.

We observe that everything that begins to exist has a cause. The Big-Bang confirms that the universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe must have been caused.

The skeptic may respond, "If an uncaused beginning is problematic for the universe, isn’t it problematic for God as well?" Not at all. Uncaused beginnings are problematic no matter what or Who you may be talking about. However, while we now know that the universe had a beginning, no one is claiming that God began to exist.

Richard Dawkins : Something from Nothing : https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=82434.msg2199973#msg2199973

And as God is simple

Your god is not simple (unless you want to say it doesn't exist and in that way is simple).
It is a complex, sentient being.

You still insist (like Dawkins) on claim that Thomas's proof from universal "motion" concernes only physical movement in space, "local motion," rather than the ontological movement from potency to act

No, I'm not, not in the slightest.
What I am doing is showing that your claims make no sense.
If you want to appeal to some other time, then time still exists and your objections against it apply to it as well.
In fact, it works out just like your god in general, solving nothing and just pushing the problem back.
For example, did your god have to wait an infinite amount of metatime before making the universe? Or has only a finite amount of metatime passed, with it too being created at some point in metametatime?

You can't have it both ways.

If one has to speak of the existence of God Greek philosophy provides the means to do so

Yes, with their pantheon of gods which were very sentient and acted in many ways like humans.

You can't just discard the definition used to pretend your god exists.

That would be no better than decided that God actually means Earth and because Earth exist, God exists.
That isn't showing a god exists, that is just talking nonsense.

I also notice that yet again you ignore what I said yet again and go off with more spam.
Again:
Can complex entities exist without being created by an entity which is as complex or more complex?
If yes, there is no need for a god. If no, your god needs a creator as well.

So, you are able to understand the problem, otherwise you just pretend not to understand it. So, stop being intellectually dishonest person, at least once in your lifetime.

I'm not the one being intellectually dishonest here. You are the one asserting pure nonsense, relying upon so many fundamentally flawed arguments and special pleading.
Why don't you try being honest for once and just admit you are at troll and that you don't believe a word of the nonsense you spout?

So, you are talking about our awareness of something that exists only in our imagination

No, I am talking about a hypothetical possibility.
Sure, it isn't how this reality with time and space work, but that is not the point. You were asserting, based upon absolutely nothing at all, that time requires space and space requires time.
How about you try and prove it?
Not just proving that we have time and space, but that they need each other.

At some time or another most of us have asked the question, "How did God come to be?"

But that isn't the question I asked. The question I asked is why does something exist rather than nothing.

The skeptic may respond, "If an uncaused beginning is problematic for the universe, isn’t it problematic for God as well?" Not at all. Uncaused beginnings are problematic no matter what or Who you may be talking about. However, while we now know that the universe had a beginning, no one is claiming that God began to exist.

And the actual skeptic may respond "PURE GARBAGE".
We don't know the universe had an actual beginning. The Big Bang is not the beginning of the universe, just as we know it.
It is an expansion. It starts with a singularity, which expands.
There is no basis to assert that the universe as a whole had a beginning.

And yet again, you completely fail to address the point I made.
You have no rational basis for your claim that from nothing nothing comes.

That sure seems to be a trend for you. You completely ignore what is said and just spout more spam.

So how about you stop spouting more and more spam and actually address what has been said?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

And as God is simple

Your god is not simple (unless you want to say it doesn't exist and in that way is simple).
It is a complex, sentient being.

You are philosophically illiterate. We've become a philosophically illiterate culture at large. If our elites aren't being taught this great tradition, then it should come as no surprise that some subset of that elite — experimental scientists and their hangers-on — don't know it.

In theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity says that God is without parts. The general idea can be stated in this way: the being of God is identical to the "attributes" of God. Characteristics such as omnipresence, goodness, truth, eternity, etc. are identical to God's being, not qualities that make up that being, nor abstract entities inhering in God as in a substance; in other words we can say that in God both essence and existence are one and the same.

God is not composed or divisible by any physical or metaphysical means. Simplicity of God refers to the fact that he has no parts. The simplicity teaching extends to the entire nature of God. His substance, nature, and very being is that of utter simplicity. The properties usually attributed to God such as omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence do not contradict the teaching of simplicity because each property is a different way of looking at the infinite active being of God from a limited perspective. One consequence of this teaching is the fact that since God is simple, he must be a pure spirit.

    Primary Argument:

        P1. Every composite must have potentiality and actuality

        P2. God is entirely actual.

        C1. God is not composite and therefore simple.

            Objections:

        Whatever is from God must imitate him. The world and its beings are not simple and therefore neither is God.

        Reply: It is of the essence of a thing to be composite. A parallel cannot be drawn in this fashion between the creator and the created because God’s essence is existence. A created thing’s existence is different from the created thing’s essence. Hence simplicity cannot be attributed to a created thing as it can to God whose nature is that of utter existence.
       
