Hey everyone.

[DrumminFool91]

Do you believe in the big bang? If so, then you believe in one of the greatest proofs of a God. You believe in an event that started a chain of reaction that accounts for our universe and all matter and space within it. This event, logically, has a cause - a “first cause”. There logically must be an outside force, greater than that vastly dense ball of matter. Even if you don’t like the Big Bang theory specifically, I just don’t see how you can logically get around having some sort of outside force that is greater than the known universe. If time “began”, or if space and matter have a beginning, that logically suggests a force that “starts” these things. Here’s a contrived scenario that made the “first cause” argument easy for a simpleton like me to understand:

*Imagine yourself in your car, and you pull up to a rail road crossing. Now imagine a rediculously long train crossing in front of you. You just see train cars passing in front of you, on and on in a seemingly endless stream, as it had apparently started crossing long before you approached the tracks. Wouldn’t it be illogical to look at a long train such as this and think that there wouldn’t be a locomotive somewhere at the head of this train? *

Thus, logical attributes of God, if He exists, must include being greater than matter and outside of time.

I would also add, it must be a God that prefers to work as often as possible through secondary means as opposed to direct intervention, and be one that charishes free will.

I think the arguments for the natural law are significant and thus indicates a God that desires order and law to a certain degree. In fact, I would say the overall orderliness of nature itself suggests that God that is Himself orderly, or at the very least likes His creation to be this way.

You certainly can’t prove everything us Christians mean by the term God, but I think it can be proven that there is a God. Outside of the first cause argument, I think Pascal’s wager is sufficiently reasonable argument for faith in a God of some sort - though not enough to identify that God or His desires.

Well, that’s quite enough from me… One day I’ll learn how to keep these things short

 

[howgoyoufar]

Things that exist in our universe are limited. If you look at a cell and go smaller and look at an organelle and go smaller and look at a molecule and go smaller and look at an atom and go smaller and look at an electron and so on and so forth, eventually you will reach the basic unit of materials, called a blank length. You cannot go smaller than that, because the universe is limited and thus everything within it is limited. Since God exists outside of the universe it must follow that he COULD be unlimited because he does not have the same constraints as us. Thus he could have no beginning and no end, as the bible states.

Once again, you need proof to make the claim that God exists outside of our universe. As of now, we know of no way anything could possibly exist outside of our universe, so your point of him being ‘unlimited’ is moot.

 

[TheQuestioner]

Once again, you need proof to make the claim that God exists outside of our universe. As of now, we know of no way anything could possibly exist outside of our universe, so your point of him being ‘unlimited’ is moot.

If God created the universe, then it must follow that God exists outside of it. Of course there is no proof that God exists and thus no proof that he created it, but if he did then he would have to live outside it. At the end of the day you can go in no other direction than debating the existence of God, and to that end we reach a stale mate.

 

[geometer]

Once again, you need proof to make the claim that God exists outside of our universe. As of now, we know of no way anything could possibly exist outside of our universe, so your point of him being ‘unlimited’ is moot.

The quantum vacuum zero point energy which has near infinite density has been said to exist outside of our universe.

 

[howgoyoufar]

Do you believe in the big bang? If so, then you believe in one of the greatest proofs of a God. You believe in an event that started a chain of reaction that accounts for our universe and all matter and space within it. This event, logically, has a cause - a “first cause”. There logically must be an outside force, greater than that vastly dense ball of matter. Even if you don’t like the Big Bang theory specifically, I just don’t see how you can logically get around having some sort of outside force that is greater than the known universe. If time “began”, or if space and matter have a beginning, that logically suggests a force that “starts” these things. Here’s a contrived scenario that made the “first cause” argument easy for a simpleton like me to understand:

*Imagine yourself in your car, and you pull up to a rail road crossing. Now imagine a rediculously long train crossing in front of you. You just see train cars passing in front of you, on and on in a seemingly endless stream, as it had apparently started crossing long before you approached the tracks. Wouldn’t it be illogical to look at a long train such as this and think that there wouldn’t be a locomotive somewhere at the head of this train? *

Thus, logical attributes of God, if He exists, must include being greater than matter and outside of time.

I would also add, it must be a God that prefers to work as often as possible through secondary means as opposed to direct intervention, and be one that charishes free will.

