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Hume
Guest
If religion has taught me anything, it’s that individual certainty is not evidence for reality.
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Gorgias
Guest
Yep.
Abroz:
Nope.
No, it doesn’t. But if you want to only entertain red herrings, have at it. It’s just obvious what your game is.
Nope. A black hole still exists within the temporal framework of the universe. And “no change”? Tell that to anything that’s getting sucked into the black hole.
Just more of the same… you keep offering objections where none exist, and twist your arguments in order to create the appearance of ‘contradiction’.
‘Illative sense’, Hume. By the same token, individual certainty against God isn’t evidence for the validity of that position either, right?
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Freddy
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Quite right, Gorgias. But I don’t think anyone’s claiming that God doesn’t exist.
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Gorgias
Guest
It might be interesting to pose the question. It seems pretty obvious how we in this thread would line up…
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Freddy
Guest
I think you migbt be wrong. I’ve yet to meet an atheist in the forum that would declare that God does not exist.Freddy:
It might be interesting to pose the question. It seems pretty obvious how we in this thread would line up…
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Gorgias
Guest
We might be quibbling here. If someone admits that there’s a being whom we call ‘God’ but who is not what Christians mean by ‘God’, then I’d say that this means that they do not assent to the notion that the Judeo-Christian God exists.Fair enough?
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Abrosz
Guest
The contradiction is crystal clear.
So you consider contradictions to be red herrings. No surprise there.
You need to learn what a black hole is.
Ah, so in your eyes the married bachelor is not a contradiction.
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Gorgias
Guest
It is: you’re throwing up red herrings and asserting them as ‘contradictions’. The real “contradiction” is in your logic.
Nope: I consider illogical assertions to likely lead to contradictions. There are red herrings that aren’t contradictions (and, there are things that you’ve said that aren’t red herrings). Yet, many things that you’ve asserted – proceeding from your own admission of a lack of knowledge of theology! – are illogical.
Pot, meet kettle.
To an observer outside the event horizon, time appears to slow down tremendously on the event horizon.
But hey… nice try.
Of course I don’t. I’m just pointing out that your arguments are invalid. Yet again, you’re pointing attention away from your illogic in an attempt to obscure it.
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Abrosz
Guest
Funny stuff. You never even tried to show where the contradiction might be in my reasoning. I pointed out the contradiction in yours, and all you did was to present an empty assertion that my argument is just a “red herring”, or that I don’t understand the meaning of the words.
Timeless action, timeless change are oxymorons. You, yourself defined “eternal” as “timeless”. So eternal, timeless, unchanging, static are synonyms. And none of them can be “connected” to actions or changes.
You can have the last word.
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Gorgias
Guest
Nah. “Timeless action” is analogous to “ongoing action”. The notion isn’t unheard of – even in linguistics!
Christian theology asserts that God is pure act; moreover, He doesn’t merely exist, but rather is existence itself. He is literally one, integral, eternal act. So, your claims that “eternal” and “static” are synonyms are your personal opinion – and you’re free to hold whatever opinion you wish! – but that doesn’t mean that they reflect theological truth.
It’s interesting that you bring up the notion of a black hole, since that gives us the opportunity to discuss the difference between viewpoints outside of it and inside of it. This is the issue we’ve been dancing around, in this thread: the difference between the viewpoints of the universe from within its temporal framework and from without, where there is no temporal framework. Your contention is that this is nonsense (or perhaps, you simply haven’t considered this distinction and what it brings to the discussion). However, you have seemed willing to simply deny any consideration of these various frames of reference, based on your personal opinions. Rather, you’ve simply stated that the ‘external’ perspective is untenable, by attempting to explain it in terms applicable only to the ‘internal’ point of view. That’s hardly conducive to a discussion.
I keep pointing out this flaw in your approach, but you seem so convinced that you alone are correct in the analysis, that it really is more a shouting match than a discussion.
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Dan123
Guest
I believe Freddy is pointing out the difference between “I’m not convinced God exists” and “I’m convinced God does not exist”. The vast majority of atheists are in the first group, they don’t believe because they aren’t convinced, but aren’t necessary convinced of the opposite claim either. It feels that a lot of commenters assume the majority of atheists are the second group, sometimes called ‘hard atheism’. That or they want to push the first group into the agnostic label, which may apply in addition to atheism but not in place of. E.g. if you ask “does God exist?” I would say I don’t know, ergo agnostic. If you ask me “do you believe God exists?” I would say no, ergo atheist. If you ask me if I’m certain God doesn’t exist, I would say no, which is just the flip side of agnosticism. While there are gnostic atheists (“I know God doesn’t exist”) they’re rare.
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STT
Guest
The argument is very simple: Any act requires time (or it is temporal by this I mean that the act has a before and an after). This means that time is needed for creation of time. This leads to regress. Regress is impossible. Therefore, the act of creation is impossible. Therefore, there is no God, the creator.
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Pattylt
Guest
As someone that doubts Gods existence, I still don’t buy your argument.
Firstly, somehow time did happen so time must not be needed for time. Secondly, you’re doing the same that Christians do with regard to before/beyond the universe…we really don’t know (certain knowledge) that a regress is impossible beyond the wall of ignorance of our universe. We haven’t knowledge yet of T=O of the BB. It may have started Banging back through eternity for all we know. There may be a God beyond that wall. There are as many possibilities as there are brains conceptualizing them! All we can currently do is say, “if this then that”…nothing more and nothing less. We all pick the ones we like.
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STT
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No before or after, no change.
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STT
Guest
What do you mean with time did happen?
Yes, we really don’t know yet that what was there at T=0. I am just excluding God as an option.
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Veritas6
Guest
Not much of a justification why all change must require time. The before and after would belong to the changing object, but not to the act itself.
The moment of change involves the actualization of a new state or affairs, but such an act is instantaneous, not temporally extended.
Your generalization that all act requires time is not sound, because causality metaphysically only entails a relation of causing and being caused. Causality only entails temporal considerations if we are dealing with time-bound substances and events.
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STT
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I didn’t mean that the act itself is temporal. I mean that any act requires time since there is a before and after for any act. How could you reach from before to after if there is no time?
Yes, I agree with that. The moment that we act separates before from after though.
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STT
Guest
Yes.
Time cannot be eternal. You cannot simply reach from eternal past to now as you cannot go from now to eternal past.
No.
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