Any thing that is composite is better than something that is simple (as a hand is to man). Since God is of the hightest order he must be composite rather than simple.

        Reply: The statement that composites are better than simplicity is true only for created beings because they cannot be altogether simple. Therefore we must look for perfection in many things. However, perfection of a divine goodness is found in one simple thing (God).

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

You still insist (like Dawkins) on claim that Thomas's proof from universal "motion" concerns only physical movement in space, "local motion," rather than the ontological movement from potency to act

No, I'm not, not in the slightest.
What I am doing is showing that your claims make no sense.
If you want to appeal to some other time, then time still exists and your objections against it apply to it as well.
In fact, it works out just like your god in general, solving nothing and just pushing the problem back.
For example, did your god have to wait an infinite amount of metatime before making the universe? Or has only a finite amount of metatime passed, with it too being created at some point in metametatime?

You can't have it both ways.

That is exactly why i have stressed 1 000 000 times, already that God has to be Out of any Time, not just out of our Time (existing in/as so called MetaTime, which is still some sort of Time, only not our worldliness Time). But, you are consistently and persistently playing dumb (acting like a fool), which is your (in)famous (widely known) property.

However, if He is Out of any Time, how can He exist (dynamically), at all???

If our souls are immortal, it means that our existence is going to go on infinitely in the future. However, infinitely can't be really infinite only in one (future) direction. Get it?

That is why Plato claims that our souls are not created (immortal), but eternal.

Essentially, in order for the theory of recollection to work, our souls would have had to exist before our earthly incarnation, as well as go on existing after it. Additionally, if the soul is immortal then it must also be eternal, because if something can never come to an end, then it must never have had a beginning in the first place.
READ MORE : https://classicalwisdom.com/philosophy/socrates-plato/theory-recollection-immortal-soul-required/

However, Huston, we got a problem here, since Plato obviously presupposes that immortality is a modality of existence which simply lasts forever (which should be understood as MetaTime), then He can't explain this problem : If infinity of days had to pass before today, then today would never had arrived because it's impossible to traverse the infinite.

For the same reason Aristotle can't defend his claim regarding eternity of material Universe :

He claims that if the world began, there must have been a first moment of time. But this cannot be because it is the nature of time to join past and future.

He also claims that motion is always caused by a previous motion. Hence, there cannot have been a first motion, that is, motion must be eternal. Consequently, what is in motion must be eternal as well.

However, as i pointed out numerous time God (eternity) can not exist/be in MetaTime, He has to exist/be OUT of Time, because no Universe whatsoever could ever be created nor any event (any temporal dynamics) could happen if God's mode of existence would be interchangeable to our notion of Time which is measure of change, which is motion.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

So, you are talking about our awareness of something that exists only in our imagination

No, I am talking about a hypothetical possibility.
Sure, it isn't how this reality with time and space work, but that is not the point. You were asserting, based upon absolutely nothing at all, that time requires space and space requires time.
How about you try and prove it?
Not just proving that we have time and space, but that they need each other.

How many times i have to emphasise this to you :

1. Timelessness is not analogical to Time
2. We can't grasp analogically what is Essence of Being which is Out of Time
3. We can only understand using analogies. We depend on material objects for our knowledge, and therefore we can only speak of God as if God, too, were part of the material world.

We can rely on our logic as far as we talk about our reality which we can describe as "Time and Space", since we know that to anything which is bound by Time and Space we can justifiably apply the principle of impossibility of infinite regression of causes. However, once we attempt to step out from our reality (Time and Space), we instantly find ourselves totally helpless, since our logic all of a sudden completely falls apart.

This is why we can't know about God anything else besides that He exists :

Being = Dynamics = Motion = Change = Presence = Existence
Non Being = Non Dynamics = No Motion = No Change = Absence = Non Existence
If Being (God) Is (Exists) then He is Nothing (Here "Nothing" means Incomprehension, our inability to understand analogically)
If Being (God) Is Not (Doesn't Exist) then He is Something (Here "Something" means Comprehension, our ability to grasp analogically)
Being = Non Being which is contradiction = Knowledge is impossible (because Timelessness is not analogical to Time)

So, i don't intend to prove that they need each other in a realm of God's mod of "Out of Time" existence about which we can't know anything.

It seems like you are the one who wants to prove that it is possible to separate Time and Space within a realm of God's existence...Are you trying to prove that God exists?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

At some time or another most of us have asked the question, "How did God come to be?"

But that isn't the question I asked. The question I asked is why does something exist rather than nothing.

Because God exists, that is to say, because Being is and Non-Being is not!

