Dishonest Apologetics

[Cinette]

Cinette seemed to be saying not to get too caught up in the philosophical arguments and to take some time to look at the world around me. I think that it can be really good to take time to smell the roses, to ponder the hidden beauty in the world. Even though I have not yet seen it as a sign of God, I think it is worth my time for other reasons. I am not going to use vast amounts of time looking for something that I am pretty sure does not exist as I pointed out in my response to twb1621. But Cinette wasn’t asking me to devote my life to textual analysis of the Bible, she was simply asking me to pay attention to the beauty in life. I think this is a good thing to do regardless of whether I find expect to find anything regarding the existence of God. I guess I should have been a little clearer originally. I didn’t know everyone was going through my posts with a fine-tooth comb.

Hello Honest Atheist!!!

Tell me! Are you a she or a he? What is your age?

Forgive me for being nosy.

Oh and by the way - thank you for your prayers. Who knows if your prayers were not being answered because God is outside time and it doesn’t matter if you pray after the event. Those robbers were rather selective and were not greedy - they did not take much! The left the cars. I thought they took the cameras but didn’t find them!!

Thank you again
Blessings
Cinette

 

[Cinette]

Hi Everybody!

Forty years after St. Padre Pio’s death they have exhumed his body and I have received some amazing photographs. Since I cannot post them here I looked in the Internet and found some (I think I might have a few more - if you want PM me and let me know)

In the meantime here is a link with some pics also.

I think it is amazing - he looks asleep. I have seen dead people and they look grey. Take a look:

images.google.com/images?q=padre+pio+exhumed&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enZA302ZA302&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=WdAnSq3HKYq5jAe-q_3oBw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

 

[Surfmeister]

Hi, Cinette. I, too, was amazed at the peaceful and lifelike face of Padre Pio. I was a little disappointed to discover that his face had been reconstructed with a silicone mask, similar to those used in wax museums.

 

[Lampo]

AEA…I notice you didn’t respond to my post, which is unusual. Hopefully you just missed it or simply didn’t feel like responding and you weren’t offended by it. I’m referring to post #202.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Because a being cannot create itself.

So God also cannot create himself. I think we can both agree that it is possible for something to always have existed or to be uncaused.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I think physicists and cosmologist who thought like this have since revised their opinion based on scientific data. Now they know that that universe has a begining, is expanding and will soon end. This is quantifiable.

I think part of the problem is that some people use the word universe to mean the entire natural world (all material existence), while others use it to mean the universe we currently live in. Our universe grew from something incredibly small around 14 million years ago. We have good scientific data to support this. However, we have no data whatsoever on what happened before this. The standard Big Bang model does not say what happened before Planck time. Since traditional physics breaks down, it is necessarily somewhat speculative. There are a variety of models under which the universe could be infinitely old, such as the Steinhardt–Turok model, the Baum–Frampton model, and the loop quantum cosmology model.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Forgot about this? Theorists are supposed to challenge assumptions. Perhaps there is some heretofore unknown factor that has been present in all our interactions with thermal transfer that was not present in the far past that would invalidate the second law. They HAVE to think that way.

However it is a just a conjecture until that factor is known. It is more reasonable to assume it was as it is. It’s just logical and reasonable. Unless you’d like to posit a creator?

Look, I understand why this logic makes sense to you, but I think it is deeply flawed. For example, for a long time we assumed that Newtonian physics was correct. If we then found some data that was inconsistent with Newtonian physics, what should we have done? We could have said that it is more reasonable to assume that Newtonian physics is correct and this must have been a sign of divine intervention. However, it makes a lot more sense to say that there may be some other physical law at play but we don’t yet know enough or have enough data to say for sure exactly what that law is. Although Newtonian physics gave near perfect answers in most circumstances, Einstein’s general relativity later showed that there were situations in which it was unreliable. So I definitely don’t think that imperfect current knowledge is a good reason to believe in God.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

AEA…I notice you didn’t respond to my post, which is unusual. Hopefully you just missed it or simply didn’t feel like responding and you weren’t offended by it. I’m referring to post #202.