I think the arguments for the natural law are significant and thus indicates a God that desires order and law to a certain degree. In fact, I would say the overall orderliness of nature itself suggests that God that is Himself orderly, or at the very least likes His creation to be this way.

You certainly can’t prove everything us Christians mean by the term God, but I think it can be proven that there is a God. Outside of the first cause argument, I think Pascal’s wager is sufficiently reasonable argument for faith in a God of some sort - though not enough to identify that God or His desires.

Well, that’s quite enough from me… One day I’ll learn how to keep these things short

First off- No, I do not believe in the big bang. I am not sure how the universe ‘began’, I don’t even think it did. If I had to believe anything, I’d say I believe the universe is cyclic, therefore not having a first cause. That’s the only logical way our universe could exist, that we know of. This of course means a restructuring of all we know about space and time. However, don’t get me wrong. If the universe is cyclic, then god would be too, but he would still be within the universe’s constraints.

Pascal’s wager is a cowards last resort. IF there is a god, I am fully confident that he/she/it would be a just one. A just, loving god would not punish someone for not ‘serving’ them, and surely would not punish a finite sin with infinite punishment.
I have absolutely no fear of dying or going to ‘hell’ because of this. The bible is itself enough to disprove the existance of a Christian/Jewish God.

 

[TheQuestioner]

First off- No, I do not believe in the big bang. I am not sure how the universe ‘began’, I don’t even think it did. If I had to believe anything, I’d say I believe the universe is cyclic, therefore not having a first cause. That’s the only logical way our universe could exist, that we know of. This of course means a restructuring of all we know about space and time. However, don’t get me wrong. If the universe is cyclic, then god would be too, but he would still be within the universe’s constraints.

Pascal’s wager is a cowards last resort. IF there is a god, I am fully confident that he/she/it would be a just one. A just, loving god would not punish someone for not ‘serving’ them, and surely would not punish a finite sin with infinite punishment.
I have absolutely no fear of dying or going to ‘hell’ because of this. The bible is itself enough to disprove the existance of a Christian/Jewish God.

Haha i see we do indeed have to debate doctrine with you. If you know doctrine then you would know that God does not literally send people to hell, but that they chose it. Whenever we sin and know we are sinning we go against the law of God placed in our hearts and thus we choose hell over heaven.

And you assume our finite sins have finite effects. Since the soul is immortal then it follows that they have infinite effects. However these effects were canceled when Christ died for the sins of man.

 

[Eleve]

1. “blank length” should be “Planck length.”
2. Pascal’s Wager fails hard.

3:

Do you believe in the big bang? If so, then you believe in one of the greatest proofs of a God. You believe in an event that started a chain of reaction that accounts for our universe and all matter and space within it. This event, logically, has a cause - a “first cause”. There logically must be an outside force, greater than that vastly dense ball of matter. Even if you don’t like the Big Bang theory specifically, I just don’t see how you can logically get around having some sort of outside force that is greater than the known universe. If time “began”, or if space and matter have a beginning, that logically suggests a force that “starts” these things.

You keep saying “logically, logically, logically,” but you’re really not presenting any logic. Why would the Big Bang need something else to be its first cause? Why can’t the big bang itself be the first cause?

 

[Eleve]

Whenever we sin and know we are sinning we go against the law of God placed in our hearts and thus we choose hell over heaven.

That’s like saying that a bank robber “chooses” prison. God obviously has some role in placing and keeping people in hell, or else they’d just walk out, so to speak.

However these effects were canceled when Christ died for the sins of man.

Evidently not, as you still require various uncanceled sins in order to account for the doctrine of hell.

 

[Bill_Pick]

Hi Matt A great warer once said He never hear of a Atheist in a fox hole, a little off thread but I thing you get the point,welcome and hope you have a good long stay.

 

[TheQuestioner]

That’s like saying that a bank robber “chooses” prison. God obviously has some role in placing and keeping people in hell, or else they’d just walk out, so to speak.

Evidently not, as you still require various uncanceled sins in order to account for the doctrine of hell.

First, thanks for the correction on the Plank length thing

Second, you are equating hell with prison. Prison exists to punish us and teach us a lesson about what we have done. Prison should be (though it is not at times) a place of correction. Hell is not for correction. If it was it would not be forever. Once we die we get the opportunity to see God for who he is, and our wills are fixed, and if we do not accept God then, we will never accept him. Hell is not to teach people a lesson. God is Love. Hell is a place absolutely devoid of love, absolutely devoid of God. Thus those who wish to be without God can chose to go there.