Everything that exists is caused by something else. This something else is, in turn, caused by something else again, and so on and on and on. To avoid going back forever in an infinite regress, we must reach a cause which is not itself caused by something else: the first and uncaused (or self-caused) cause of everything, and this is God.

To be here rather than there, or to be moving from here to there does not seem to be a real difference of being and, therefore, not a becoming. Parmenides, however, saw that to be consistent with the principle, as he understood it, any change is impossible. Consider the following fragments:

---Look steadily with thy mind upon things afar off as if they were near at hand. Thou canst not cut off being from its hold upon being, neither scattering everywhere in order, nor crowding together.

---Come now, and I will tell thee—and do thou hearken and carry my word away—the only ways of enquiry that can be thought of: the one way, that it is and cannot not-be, is the path of conviction, for it accompanies truth; the other that it is not and that it needs must not-be, that I tell thee is a path altogether unthinkable. For thou couldst not know non-being (that is impossible) nor utter it.

---That which can be spoken and thought is necessarily being, for it is possible for it, but not for nothing, to be; that is what I bid thee ponder.

---The way only is left to be spoken of, that it is. And on this way are full many signs that being is ungenerated and imperishable. For it is complete, immovable, and without end. It never was, nor will it be, since it is now, all at once, one and continuous. For what birth wilt thou seek for it, and how and from what did it grow? I shall not allow thee to say or think ‘‘from non-being.’’

And therefore it is necessary that every such thing whose existence is other than its nature would have existence from another. And because everything that is through another is reduced to that which is through itself as to a first cause, it must be that there is some thing that is the cause of existing for all things in that it itself is existing only; otherwise one would go into infinity in the causes, since everything that is not existence only has a cause of its existence, as has been said. It is evident, therefore, that an intelligence is a form and existence, and that it has existence from the first being, which is existence only, and this is the first cause, which is God. - Thomas Aquinas

So Parmenides was correct in one way: If the being he was speaking about is the maximum being whose very essence is existence itself, this being must be the fullness of being and entirely immobile. It would have no privation, nor any potency to actuality. Rather, it would have complete possession of all perfection and would, therefore, have no need or ability to change. This being is the actuality that is not only prior to all potency, but also to all other being and becoming.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

The skeptic may respond, "If an uncaused beginning is problematic for the universe, isn’t it problematic for God as well?" Not at all. Uncaused beginnings are problematic no matter what or Who you may be talking about. However, while we now know that the universe had a beginning, no one is claiming that God began to exist.

And the actual skeptic may respond "PURE GARBAGE".
We don't know the universe had an actual beginning. The Big Bang is not the beginning of the universe, just as we know it.
It is an expansion. It starts with a singularity, which expands.
There is no basis to assert that the universe as a whole had a beginning.

And yet again, you completely fail to address the point I made.
You have no rational basis for your claim that from nothing nothing comes.

God is Out of Time, and you are out of your mind!

You are philosophically illiterate.

No, I'm not.
Just because I don't accept your nonsense doesn't mean I am illiterate.

Yes, some theists want to pretend their god is simple, to try and avoid the fact their arguments from complexity would apply to a complex god.
That wont make it simple.

Making more assertions about your god wont help magically make it simple.

That is exactly why i have stressed 1 000 000 times, already that God has to be Out of any Time

Which again means it is unable to do anything.
You want it both ways. You want your god to exist in time to do things but out of it so it doesn't have to exist for an infinite time.
You don't seem to want to address these issues. You just want to switch back and forth.

However, infinitely can't be really infinite only in one (future) direction. Get it?

Get yet another baseless assertion from you? Yes. But can you prove it?
So far all you seem to have is a collection of baseless assertions and special pleading and irrational arguments.

How many times i have to emphasise this to you :

How about you stop trying to emphasise false notions to me and instead start addressing the massive issues with your claims.

since we know that to anything which is bound by Time and Space we can justifiably apply the principle of impossibility of infinite regression of causes.

No, we can't. You are yet to show an infinite regress is impossible. Again, all you have done is asserted it.

It seems like you are the one who wants to prove that it is possible to separate Time and Space within a realm of God's existence

And again you blatantly lie about me.
I am doing nothing of the sort. I already explained what I was doing, showing that your claim is unsubstantiated.

Because God exists

Which doesn't answer it at all.
Your god is something.
You need to explain why your god exists rather than nothing.
You cannot appeal to your god to say why it exists.

Everything that exists is caused by something else. This something else is, in turn, caused by something else again, and so on and on and on.

And your god doesn't help at all. Your god is still something and thus would be caused by something else. To reject that your god needs a cause you reject the premise of the argument. Why go to god rather than stopping earlier?
Like I said earlier, all that argument shows is that there would be a first cause (and that is still based upon the claim that there can't be an infinite regress). It does not show that the first cause is a god.