I wanted to take the time to listen to the talk you linked me before I responded. Also, so many people have been posting messages for me on a variety of different threads that I am having trouble keeping up. Don’t worry though, I will reply.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

I wanted to let all of you know that I am reading and thinking deeply about what you are saying in your posts. But there are some posts that I just don’t have any particular response to. So I hope you aren’t offended if I do not reply to all of your posts. But if you do ask me something directly, I’ll make sure to answer it.

 

[Lampo]

I wanted to take the time to listen to the talk you linked me before I responded. Also, so many people have been posting messages for me on a variety of different threads that I am having trouble keeping up. Don’t worry though, I will reply.

Take your time and enjoy his talk. No hurry.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hello Honest Atheist!!!

Tell me! Are you a she or a he? What is your age?

Forgive me for being nosy.

Oh and by the way - thank you for your prayers. Who knows if your prayers were not being answered because God is outside time and it doesn’t matter if you pray after the event. Those robbers were rather selective and were not greedy - they did not take much! The left the cars. I thought they took the cameras but didn’t find them!!

Thank you again
Blessings
Cinette

I am a he and I am in my 20’s. I’m trying not to give every single detail about myself because I still would rather be anonymous. I guess it doesn’t matter that much, but there are some people who might be prejudiced against atheists and I don’t want anything I say here to affect me when I go looking for a job. Pretty much all my family and friends know that I’m an atheist, but I’m not trying to publicize it.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Hi Everybody!

Forty years after St. Padre Pio’s death they have exhumed his body and I have received some amazing photographs. Since I cannot post them here I looked in the Internet and found some (I think I might have a few more - if you want PM me and let me know)

In the meantime here is a link with some pics also.

I think it is amazing - he looks asleep. I have seen dead people and they look grey. Take a look:

images.google.com/images?q=padre+pio+exhumed&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enZA302ZA302&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=WdAnSq3HKYq5jAe-q_3oBw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Thanks. I’m looking into Padre Pio.

 

[Cinette]

I am a he and I am in my 20’s. I’m trying not to give every single detail about myself because I still would rather be anonymous. I guess it doesn’t matter that much, but there are some people who might be prejudiced against atheists and I don’t want anything I say here to affect me when I go looking for a job. Pretty much all my family and friends know that I’m an atheist, but I’m not trying to publicize it.

HA! HA! HA!

I knew you were a he - can smell a he from across the Atlantic!! Yes it is good to be anon on these threads - makes you bold and you can say just about anything.

Cooooool! This is about the only American expression (took me a while) I can stomach! LOL!

Cinette

 

[benedictus2]

So God also cannot create himself.

You get that right. God is pure Being, an unconditioned pure Exsitence.

I think we can both agree that it is possible for something to always have existed or to be uncaused.

Yes. And to that uncaused, pure existence, pure being, we give the name God. So there goes the first proof of St Thomas’s.

I have to stress here that as yet we are only talking about God - Creator -not the God of the Bible.

 

[benedictus2]

I think part of the problem is that some people use the word universe to mean the entire natural world (all material existence), while others use it to mean the universe we currently live in. Our universe grew from something incredibly small around 14 million years ago.

And if that were 14 BILLIONI years ago, it would still be finite. It would still have a beginning. It has a past time.

We have good scientific data to support this. However, we have no data whatsoever on what happened before this. The standard Big Bang model does not say what happened before Planck time. Since traditional physics breaks down, it is necessarily somewhat speculative. There are a variety of models under which the universe could be infinitely old, such as the Steinhardt–Turok model, the Baum–Frampton model, and the loop quantum cosmology model.

Circular causation does not work either beause you are positing caused causes. We then go back to the argument of infinite caused causes which leaves us with zero which means that the universe does not exist. That we know to be false.

