LordReed:


It won't be relevant to discussion of the existence of gods.

I edited the post.

LordReed:


Belief in what? The only belief we are interested in is that of gods which we reject so what belief are we supposed to making a case for?

Belief in anything they believe in.

Edit: The belief that cause you to reject God.

HellVictorinho:

Your ability to make sentences like this means nothing to me.
And you have been the epitome of arrogance.
You keep acting like no one can challenge you unless he or she is ready to dance to your tunes.

I don't know about you but I see no problem with "acting like no one can challenge you". The issue is what do you do when that challenge comes. The way you conveniently dismiss arguments you don't like is a good example of your arrogance and dishonesty.

HellVictorinho:

And it's making you insane.

I like you!

LordReed:


Make a case for what? Rather its you making a case for a god.

Make a case for their own beliefs as I'm making mine.

HellVictorinho:

Are you really doing this?
This dude is just determined to impress you and it seems like he is getting there.

Arrogance doesn't help your argument. Do better, check your biases as they may overwhelm your ability to argue constructively. You could actually know who values a good conversation to trash out truth and make life better, versus who enters a conversation with an ulterior agenda and wouldn't just LISTEN.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymajOjVQPm4

budaatum:

Lordreed has been telling you the same thing, that creators do not exist. Or is it your preferred belief that atheists lie?

Not only him, HellVictorinho and others too. I'm waiting for them to make a logical case why they are right.

I don't think atheists lie necessarily. I think they just don't know the truth. Many atheists I know are noble people in my opinion. Sam Harris comes to mind.

budaatum:



My previous should be "his nothing was something". Quite a lot of things to be precise. Hawking described it in the video you posted.
Please watch it 9.

What he described in the video is something. Could you explain it otherwise?

LordReed:
This is just an unnecessary rigmarole.

No sir, it's not.

LordReed:
What a gross mischaracterization. We do not accept that the sun is 1AU away because scientists said so. We accept it because the methods they [scientists] used are repeatable and the results can be verified by others [a.k.a quacks]. Don't equate our acceptance of scientific facts with your unfounded faith.

As long as scientists postulate and "others" whom you (also) have faith in, verifies... you will accept! The postulation doesn't involve you at all, but somehow you accept it.
Tell me if I misconstrued anything here.

HellVictorinho:

You are the embodiment of idiocy.

E pain am

budaatum:

His nothing was not something, and I am sure you know that!

I don't know that. What was his nothing again?

XxSabrinaxX:

1* Why does geography seem to have far more to do with one's religious choice than actual free will?
2* How can you say God loves and cares about everyone if some people suffer while others prosper?
3* Even if we assume that one particular religion is true, doesn't the existence of many religions at least prove that mankind likes to make up religious stories, and that people have a tendency to believe them? How do you know yours isn't one of those?
4* If everyone actually believes in the Christian god, why would highly religious non-Christians purposefully following the wrong religion, especially when that religion is more strict or just as strict as any sect of Christianity?
5* If Adam and Eve only knew good and evil after eating the fruit, then why did God assume when he told them not to eat it that they knew it was "wrong"?
6* Why do we inherit sin from our ancestors, but salvation has to be an individual choice?
7* If god is omniscient, (all knowing), why do you need to pray to him?
8* If god is omniscient, (all knowing), why does he need to test us?
9* If god is omnibenevolent, (All Loving) why did he create evil? In Isaiah 45:7 the scripture reads as follows: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."
10* Please explain the difference between a "Claim" and "Evidence" and after doing so, please show me the evidence for your god.

1. I don't understand this question. Explain more.

2. Short answer: God deems the retention of our freedom as a greater good than even the momentary suspension of human freedom for human security and safety. So, God does not remove our choices to do good or evil. God knows that even in the midst of the worst evil he can bring about a greater good. Take for example, God did not will that Jesus died. That's not part of his perfect will, that's part of his permissive will that he allowed that to happen and Jesus allowed that to happen to himself - he offered himself knowing that he could bring about a greater good.

3. Truth is easy to RE-cognize when one overcomes his/her biases. If you TRULY seek truth, you will find it.

4. Humans are susceptible to being fooled/tricked as soon as we abandon our thinking faculty and let emotions rule. Also, a lot of people go to church ONLY to get their problems solved. So, as long as the church is fulfilling their needs, they don't really care to ask if there's any hole in their church's belief and teaching.

5. I don't if God assumed they knew it was wrong. They probably didn't know until the serpent came and tempted Eve.

6. Quick explanation: Because that is the nature of sin. Sin we commit affects others. If a man has a gambling addiction and gambles away his earnings, his family suffers. If woman who is addicted to crack gives birth to a baby who is addicted to crack, the poor baby did not commit the sin, yet he suffers for it.