I had already pointed that out and you just completely ignored it and now just brought it up again.

Stop spamming with so much garbage and deal with the points already raised.
Now care to even attempt to address what has been said?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

Because God exists

Which doesn't answer it at all.
Your god is something.
You need to explain why your god exists rather than nothing.
You cannot appeal to your god to say why it exists.

---Come now, and I will tell thee—and do thou hearken and carry my word away—the only ways of enquiry that can be thought of: the one way, that it is and cannot not-be, is the path of conviction, for it accompanies truth; the other that it is not and that it needs must not-be, that I tell thee is a path altogether unthinkable. For thou couldst not know non-being (that is impossible) nor utter it.

---The way only is left to be spoken of, that it is. And on this way are full many signs that being is ungenerated and imperishable. For it is complete, immovable, and without end. It never was, nor will it be, since it is now, all at once, one and continuous. For what birth wilt thou seek for it, and how and from what did it grow? I shall not allow thee to say or think ‘‘from non-being.’’

A term employed in scholastic philosophy to express the absolute perfection of God. In all finite beings we find actuality and potentiality , perfection and imperfection. Primary matter, which is the basis of material substance, is a pure potentiality. Moreover, change necessarily supposes a potential element, for it is a transition from a state of potentiality to a state of actuality; and material things undergo manifold changes in substance, quantity, quality, place, activity, etc. Angels, since they are pure spirits, are subject to none of the changes that depend on the material principle. Nevertheless, there is in them imperfection and potentiality. Their existence is contingent. Their actions are successive, and are distinct from the faculty of acting. The fact that all things have in themselves some potentiality warrants the conclusion that there must exist a being, God, from whom potentiality is wholly excluded, and who, therefore, is simply actuality and perfection, Actus Purus.

It is true that in the same being the state of potentiality precedes that of actuality; before being realized, a perfection must be capable of realization. But, absolutely speaking, actuality precedes potentiality. For in order to change, a thing must be acted upon, or actualized; change and potentiality presuppose, therefore, a being which is in actu . This actuality, if mixed with potentiality, presupposes another actuality, and so on, until we reach the Actus Purus . Thus the existence of movement (in scholastic terminology, motus , any change) points to the existence of a prime and immobile motor.

So, absolutely speaking, actuality precedes potentiality. Now, we have to imagine that moment/that state/that necessary mod of existence which precedes any particular unnecessary existence...Before any potentiality could be actualized there must be Actus Purus (Pure Actuality)/Essence of Existence/Uncaused Cause/Prime Mover. But the question is : How can such Pure Actuality exist BEFORE any potentiality is actualized (comes into existence)?

A quick reminder :

If our souls are immortal, it means that our existence is going to go on infinitely in the future. However, infinitely can't be really infinite only in one (future) direction.

That is why Plato claims that our souls are not created (immortal), but eternal.

Essentially, in order for the theory of recollection to work, our souls would have had to exist before our earthly incarnation, as well as go on existing after it. Additionally, if the soul is immortal then it must also be eternal, because if something can never come to an end, then it must never have had a beginning in the first place.

Plato tried to escape this problem by asserting that our souls are eternal (not created), which is tantamount to "Tat Tvam Asi" - translated variously as "Thou art that," (That thou art, That art thou, You are that, or That you are, or You're it)) - The meaning of this saying is that the Self - in its original, pure, primordial state - is wholly or partially identifiable or identical with the Ultimate Reality that is the ground and origin of all phenomena. This is very close to Pantheism (God is everything that is).

So, we can try to reason like this : although God's essence doesn't change, it doesn't mean that He is not involved in everything that is changing (from potentiality to actuality), by subsisting all unnecessary existence (phenomena), since God is Pure Actuality out of which comes (is emanated) any possible Non-Contingent existence.

All i am asking is this : How Pure Actuality can exist as such if it precedes any potentiality (any Non-Contingent being)? Since, if it precedes then it was before, and if it was before it has to have some ("MetaTime") mod of existence which can not be Non-Existence (Pure Nothingness/Non-Being). However, Pure Something which mod of existence can't be described as something that lasts/that has it's own MetaTime (instead of being described as something that is Out of any Time) for our power of analogical reasoning can't be anything else but Pure Nothingness.

If you think you can show me the way out of this logical labyrinth, go ahead, feel free to lead me through required logical procedure so that i can stop switching back and forth.

Quote from: JackBlack on September 27, 2019, 03:19:28 PM

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

Because God exists

Which doesn't answer it at all.
Your god is something.
You need to explain why your god exists rather than nothing.
You cannot appeal to your god to say why it exists.

Is there an end to your copy-n-paste?