 

[benedictus2]

I wanted to let all of you know that I am reading and thinking deeply about what you are saying in your posts. But there are some posts that I just don’t have any particular response to. So I hope you aren’t offended if I do not reply to all of your posts. But if you do ask me something directly, I’ll make sure to answer it.

You have no idea how refreshing that is. I think all we’re trying to do is give you the other perspective and so long as you’re reading the posts that’s all that matters.

Personally I like your posts as they are well thought out. So kudos on that score.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

HA! HA! HA!

I knew you were a he - can smell a he from across the Atlantic!!

Yeah, I figured you’d guess I was a he. I wonder what gave me away.

Yes it is good to be anon on these threads - makes you bold and you can say just about anything.

Cooooool! This is about the only American expression (took me a while) I can stomach! LOL!

Cinette

Haha, for me I don’t even realize when something is an American expression. I guess that’s what happens when most of what you read and watch is from America.

By the way, I researched Padre Pio, and the evidence seemed pretty shaky. If you want to see what I mean, these articles talk about some of the issues:
timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article2739751.ece
independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/padre-pio-faked-his-stigmata-with-acid-397811.html

 

[anEvilAtheist]

You get that right. God is pure Being, an unconditioned pure Exsitence.

Yes. And to that uncaused, pure existence, pure being, we give the name God. So there goes the first proof of St Thomas’s.

I have to stress here that as yet we are only talking about God - Creator -not the God of the Bible.

I prefer to just call the uncaused thing the universe.

And if that were 14 BILLIONI years ago, it would still be finite. It would still have a beginning. It has a past time.

Right, if the natural world originated only 13-14 billion years ago, then it would be finite. We have no evidence to show that it did (although the current observable universe or whatever you want to call it did originate 13-14 billion years ago).

Circular causation does not work either beause you are positing caused causes. We then go back to the argument of infinite caused causes which leaves us with zero which means that the universe does not exist. That we know to be false.

You still haven’t said why you can’t have an infinite series of causes. Your unstated assumption is that all things must have a finite series of causes. Who says that everything has to have a root cause?

 

[benedictus2]

I prefer to just call the uncaused thing the universe.

Actually you can’t for the simple reason that the universe is finite.

Right, if the natural world originated only 13-14 billion years ago, then it would be finite. We have no evidence to show that it did (although the current observable universe or whatever you want to call it did originate 13-14 billion years ago).

Since the only thing we can talk about is the current observable universe then we need to limit ourselves to that. Anything else is fantasy and speculation.
So therefore limiting ourselves to the current observable universe, we know it is finite since it has a beginning whether it be trillions of trillions of years ago. Therefore it cannot be the Uncaused-cause.

You still haven’t said why you can’t have an infinite series of causes.

Actually I have in my fly by post yesterday. You cannot have an infinite series of caused causes because it will equal zero. Which means the universe does not exist. Which means we do not exist hence we are not really having this discussion.

Your unstated assumption is that all things must have a finite series of causes.

No I am not saying that all things have a finite series of causes. I am saying that it has to stop somewhere because you cannot have an infinite series of caused-causes so therefore there has to be an uncaused cause. And this Uncaused-cause has to be Pure Being because it cannot have created itself.

Who says that everything has to have a root cause?

Everything has a cause because nothing brought itself into existence. A thing that brings itself into existence is a contradiction. This means that it was nothing before it casued itself into being. But nothing cannot cause something. Nothing equals nothing.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

Everything has a cause because nothing brought itself into existence. A thing that brings itself into existence is a contradiction. This means that it was nothing before it casued itself into being. But nothing cannot cause something. Nothing equals nothing.

First of all, I’m not sure we can assume that everything has a cause when you consider quantum physics. However, setting that aside, we would only know that everything has a proximate cause. If there has always been something, then a lack of a first cause does not prevent there from being something. There could simply be a universe that has constantly been expanding and contracting for eternity. So it was not “nothing before it casued itself into being”. It was always something; it merely changed states.