7. The fact that he is all-knowing is enough reason we should always seek his guidance and direction, favors, or even to vent our emotions. If you think hard about this, how are we even sure we know what's good for ourselves let alone what's best? Our knowledge is limited so we reach out consultation.

8. Why do University professors ask their students questions and give them exams? Is it to learn from the students the answers they previously did not know? Obviously not. The professors already know the answers. The purpose of administering the exams is to give the students the opportunity to learn, grow, and prove themselves.
God tested Abraham so as to make the Abraham's faith known both to himself and to all the world. God put Abraham to the test as a way of manifesting to all people that he is truly the Father of believers. The Angel, speaking in the person of God, says, "for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.". It's not as though it is only at this late moment, when Abraham has offered his son Isaac to God, that the Lord has come to know of Abraham’s faith; God was not learning something new here. Rather, it was at this moment that God (through his angelic messenger) has made Abraham's faith to be known both to Abraham and to all. Put simply, the testing of Abraham was not unto God’s benefit, but for the Patriarch’s sake and ours.

The tests of life are less for God to "obtain information" that he already knows, and more opportunities for us to grow (or not, depending on what we choose).

9. Prior to this verse, Isaiah is describing how God is in complete control of the universe. The Israelite’s suffering is not the result of God being unable to fend off other evil gods, a belief common among non-Jews of the time. Rather, when the Israelites suffer, the prophet has made it clear that God is aware of their suffering and is directing it toward a good end.

Only God is absolute. Everything else, including the devil, is relative. The devil is not a defect in God’s creation but rather a spiritual being using God-given freedom in a way that God never intended. That freedom is the reason why we say that people have been made in the image and likeness of God. The same is true of angels. That’s why Christianity has always seen the devil not as God’s equal but as God’s creature, who uses God-given freedom very selfishly. In John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost, Lucifer says, “I will not serve.” God did not create evil in the same sense that God created galaxies, stars, soil, water, animals, plants, people and everything else. Evil is a void that results from rejecting God’s ways and trying to impose our own. Satan’s power is strong but limited.

Although denying freewill may seem to solve the problem of evil, in fact, that would dishonor God. Left to ourselves, we are indeed a weak lot. Sharing the graced life that God intends for us, we can unmask Satan’s temptations for the lies that they always are.God created us freely and wanted to share divine life with us; that requires real freedom on God’s part and on ours. If God had not given us freedom, we could neither sin nor love. Have you or I seen more human evil than Blessed Mother Teresa of Kolkata? Probably not. Have you and I used our freedom as wisely and as generously as she used hers? Again, probably not. But we are still on our journey as disciples.

10. There's a twofold point of departure or "ways" of approaching God from creation: the physical world, and the human person.

The physical world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world's order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe. Apostle Paul says of the Gentiles, "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made." And St. Augustine (354-430) issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky.... question all these realities. All respond: "See, we are beautiful." Their beauty is a profession (confessio). These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One (Pulcher) who is not subject to change?

The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God's existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. The soul, the "seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material", can have its origin only in God. The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality "that everyone calls God".

Man's faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith. The proofs of God's existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

Children raised in a loving family, have a fairly easy time believing in God, until they come face-to-face with frequent and horrendous evil. At that point, they may update their assumptions about God, or they may conclude that God is a nice story that most people outgrow just as they outgrow their childhood toys, shoes and clothes.

budaatum:

Why do people have to believe you exist rather than know you exist?

How did you come about?

They don't have to believe I exist. Their beliefs have no effect on the reality of my existence.

LordReed:


And?

You succumb to authority now?

budaatum:

Ok!

Ajo nwa!

budaatum:

His nothing was not something, and I am sure you know that!

Tell me what it was... Nothing?

LordReed:


Scientists. What is the purpose of this pedantic rigmarole? You already know the answers so what is your aim?

You're right I'm sorry, but I had to be sure to avoid being misled by my gut feeling.

Remember this?

9inches:
A. A truth may be self-evident e.g. the whole is greater than its part.... in which case we are said to have intuitive knowledge of it; or
B. a truth may not be self-evident, but deducible from premises in which it is contained. Such knowledge is termed reasoned knowledge; or
C. a truth may be neither self-evident nor deducible from premises in which it is contained, yet the intellect may be obliged to assent to it because It would else have to reject some other universally accepted truth;
D. a truth may rest on grave authority, even though it might not be evident in itself. Here, the intellect may be induced to assent to a truth for none of the reasons in A, B and C. For example, we accept the statement that the sun is 90,000,000 miles distant from the earth because competent, veracious authorities vouch for the fact.

This last kind of knowledge (D) is termed faith, and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith; if the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith.