Quote from: cikljamas on September 28, 2019, 03:10:51 AM

Quote from: JackBlack on September 27, 2019, 03:19:28 PM

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

Because God exists

Which doesn't answer it at all.
Your god is something.
You need to explain why your god exists rather than nothing.
You cannot appeal to your god to say why it exists.

Is there an end to your copy-n-paste?

If you have nothing constructive to say, say nothing at all! If you have nothing constructive and nothing nice to say, then why don't you shut up?
JackBlack is Rabinoz's alter : https://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=82434.msg2203184#msg2203184

Quote from: rabinoz on September 28, 2019, 03:40:21 AM

Quote from: cikljamas on September 28, 2019, 03:10:51 AM

Quote from: JackBlack on September 27, 2019, 03:19:28 PM

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

Because God exists

Which doesn't answer it at all.
Your god is something.
You need to explain why your god exists rather than nothing.
You cannot appeal to your god to say why it exists.

Is there an end to your copy-n-paste?

If you have nothing constructive to say, say nothing at all! If you have nothing constructive and nothing nice to say, then why don't you shut up?

Since you seem to have nothing of your own to say, then why do you keep on and on about it?
Philosophers have debated this since Aristotle's time or earlier and theologians likewise but for a shorter time but can't agree.

I will agree that belief in God is logical but that is not a logical proof that God exists.

Whether your God is outside space and time, as I believe He must, or not that is a matter of belief and not any logical proof.

But far wiser people than I have debated this for millennia so what matters is belief on a personal level.

---Come now, and I will tell thee

Stop with the spam.
Start dealing with what has been said.
Actually make arguments yourself rather than just copying and pasting spam.

If you think you can show me the way out of this logical labyrinth, go ahead, feel free to lead me through required logical procedure so that i can stop switching back and forth.

I don't need to. You have gotten yourself trapped in it.
If you can't get out, that is your problem.

So far all you have done is provide plenty of baseless assertions inside mountains of spam while trying to avoid form of rational argument.

Once again, your god solves nothing. All it does is push the problem back.
Ultimately the only answer to why there is something rather than nothing, is nothing, i.e. there can be no reason as any reason you come up with will just push it back.

And again your god solves nothing.
Can complex entities exist without being created by an entity just as or more complex?
If not, your god needs a creator as well, if so, there is no need for your god.

And good job derailing yet another thread of yours. But this time you actually had a chance if you stuck on topic.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 28, 2019, 03:49:15 AM

Quote from: rabinoz on September 28, 2019, 03:40:21 AM

Quote from: cikljamas on September 28, 2019, 03:10:51 AM

Quote from: JackBlack on September 27, 2019, 03:19:28 PM

Quote from: cikljamas on September 27, 2019, 03:19:11 AM

Because God exists

Which doesn't answer it at all.
Your god is something.
You need to explain why your god exists rather than nothing.
You cannot appeal to your god to say why it exists.

Is there an end to your copy-n-paste?

If you have nothing constructive to say, say nothing at all! If you have nothing constructive and nothing nice to say, then why don't you shut up?

Since you seem to have nothing of your own to say, then why do you keep on and on about it?

Only totally dishonest person, intellectual idler/parasite and super-troll  like you, can say (after all that i wrote in this thread, and i know very well that you can easily distinguish every single sentence written by me from quotes of other authors, given the fact that english is not my native tongue, and that my crude style of writing in english is very recognisable to any native/genuine english speaker) that i have nothing of my own to say on this very issue. Had i had nothing of my own to say on this problem, then there would have been no issue at hand (in the first place). I have raised one very specific problem here, and due to your intellectual laziness you haven't been able to notice even the very problem that i am talking about (which should be great embarrassment for any adult person, let alone how great embarrassment that would be for any intellectually honest person), not to talk about how naive would be to expect of you to be able to notice something more than the problem itself. Total lack of any intellectual honesty (and any other type of honesty) disables you to see how idiotic and disrespectful it really is when someone like you jump in (out of blue) in the middle of this discussion and brazenly start to spout out dirty lies and utter stupidities...So, as i already told you, if you have nothing constructive and nice to say, why don't you just shut up? Now, let's deal with JackBlack's stupidities...

Quote from: cikljamas on September 28, 2019, 03:10:51 AM

---Come now, and I will tell thee

Stop with the spam.
Start dealing with what has been said.
Actually make arguments yourself rather than just copying and pasting spam.

If you weren't Rabinoz' alter, and if your were at least basically philosophically literate i could expand on this problem (using very interesting analogies) in an attempt to make this problem more clearer to our small audience which is obviously consisted of philosophically illiterate guys like you, but as usually your mental disorder sooner or later must demolish every constructive effort ever invested by many sincere persons within various discussions that took place in this forum. There is no point continuing this discussion with psychologically unstable and intellectually dishonest person like you are...