**1033 **We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."610 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.611 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”

Third, Jesus, through his suffering on the cross, acted as a sacrifice for our sins and thus our sins died with him on the cross. Our sins are there, they exist and have a lasting effect. But Jesus bore the punishment for those sins. If we sin mortally we can receive forgiveness through the sacrament of confession, so that the connect between us and the Church is re-established. You go off the assumption that we go to hell because we have sinned too much, but you do not realize what we actually do to ourselves when we sin. We separate ourselves from God when we sin, and thus, it is not that we go to hell because we have sinned too much, but that we go to hell because we have separated ourselves from God because we have chosen to sin (and it can only be a sin if it is a choice).

 

[Eleve]

This:

Once we die we get the opportunity to see God for who he is, and our wills are fixed, and if we do not accept God then, we will never accept him.

contradicts this:

To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice.

And, since the latter comes from the Catechism, I imagine that most Catholics would side with it. But it also happens to be the more abhorrent of the two descriptions.

 

[DrumminFool91]

1. “blank length” should be “Planck length.”
2. Pascal’s Wager fails hard.

Okay - so about me not presenting any logic… um… how about some here?

3:You keep saying “logically, logically, logically,” but you’re really not presenting any logic.

Right - I thought the train example illustrated the logical need for a first cause. This is probably due to my inability to communicate concisely so mea culpa.

Why would the Big Bang need something else to be its first cause? Why can’t the big bang itself be the first cause?

You’re saying that a massive explosion just happened randomly with no provoking whatsoever? It didn’t need a cause? Well, that takes as much if not more faith to accept than believing in a God. I guess you have your faith and I have mine.

 

[TheQuestioner]

Sorry, that was my mistake. In such cases default to what the Catechism teaches

I was actually going to remove that part but forgot to. But since it is in there i can correct myself. instead of saying:
*
Once we die we get the opportunity to see God for who he is, and our wills are fixed, and if we do not accept God then, we will never accept him.
*
i should have said
*
Once we die our wills are fixed, however in between the moment of final unconsciousness and final death is unknown, but we may have the opportunity to accept him then (which is why suicides are not necessarily condemned to hell). If we do not accept him then, we will never accept him as our wills become fixed*.

 

[DrumminFool91]

First off- No, I do not believe in the big bang. I am not sure how the universe ‘began’, I don’t even think it did. If I had to believe anything, I’d say I believe the universe is cyclic, therefore not having a first cause. That’s the only logical way our universe could exist, that we know of. This of course means a restructuring of all we know about space and time. However, don’t get me wrong. If the universe is cyclic, then god would be too, but he would still be within the universe’s constraints.

Pascal’s wager is a cowards last resort. IF there is a god, I am fully confident that he/she/it would be a just one. A just, loving god would not punish someone for not ‘serving’ them, and surely would not punish a finite sin with infinite punishment.
I have absolutely no fear of dying or going to ‘hell’ because of this. The bible is itself enough to disprove the existance of a Christian/Jewish God.

Ok, but I haven’t seen much if any evidence that the universe is strictly cyclic. There is significant evidence of the Big Bang however. Nasa’s COBE satellite confirmed the existance of cosmic microwave background radition - a clear indicator of the big bang. I do take personal exception for you refering to Pascal’s Wager as a coward’s last resort. I think there’s a good amount of merit to it, and I have to get to work, but I’ll be back to defend my last statement.

 

[TheQuestioner]

Okay - so about me not presenting any logic… um… how about some here?

Right - I thought the train example illustrated the logical need for a first cause. This is probably due to my inability to communicate concisely so mea culpa.

You’re saying that a massive explosion just happened randomly with no provoking whatsoever? It didn’t need a cause? Well, that takes as much if not more faith to accept than believing in a God. I guess you have your faith and I have mine.

Haha, sounds like Eleve is calling you an idiot for chalking it up to God while at the same time chalking it all to Chance.

Nothing happens without a cause.

 

[Eleve]

Okay - so about me not presenting any logic… um… how about some here?

First of all, there’s a difference in that I’m not throwing up “logically” as a substitute for actually explaining my logic. You’re not a bad person, but you are stepping on one of my pet peeves .

Secondly, I tend to get way to aggressive when I talk Pascal’s Wager, so I’ll let the hivemind speak for me.

