What is your favorite proof for God?

[Lampo]

I like this one.

 

[donsnow]

So do you believe contraception is the same as a late-term abortion? Are means that prevent fertilization ok? How about those that prevent implantation - is that the same as an abortion?

No, contraception is a preterm abortion. No, means (other than abstinence) that prevent fertilization are not Ok. Implantation and in vitro fertilization are a can of worms which I do not know how to evaluate.

Also, on what do you base this belief that “an act of God creates a human being” at the moment of fertilization?

Is this a trick question? I remember several different atheists claiming that if there’s proof, it’s not really faith. I have only my own anecdotal observation that there are so many people who do everything they can to have babies, and don’t; and there’s so many people who try not to have babies (pills, condoms et al) and do, that pregnancy is not a result of natural processes, but of divine will.

It’s a very well understood and natural process; by your rationale, does the same thing happen when a trout’s sperm meets with a trout’s egg?

See my remark on a natural process above. And, no, it’s not the same with trout.

Or how about dogs?

Nor with dogs.

Whales?

Nor with whales.

That sounds like quite the busy work, keeping track of every instance of fertilization; you’d think a being that created and rules the entire universe would have more important things to do.

God is life. There is little more important to life, than life.

I don’t have any “beliefs” that deprive me of recognizing a creator.

I think that you have acquired beliefs that deprive you of recognizing a creator, from other people, since you came into this world with a blank mind.

I’ve simply followed the evidence available that overwhelmingly points to the conclusion that there is no creator other than the laws of nature. There’s a big difference between basing a conclusion on all the available evidence and jumping to a conclusion and clinging to it in spite of any evidence to the contrary.

This statement validates my above observation that you’ve acquired such an attitude from other people, because all the evidence abundantly reveals the Creator.

The good news is though if you don’t want to take part in an abortion, you don’t have to.

Wrong. My tax dollars, under this administration, will be channeled to government abortion programs. I don’t want my money spent that way.

But for those that don’t share the same baseless belief as you, they have a choice.

Yes, they can choose to have the baby; but government propaganda and commericialized abortion franchises’ advertisements try to brainwash them to have an abortion.

Those choices are limited to a degree by a combination of science and reasonable, objective ethics, as they should be, as I’m no fan of the procedure.

Then, stand against it.

But I realize that I can’t make the call in every possible situation that someone else may find themselves in; it’s not my place, not my call, not my business.

Well, it is your call, it is your place and it is your business. And, it’s every American’s call, every American’s place and every American’s business, including mine since the Rove vs Wade decision put abortion onto the public pallette. The media publicizing abortion makes it a public issue…everybody’s business, place and call.

Any way, I think your post to be off topic, since this thread is about peoples’ favorite proof of God, not about abortion, nor evolution, nor disbelief in God.

 

[Abu]

.ProveIt312
I’ve simply followed the evidence available that overwhelmingly points to the conclusion that there is no creator other than the laws of nature…. Again, no individual has PROOF that there’s a god

Help for atheists
Those befuddled atheists who don’t accept that reason alone can prove the existence of God, have not used their reason reasonably. How starnge that there should be “laws of nature” and no lawgiver!

Antony Flew, the most notorious atheist, now attests to reason and is now a deist.
“I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence,” he affirms. "I believe that this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source.
“Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than half a century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it that has emerged from modern science. Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.” (There Is a God, 2007, pp. 88-89).

The existence and nature of God can be proved by pure reason from: order and law in nature; motion and change; causality, and dependence.

The *Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine *(CD), Our Sunday Visitor, explains:
“Rational ‘proofs’ for the existence of God are constructed by looking at natural phenomena and then reasoning to a cause or a formal order of things beyond finite nature.
St. Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs for the existence of God (cf. CCC 32) are cases in point. Aquinas’s arguments presuppose that nature is not self-explanatory, and the force of each argument depends upon agreement that the human intellect can make legitimate inferences from the seen to the unseeable, from the finite to the infinite. Because modern philosophy begins with doubt, many philosophers now would limit the reach of the intellect to what can be verified by immediate sense experience or proved by testing hypotheses in a laboratory. The First Vatican Council (1869-1870), therefore, took great pains to defend the human mind’s integrity and its capacity to know spiritual as well as material realities.”
The ideas produced by the intellect show the spiritual nature of the human person.

 

[fisherman_carl]

Look, if we find sand castle as you describe, we know it didn’t occur naturally, because we know how sand castles are made; we’ve seen it happen, done it ourselves. Put another way, the sand castle isn’t evidence for it’s builder, but simply evidence of the sand castle itself. That’s like finding a dam made of wood and branches is evidence of a human builder; it’s not. It could have been made by beavers, or perhaps a flood washed debris downstream and it collected NATURALLY. Further research is needed; we know beavers build similar dams, but do beavers live in the area? Are there tooth marks where the wood was cut, or does it appear to have been cut by an ax or saw? Or is it rotted and/or broken wood, indicating it was simply debris? Was there a storm recently that flooded an area upstream? There is nothing inherent in nature that implicitly indicates a god unless you already have the concept of god on your brain - you find patterns or design based on a preconceived idea. If you were raised and taught that dams occasionally rained from the sky, upon finding one you’d assume that’s where it came from.