Since i am done with Rabinoz and his alter JackBlack, i can offer to my small audience few final thoughts here :

We saw how Plato (besides Parmenides, the greatest philosopher of all time, according to many) tried to solve our problem (assigning eternity to the nature of human soul).

However, if our soul is eternal it means that our soul is a part of a Whole (God) who/which has no parts because his nature (Actus Purus) and very being is that of utter simplicity. The properties usually attributed to God such as omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence do not contradict the teaching of simplicity because each property is a different way of looking at the infinite active being of God from a limited perspective.

Active being means dynamics (remember that, we shall come back to this later).

If our souls are parts of a Whole which has no parts which is God, then our souls could be interpreted as different variations/various emanations of one Wholeness which is God (Tat Tvam Asi).

If our souls are God, and if God is Self-Sufficient Being, then why would God need to create material world (Time and Space) and so stepping out of His realm of Genuine (Self-Sufficient) Existence which is Out of Time (not in MetaTime), just to exert senseless torturing over innocent animals and human beings (our incarnated souls which are God)?

Aristotle argued that the world must have existed from eternity in his Physics as follows. In Book I, he argues that everything that comes into existence does so from a substratum. Therefore, if the underlying matter of the universe came into existence, it would come into existence from a substratum. But the nature of matter is precisely to be the substratum from which other things arise. Consequently, the underlying matter of the universe could have come into existence only from an already existing matter exactly like itself; to assume that the underlying matter of the universe came into existence would require assuming that an underlying matter already existed. As this assumption is self-contradictory, Aristotle argued, matter must be eternal.

There is the absence of a purposive, designing causal agent that transcends nature from Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Aristotelian final causes in the formation of organisms and the structures of the natural world are said to be immanent in nature (i.e., the nature or “form” of the organism or structure) itself: it is not a divine Craftsman but nature itself that is said to act purposively. Such an immanent teleology will not be an option for Plato.

We could ask ourselves if there was some hidden purpose (in Aristotle's modeling of his natural philosophy) of rendering the Universe eternal so to be able to avoid splitting material Universe from God (our souls), since if the Universe is eternal, then how the Universe is essentially different from God?

Aristotles claims that if the world began, there must have been a first moment of time. But this cannot be because it is the nature of time to join past and future.

Aristotles also claims that motion is always caused by a previous motion. Hence, there cannot have been a first motion, that is, motion must be eternal. Consequently, what is in motion must be eternal as well.

However : If infinity of days had to pass before today, then today would never had arrived because it's impossible to traverse the infinite.

That is why Parmenides claims in one of his fragments :

"The way only is left to be spoken of, that it is. And on this way are full many signs that being is ungenerated and imperishable. For it is complete, immovable, and without end. It never was, nor will it be, since it is now, all at once, one and continuous. For what birth wilt thou seek for it, and how and from what did it grow? I shall not allow thee to say or think ‘‘from non-being.’’"

Parmenides describes eternity as something which is now, all at once, one and continuous, something that will not be, something that never was, that is to say, there is no past and future in something which is now, all at once.

But how we can grasp something that never was, and never will be, something that is Pure Now, All at Once?

Let's say that our souls are part of that something which has no parts. Our souls incarnate in our material bodies, for unknown reason. Sanskrit moksha or Prakrit mokkha refers to the liberation or salvation of a soul from sa?sara, the cycle of birth and death. So, let's imagine our soul liberated from samsara (cycle of birth and death).

Will our souls be able to permanently remember all their cycles of birth and death that they have been through? Let's suppose that the answer is yes...So, we have to presume that all suffering and pain that our souls went through will be a part of their remembering which will accompanying them throughout the whole eternity.

Eternal remembering of our endless cycles of suffering and death would spoil everything because we would rather die than live eternal lives with such remembering.

This is the first problem. The problem of Evil.

The second problem is this : Remembering is activity of active (dynamic) being (which is theological description of God, as well). Every activity presumes time, and time is change. Even though this change is not change from potentiality to actuality, or to be more precise : from actuality to actualized potentiality, it is change in a sense that there is some dynamics that is going on while process (activity) of remembering occurs. Being aware of ourselves in our eternal (liberated from samsara) mod of living is a process (activity). So, if there is such a process which mode of existence we could describe as Parmenides' "Now - All At Once" would it be the best way of conceiving true nature of such activity if we tried to envision it as one self-exhausting, all-inclusive awareness of itself (everything that is encompassed with(in) that process) or would it be closer to the truth if we imagine it as inexhaustible source of infinite amount of fresh new interesting thoughts?

So, if God knows not only everything that ever was, but also, everything that ever is going to be, would anyone say that there is anything attractive/likable/pleasing in such kind of all-knowing, self-exhausted awareness??? We would rather be dead than to be aware of everything (in advance) what waits us in our future, isn't that so?