You’re saying that a massive explosion just happened randomly with no provoking whatsoever? It didn’t need a cause? Well, that takes as much if not more faith to accept than believing in a God. I guess you have your faith and I have mine.

You’re saying that God just happened randomly with no provoking whatsoever? It didn’t need a cause?

If you say that some primeval event had to have a cause, it’s completely arbitrary to stop the chain of causation at some particular point. And, even if you just define God to be the stopping-point, that’s quite a few stone-skips away from concluding that this First Cause is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, particularly fond of Jews, insistent on certain types of sex with certain types of people, etc. To be sure, there’s no way to empirically rule out anything before the Big Bang, but simply theorizing a First Cause doesn’t necessitate giving it a name with the connotations of “God.”

 

[Eleve]

Haha, sounds like Eleve is calling you an idiot for chalking it up to God while at the same time chalking it all to Chance.

I don’t chalk it up to chance. I don’t chalk it up to anything, really. I don’t profess to know what started the universe. I don’t profess to know that anything did start the universe. As a consequence, I don’t think that this thing-which-may-exist has any particular reason to be the same thing that we call God.

By the way, I don’t at all think that Drummin Fool is an idiot. Perhaps I was a bit mean in asking for firmer logic, but the argument itself goes back to at least Thomas Aquinas — no man’s fool.

Nothing happens without a cause.

As above: why is God exempt?

I do take personal exception for you refering to Pascal’s Wager as a coward’s last resort.

Not that I approve of anyone calling you a coward, but I’d like to point out to Bill Pick that many of us feel the same way when he misuses that quote about atheists and foxholes.

 

[Texan77]

But Texan…It hasn’t been proven that anything exists outside of our universe, so I can’t really take your claim seriously. It’s like arguing that God exists in Narnia, so the rules don’t apply. Do you get what I mean?

Of course I do but I would like to focus less on my faith and more on the tangible proofs that do in fact support a creator/first mover.

 

[TheQuestioner]

By the way, I don’t at all think that Drummin Fool is an idiot. Perhaps I was a bit mean in asking for firmer logic, but the argument itself goes back to at least Thomas Aquinas — no man’s fool.

I guess i made a mountain out of a mole hill there. Sorry.

 

[howgoyoufar]

Haha i see we do indeed have to debate doctrine with you. If you know doctrine then you would know that God does not literally send people to hell, but that they chose it. Whenever we sin and know we are sinning we go against the law of God placed in our hearts and thus we choose hell over heaven.

And you assume our finite sins have finite effects. Since the soul is immortal then it follows that they have infinite effects. However these effects were canceled when Christ died for the sins of man.

Oh lawdy, this thread has gotten a bit bigger while I’ve been gone . Thanks for stepping in Eleve .

Questioner- Would someone who had never heard of Jesus, and lived a good life but without accepting Jesus as their savior go to hell? If so, did they really make a choice, or did God make it for them?
And you said prison and hell are different because prison is for rehabilitation (debatable…death penalty much?), whereas hell is not. This is hardly proof of a ‘just’ God, as the effects of that person’s sin (be it theft, murder, abortion, being gay, not believing etc) will eventually dissipate, making it finite, but there punishment will never end. That also certainly does not support the notion of a merciful god.

DrumminFool- I seriously did not mean to call you a coward or anything else in my post, I’m sorry it came across that way. Posting without thinking…d’oh. I just meant that in my view, Pascal’s Wager is used to say “Well, you’re going to hell, and I’m not, so…nyah.” As to the Big Bang–
I freely admit that I personally have no knowledge of evidence for a cyclic universe. I come by that conclusion simply because it makes the most sense to me, in that I can’t fully reconcile what ‘started’ the big bang with the primary mover argument. Because if it was God, I still believe something had to have ‘moved’ God…infinite regress, which I hate. So I will say- I have no clue how the universe started, and don’t pretend to. But I do believe that no matter how it was created, everything that exists must obey the laws of the universe. But of course that’s just my belief

Bill Pick- There are many things I would like to say to you, but I’m trying to be nice and civil, so let me shoot down your argument with a link. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Association_of_Atheists_%26_Freethinkers

And goodday to YOU, sir.

Texan- Again, I can’t deal with the first mover argument, because until it is proven that something can exist outside of our universe and not follow it’s rules, then God still needs to have been created by something. What are your other tangible proofs you had in mind?