So you are saying that because we don’t know how to build a human being ourselves from raw materials then we don’t know if it takes intelligence to make one? That’s a pretty big assumption from where I am coming from. Considering that there is far more complicated systems within the human body than a sand castle.

People also forget all of the unintelligent “design” around us; birth defects, developmental disabilities, the fact humans eat, breath and speak out of the same opening, our crippled eyes that see only in a very narrow spectrum, our inferior sense of smell, the appendix, pathogens, volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes and the 99% of species that utterly failed and are now extinct - some design!! The causal argument is equally stupid, as any being capable of creating the universe would need an even more impressive cause than the universe itself.

Remember, this is all how you interpret these things. That is your world view and your opinion. These things do not disprove God’s existence. It’s funny how you call our eyes crippled when our eyes are so complex that many have become believers because of them. And also when I talk about random unintelligent chance I am looking at the big picture right from the start of the universe before life to now where we have intelligence in people. Without God, an intelligent designer, that means everything happened by unintelligent, random chance. You are bogged down in the details. Take a look at the bigger picture. How does everything come from random chance? I personally don’t think it is feasible.

Atheist’s are not taking any more of a leap of faith that god doesn’t exist than you are in believing Zeus doesn’t exist, or the Loch Ness Monster doesn’t exist, or leprechauns; if there’s no evidence where there should be some, it doesn’t mean that we KNOW that none of these things do or ever did exist anywhere EVER. Instead, it’s the most reasonable conclusion that it’s extremely unlikely that they don’t or didn’t.

You think that you’ve said something smart here but you’ve convinced know one of anything. Intuitively we know that there is a big difference between the Loch Ness monster and the God who created the universe. Intuitively we know that the Loch Ness monster is a fable and that God is not. The Loch Ness monster does not satisfy the longing of our souls, but God does. The other thing is Zeus has already been proven to be a false God. When Christianity took over Rome those false gods eventually crumbled. Where are they now? So as far as gods are concerned the Judeo - Christian God is the clear winner from a historical point of view. Even if only one religion is right, it proves atheism wrong.

You’ve also proven in your post you know absolutely nothing about evolution, natural selection or genetic drift, as well as have little to know capacity to comprehend that many minute changes over vast periods of time equal very big changes.

You are wrong about that. I studied evolution intently for 2 years once because I was very interested in the subject at that time. It is you that doesn’t understand evolution if you think that there is no randomness in it without God. Evolution depends on random changes in the gene pool and random changes to the environment. All these random changes are unintelligent. They may have natural causes but no intelligence is steering them.

In the end, you’ve summed up my frustration with theists quite nicely; cling to your beliefs, kicking and screaming, while dismissing the opposing sides case without know jack about it. I was raised to be Christian and considered myself one for a long, long time. I figured my journey into the subject of god would lead me closer to him, but rather all evidence made it clear how baseless the concept is. If one’s too weak, fearful or stupid to be honest, objective and simply THINK, I don’t see how I’m the one with the problem.

And you sum up a lot of atheists who think they are somehow smarter than the rest of us. Sounds very delusional to me. You think that atheism is somehow the only intelligent solution but you are clearly the one who needs to rethink. And I pray that you do so before it is too late for your soul.

 

[fisherman_carl]

The problem I have when theists start bringing up things like infinity, physics and the need for a first cause in defending their belief in a creator is they usually either don’t consider how or why these things would then also have to apply to the creator or simply assert he’s “excused” without further explanation.

Well, a first cause that needs no other causes is by definition an infinite cause.

Ultimately, the idea of the universe having an infinite existence is a pretty difficult thing to wrap one’s head around and it’s something that scientists today are just now beginning to understand (the LHC is definitely exciting in this regard). However, when I’m pondering the vastness of the universe, there are a few things that come to mind that, from my perspective, not only help digest the concept of a universe with an infinite past, but also makes the concept of a single personified creator and personal caretaker of the universe and it’s inhabitants rather absurd.

I’m not going to ramble on here, but the one concept that’s harder to grasp than infinity is nothingness; it’s a lot easier for me to grasp an infinite past then a past with absolutely nothing, as that would seem to be the very definition of non-existence. I’m purely a hobbyist when it comes to astronomy and cosmology, but I have a hypothesis about this topic that, when I emailed the head of the department at a prominent university with it, figuring I’d be corrected in my mistakes, I was instead told that it’s a new hypothesis that a handful of people in the field around the world are just now starting to do serious research on.