"Knowing everything in advance" is how i would describe Parmenides' "Now - All at Once". And this hypothetical self-exhausted awareness is even worse (in one much more profound sense) version of Nothingness than it would be Nothingness (as an expression of inadequacy of our power of reasoning to comprehend concept of something which is Out of Time), or even literal "actual" Nothingness (Non-Being) which is not, and can not be, since there is undesirable Something rather than desirable Nothing. Self-exhausted awareness is akin to a suicide (translated into terrestrial language)/Annihilation of Holy Wholeness which is God.

On the other hand, if all pervasive Self-Awareness of Wholeness (which is God) mod of existence were more akin to inexhaustible source of infinite amount of fresh new interesting thoughts, then this self-regenerating novelty of new thoughts must happen in MetaTime (not Out of Time), because new thoughts are new (which presumes dynamics which is activity analogically applicable to our notion of time which is a measure of change.

So, this was my humble attempt of reasoning about the problem of distinction between Being and Non-Being, and the problem of Evil.

Cheers fuckers! 

I have raised one very specific problem here, and due to your intellectual laziness you haven't been able to notice even the very problem that i am talking about

Are you sure it isn't because it was buried among your mountains of spam?

Also, I don't really see any thoughts from you, other than your insults. You just repeatedly appeal to what other people have said.

if you have nothing constructive and nice to say, why don't you just shut up? Now, let's deal with JackBlack's stupidities...

Why don't you follow your own advice.
So far you have just repeatedly spammed nonsense, providing nothing constructive, being intellectually dishonest yourself while accusing others of being intellectually dishonest and stupid, and even accusing them of having mental disorders.
You are really in no position to tell people to be constructive or nice.

Now, why don't you stop with the spam and the insults and try to provide a rational argument?

The properties usually attributed to God such as omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence do not contradict the teaching of simplicity

No, omniscience directly contradicts the idea of simplicity.
It means it has knowledge/information as a part of it.
Not only small bits of knowledge, but all knowledge.
A key argument for DNA being complex is that it has information embedded inside it, vastly more complex than any computer code.
From one point of view, information is complexity.
Yet you completely ignore all the information inside your god, as well as its sentience.

A sentient being, capable of acting, or a being with all information/knowledge cannot be extremely simple.

However : If infinity of days had to pass before today, then today would never had arrived because it's impossible to traverse the infinite.

Again, you are yet to substantiate this.
An infinite distance to our left or right does not mean we cannot be where we are, yet for time you claim it does stop us being here.
Why should an infinite amount of time in the past prevent us from existing now?
Your entire argument is just one baseless claim after another. You claim we would need to traverse the infinite rather than just start where we started, and claiming that we can't traverse the infinite.

This was already pointed out, and you just ignored it. Almost like you have no thoughts of your own and all you can do is parrot the thoughts of others and as those others didn't address these issues you have nothing to say.

Quote from: cikljamas on September 28, 2019, 07:16:01 AM

However : If infinity of days had to pass before today, then today would never had arrived because it's impossible to traverse the infinite.

Again, you are yet to substantiate this.
An infinite distance to our left or right does not mean we cannot be where we are, yet for time you claim it does stop us being here.
Why should an infinite amount of time in the past prevent us from existing now?
Your entire argument is just one baseless claim after another. You claim we would need to traverse the infinite rather than just start where we started, and claiming that we can't traverse the infinite.

I am going to post this for the sake of the truth, not because i owe you an answer, since you don't deserve my reply, for you are completely devoid of any rationality (common sense), as well as of any sort of honesty (especially intellectual honesty) :

"Our principal result is that the infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea." David Hilbert
READ MORE : https://math.dartmouth.edu/~matc/Readers/HowManyAngels/Philosophy/Philosophy.html

Who was David Hilbert?

David Hilbert was a German mathematician and one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

IN ADDITION :

If time were infinite, then as the universe continued in existence for another hour, the infinity of its age since creation at the end of that hour must be one hour greater than the infinity of its age since creation at the start of that hour.

The "argument from the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite" states (Philoponus' argument adopted by many philosophers) :

    "An actual infinite cannot exist."
    "An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite."
    "Thus an infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist."

This argument defines event as equal increments of time. Philoponus argues that the second premise is not controversial since the number of events prior to today would be an actual infinite without beginning if the universe is eternal. The first premise is defended by a reductio ad absurdum where Philoponus shows that actual infinites can not exist in the actual world because they would lead to contradictions. Since an actual infinite in reality would create logical contradictions, it can not exist including the actual infinite set of past events.

The second argument, the "argument from the impossibility of completing an actual infinite by successive addition", states:

    "An actual infinite cannot be completed by successive addition."
    "The temporal series of past events has been completed by successive addition."
    "Thus the temporal series of past events cannot be an actual infinite."