That's how you should start approaching evidences so you don't limit yourself to only the truths you could see or perceive.

budaatum:

Do note, atheists do no accept that creators exist. If they did exist, they'd have to have existed ad infinitum, an argument theists illogically try to constrain with their timeless gods despite they being the ones to start the "something must come from something" idea in the first place! In retort, the atheist starts seeing turtles and asks, "what created gods?"

An atheist would claim something existed out of which the current something that exists came from. It however does not imply creation, just as water melting does not imply the water created the ice.

You probably are lying when you say atheistS since you can't say who they are. Perhaps you are making stuff up on the go, just like HellVictorinho but a little saner.

budaatum:

I haven't read Grand Design. However, did you listen to his elaborate description of his "nothing"?

It sounded like quite a lot of 'something', to me!

You captured it quite accurately. He was describing something as nothing to support his something from nothing argument.

Luke 10:21

budaatum:

Why? Do you need numbers? Would you take my word for the name I give you?

I am an atheist, and I have told you my view. It is a view that is held by many, some atheists, and some theists, and not unique to either.


"Turtles all the way down" is an expression of the problem of infinite regress. The saying alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle that supports the earth on its back. It suggests that this turtle rests on the back of an even larger turtle, which itself is part of a column of increasingly large turtles that continues indefinitely (i.e., "turtles all the way down" ).

I completely understand your belief, I'm only curious to know if you know any atheist that shares your exact belief. That'z all.

Hermes019:

One thing most christians don't understand is that we have been in ur shoes,some if not most of us were raised from Christian homes,we have yearned and even had this " relationship" with god yet we became athesits,so we are not talking of things we don't have and idea about,we are talking of things we took part in,I have gone on evangelisms preaching Jesus,Hardmirror says he used to be a pastor,regardless of what you might attribute to be the cause of our change(the devil and his demons I guess) u have to bear in mind that we are not minors as long as the bible and christianity is concerned

Correct me if I'm wrong. You left christianity because, just like many christians, you never understood it in the first place. You had (still have) questions that either weren't answered at all or the answers you got didn't make sense.

1. Am I right?

2. Let's say you meet God (assume he exists), what question(s) would you sincerely ask?

budaatum:

There's sufficient sample for you to poll. Set up a thread and ask.

A simple name would do here.

LordReed:


No

Oh. Whose observation?

budaatum:

So, your creator of things came from nothing?

No

budaatum:

That was me. We clarified that!

Okay

budaatum:

Corrected at what? Was it not true that I wrote what your response above was to, just as much as it is absolutely true that you will be reading this, that I am about to post?

Attributing an adjective (good) to absolute truth.

budaatum:
If you'd read his books, you'd know he didn't literally mean that.

Perhaps you haven't read The Grand Design.
Did he say anything different here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ88kC2Nx8M

budaatum:
Explain to me what "[the] absolute truth", is.

"the" means truth is without variables.

budaatum:

That is this atheist's view, that everything must come from something. Hence the "something must have existed to create the gods themselves, and something must have existed to create whatever created whatever created the gods, and something must have existed to create whatever created whatever created whatever created the gods, and something must have existed........ad infinitum."

However, all atheists have different views on the subject since we are not indoctrinated to hold the same views. But most who have considered it would, and will argue against the "something from nothing" view which is more the theists position.

Does any other atheist share this your view of ad infinitum chain of existence?

LordReed:


I don't have the expertise to agree or disagree but I accept the premise because it is based on observation.

Your observation?

budaatum:

I believe we are still in agreement with this, as I pointed out with my citation from buda.


Though one of us seems to have an exception where something is believed to come from a timeless existing uncreated creator which came from nothing!

That would be you I guess. Am I right?

budaatum:

It is true that I, buda wrote what you just read. It is absolutely true in fact, since no one else could have written it. And there is nothing good or bad about it. It's just simply the truth.

So you stand corrected?

budaatum:
That could also be true, though if it were true, I'd have to question your understanding of your reading! Why did you claim Hawking said "something from nothing" when he actually wrote "turtles all the way down"?

Because I provided evidence showing he said that.

budaatum:
Your point being?

The point that you were talking about "an" absolute truth rather than [the] absolute truth.

budaatum:

Which we agreed on, and I note the correction. The dude is claiming atheist believe something comes from nothing. This is not an atheist view.

What's the atheist's view then?

budaatum:
Yeah, got it. Try with mother.

That's why I "kinda" agreed but I'm sure you've seen the problem with the word in this context.

And your creator of things comes from where?[/quote]He did not "come", he has always "been". The reality whose very nature is 'to be'.

HellVictorinho:

TIME limits.
It can't be limited..
So the formation of time is an absurd concept.

According to who?