Where do you think you came from? Nothing? Do you think you are absolute? If yes, how do you deal with the fact that there are things in life on wich you have no control at all? Do you remember that one day you are going to die, like every man, without any possibility to avoid it?
These are all reasonable questions, but alas, this isn’t a thread about solipsism, and I brought it up only because Gorgias’ previous post seemed to make it a somewhat pertinent point. You can never actually know whether or not God exists. It’s a matter of faith.
I disagree. Where did you come from? It’s either something or nothing. It can’t be nothing, because it would be absurd for something to come from nothing at all, so it must be something. Now, what brought you into existence was either brought into existence by something else or it’s eternal. If it was brought into existence by something else, the chain can’t go back infinitely, because that would mean pushing back the solution to the problem without ever finding it. So, at some time, we must end with something eternal and self-subsistent. And this is God.
That’s why I say Cogitor Ergo Sum instead.
That is not quite true. The elements that you find in a recently created universe should be exactly what you would find if the universe were created billions of years ago as long as the constants and laws of physics do not change. What is relevant here is not whether there are other evolving universes similar to ours, or what the actual age of the universe is. As long as God does not change the constants and laws of physics, He could recently have formed a universe that would have evidence of its apparent, evolving past. There would be no “fake” reality here other than the possibly fake assumption that the universe could not have been recently created.
It’s ok to disagree, Gorgias. It means that you are also thinking independently. Actually, we should be uneasy when two persons always agree on most everything. There is a danger that only one is doing all the thinking.
There is nothing wrong with blind faith, if the faith is based on God. For God cannot be deceived nor be deceived. In fact, Abraham would even kill his son, Isaac, in blind obedience to the God whom he believed. Sometimes, it is actually better to put your faith in God than to rely solely on your reason. Because reason often makes big mistakes, while faith corrects it.
Fair enough. Even more so, then, is it amazing that you’d single out theists, as if we’re irrational in a way that agnostics or atheists are putatively not. Your prejudices seem to betray what your real beliefs are…
So, let’s go with ‘solipsism’, then: this statement applies to you just as accurately as you seem to think it applies to believers…
Sadly, the implications of your ‘belief system’ are that you cannot even be ‘sure’ of even that. So… the best you can claim is “do even I exist?”…
It’s not merely a question of raw elements – it’s also a question of arrangements and proportions of elements. In a “recently created universe”, the presence and prevalence of elements are different than those of a not-recently-created universe.
…other than the ‘fake’ reality of an ‘apparent’ past. C’mon, man… just admit it. We all know that this is the crux of the game we’re playing! If there’s a man on third base, we either assume that he’s there because the game had actually been being played, or that someone duplicitously created the appearance of a game that had been being played.
I’m always suspicious when someone says “let’s agree to disagree”. It tends to mean “I can’t disprove what you’re saying, but I want to ask you to allow me to think things that you think are unreasonable.”
Perhaps.
Then who are you talking to?
It does seem absurd. But then how much experience do you have with actual “nothingness”? Are you sure the rules we use down here in human scales day to day applies to the creation of the universe and quite possibly time itself?
Yes, I always think it’s kind of like a dance. They both go around refuting arguments and refuting refutations. After a meh amount of research I figured out that I don’t care at all. And metaphysics is in fact, more interesting.
So Adam would have a belly button? There would be 1 billion years worth of bones for animals who never lived and died? That’s your side stepping argument?
Nothing. It’s impossible to have an experience of nothing, because nothing is… just nothing.
Does logic apply everywhere and everytime? Because the Principle of Causality can be deduced from logic without any empirical observation - basically, by the fact that for nothing to produce something would be a contradiction.
If time began with the creation of the universe then “everywhere and every time” may be nonsensical concepts when it comes to such creation. I don’t know enough about how universes are created to be certain and then draw conclusions.
Completely agree. But again, many of the things you mentioned isn’t backed up by the scientific method (observation, testability, repeatability). Although some of the things you mentioned are based on educated guesses on what “might” have occurred in the past, to explain a phenomenon in the present, you cannot see or test historical science in the same way as you can observe current science. So, at best they are theories, but not theories that can be tested.
The problem is that Creationism doesn’t have anything to do with science. It involves the miraculous act of God creating the universe. So, whatever “Christian” said this neither understands Creationism, nor science. And if this person claimed to be a Christian, then he is either unaware, or does not understand, that Jesus affirmed Creationism in the gospels, as well as a young earth. And Jesus rose bodily from the dead, which can be proven historically. So, we can add this “Christian” doesn’t understand Christology or Bibliology either.
Except that the Bible is God-breathed, and the NT affirms that Jesus believed in a young earth, not based on “ego.”
That is so incorrect it’s not even wrong.
When Jesus was discussing marriage in the gospels, He stated, “In the beginning, He made them male & female” & then quoted Genesis 1 & 2, where it states when God created Adam & Eve and when the first marriage took place. Jesus borrowed the same Greek word from the Septuagint from Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning” which is when God created the heavens & the earth. Jesus was saying that “in the beginning” when God created the heavens & the earth was when God created the first marriage - which means Genesis 1:1 was on the first “day” of creation when He created the light, and then created everything else on the subsequent 6 days of creation.