The first statement states, correctly, that a finite (number) cannot be made into an infinite one by the finite addition of more finite numbers. The second skirts around this; the analogous idea in mathematics, that the (infinite) sequence of negative integers "..-3, -2, -1" may be extended by appending zero, then one, and so forth; is perfectly valid.

On the impossibility of actual infinities, Craig asserts:

   --- The metaphysical impossibility of an actually infinite series of past events by citing David Hilbert's famous Hilbert's Hotel thought experiment and Laurence Sterne's story of Tristram Shandy.
   --- The mathematical impossibility of forming an actual infinite by successive addition.

Traversing an Infinite

An alternative way to argue against the past eternity of the universe is through the impossibility of traversing (counting/crossing/completing) infinity. The argument generally goes something like this:

   --- If the past were infinitely long, an infinite amount of time would have had to pass before today.
   --- An infinite amount of time can never truly pass (because infinite time would never run out).
   --- Therefore, the universe cannot be infinitely old.
   --- Therefore, the universe began to exist.

This argument presupposes presentism or A Theory of time (how common sense tells us time flows forwards into the future). If A Theory is correct, all past moments would have to occur before the present, which would vindicate the first premise. The second premise follows also from A Theory along with the nature of infinity being endless. Therefore, it follows that the universe cannot be infinitely old and began to exist.

Many A-theorists argue that in rejecting temporal 'becoming', B-theorists reject time's most vital and distinctive characteristic, which is absolutely true!!!
There is no difference between those idiots who claim that something can come out of literally nothing, and those (proponents of B-time theory) who claim that time is an illusion (that time is tenseless)!!!
Denying that there is a future and past in which events can be located is tantamount to saying that time isn't a measure of change. All that has happened before today (or let's say since Christ was born till our time) is countable as a measure of change. We can count all past events (since Christ) by numbering 2018 years or by multiplying 2018 years by 365 days. In another words Since the year 1 AD to our time elapsed 2018 years which is about 736 570 Sun's orbits around motionless earth. How anyone in his right mind can say that the Sun hasn't made 736 570 orbital cycles around motionless earth in that period? 736 570 Sun's orbital cycles around motionless earth is a measure of change which is very real and countable. Everyone who says that it isn't (that it is/was an illusion), is an idiot! Full stop! Everyone who claims that something can come out of literally nothing is an idiot! And that is an axiom! What is an axiom? A statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.

I am going to post this for the sake of the truth, not because i owe you an answer, since you don't deserve my reply, for you are completely devoid of any rationality (common sense), as well as of any sort of honesty (especially intellectual honesty) :

Insulting me wont help your case.

Do you have your own thoughts, or are you only capable of quoting others?
Especially as that quote is nothing more than a baseless assertion.

Our principal result is that the infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought.

Again, a baseless assertion. Where is the justification for it?
Also, does that mean your god is finite?

The "argument from the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite" states (Philoponus' argument adopted by many philosophers) :

Which doesn't help. It starts with the assumption that an actual infinite cannot exist.

The second argument, the "argument from the impossibility of completing an actual infinite by successive addition", states:

i.e. Zeno's paradox which states motion is impossible. But we know that isn't the case.
Also, for you to use it you would first need to show successive addition is required, but again, that is just asserted.

asserts:

Again, just another assertion.

An alternative way to argue against the past eternity of the universe is through the impossibility of traversing (counting/crossing/completing) infinity.

Which again relies upon first showing that you cannot traverse the infinite, and that in order to exist here the infinite must be traversed.

There is no difference between those idiots who claim that something can come out of literally nothing, and those (proponents of B-time theory) who claim that time is an illusion (that time is tenseless)!!!

You mean they both get insulted and misrepresented by you with no rational basis?

They don't claim that time is an illusion. That they claim that the passage of time is an illusion.
They treat time more like a spatial dimension, where all points in time exist. You have the present, the past is then anything to one side and the future is anywhere to the other.
Just like you can have a location, and anything to one side of that location is left and anything to the other is right.

So no, there is still a past, present and future. But an event exists at a particular time, rather than needing to first traverse every time before it.

And that is an axiom! What is an axiom? A statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.

Yes, that is right, REGARDED AS. Not necessarily actually established. Not necessarily actually accepted (at least not by others). Not necessarily actually self-evident or even actually true.

There are also other definitions, like this one:
"An axiom or postulate is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments."

Your claim is not self evident. In fact it is self contradictory.
What you are doing is no better (as it actually is) than just asserting a baseless claim and claiming it is an axiom to avoid having to back it up.

How's this for an axiom:
Nothing has nothing to prevent something from coming into existence.