Without going into specifics, it has to do with the theory of a “multiverse”, yet taking it a step further in relating to the increasing rate of expansion in the universe as well as the origin of our universe. We’re limited by our “light horizon”, which means even if there are objects out there beyond 13.5 billion years old, we can’t see them because the light hasn’t reached us yet. However, knowing what we do about galaxies, they’re formation, their gravitational effect on each other, etc, if one extrapolates that out to a multiversal scale, it doesn’t contradict the understood mechanics of our known universe. It’s also plausible that this gravitational affect of these external universes could be “pulling” matter from ours outward, rather than the common concept that a dark energy is pushing it out. The formation of our universe wouldn’t have needed to be a singularity, but rather would have looked more like the formation of a galaxy, perhaps as when two galaxies merge, partially destroy one another and eventually form a new one. Again, this is purely hypothetical at this point, but it’s an idea some researchers are exploring and it’s yet to be disproven.

The idea of multiple universes is nothing new. The idea of old universes dieing and new ones forming has been around for many years and can be read about in any popular Astronomy magazine. Cosmology, Astronomy were once a hobby of mine also. It is quite interesting to consider the vastness of the universe and what we can know about it. Of course all of these theories are unproven. Even if the universe always existed this does not give us an explanation for it’s existence. The fact is that a creator gives meaning to the universe. It gives people hope that there is someone out there that cares about them. Why would a creator make us and then not care about us? If he would go through so much trouble to make a universe and then populate a planet with life I think he would care about it. It would be illogical to think that he would not, having spent such energy and time on the matter.

In contemplating things of this magnitude and how it relates to the hypothesis of god, … not only pays special attention to this planet, but also the most trivial moments of the individuals of one mammalian species and will punish those same individuals for eternity over even the most petty things, including thoughts?

When I consider the universe I think how great God must be to have created such a universe. I do not claim to know how he did it, just that he did. As far as scientific theories, they may be interesting, but they are not facts. History is often different than our models of it.

 

[murmur]

Remember, this is all how you interpret these things. That is your world view and your opinion. These things do not disprove God’s existence. It’s funny how you call our eyes crippled when our eyes are so complex that many have become believers because of them. And also when I talk about random unintelligent chance I am looking at the big picture right from the start of the universe before life to now where we have intelligence in people. Without God, an intelligent designer, that means everything happened by unintelligent, random chance. You are bogged down in the details. Take a look at the bigger picture. How does everything come from random chance? I personally don’t think it is feasible.

Hello. I do not presume to know your background, so please, take no offense. But, to describe everything as coming from random chance does natural selection a great disservice. Random chance alone wouldn’t develop intelligent life, that is correct. The idea of evolution is a preservation of beneficial mutations through natural selection. But, that is neither here nor there, because that isn’t what you’re really talking about.

You are addressing mainly the creation of everything. You speak of the origin of the universe. It would be entirely correct to say that we simply do not know. There are a number of ideas as to how everything began, but at this stage they are not much more than that. The fact that we do not yet have an answer as to the origin of the universe should not lead people to think that we will never have an answer. How far we have come, in terms of science, in the last hundred years is staggering. I don’t know when the next big breakthrough will come, but I’m glad we’re looking for it. To say that the universe was created by God, the end, proves nothing. That takes us no closer to understanding anything about its origin, which I feel strongly can be better understood than we do now. To do anything less than search this world and universe for a continually better understanding of it would be a great disservice. When I was religious I found this to be so. We are challenged by God to unlock the universe’s secrets. I no longer believe in the God behind the scenes. But, does the universe lose it’s beauty? It the birth of a child still not amazing? I can not see how understanding these events as natural and caused without outside influence dampen their spectacular wonder.

Pardon my slight loss of focus. My closing thought on this point is that we seek to explain everything else in our daily lives through natural means. Why should the universe be any different. We seek to better understand our bodies through medicine. Perhaps there is a disease of which we know no cause (there are too many, take your pick). We search within the natural realm, because that is what we can work with; that is what is demonstrable. The universe is incredible. Yet, within that wonder, why can’t we unlock its secrets through natural processes? We do not yet know those secrets. Completely correct. Yet, who is to say we will never know?

You think that you’ve said something smart here but you’ve convinced know one of anything. Intuitively we know that there is a big difference between the Loch Ness monster and the God who created the universe. Intuitively we know that the Loch Ness monster is a fable and that God is not. The Loch Ness monster does not satisfy the longing of our souls, but God does. The other thing is Zeus has already been proven to be a false God. When Christianity took over Rome those false gods eventually crumbled. Where are they now? So as far as gods are concerned the Judeo - Christian God is the clear winner from a historical point of view. Even if only one religion is right, it proves atheism wrong.

You speak of intuition. But, how does one intuitively know their god is the correct one? Generally they do this through subjective means. They feel a connection with said god. I could find many different follows of many different faiths and creeds that would speak just as strongly of their god. Where does that leave intuition? With that example in mind intuition seems less of a strong position. I do not disagree that people seem to seek a bond with their creator. This seems to appear across cultures and times. But, with so many people believing in so many different things one has to wonder as to what is true. Also, because humanity is an “experiment in action,” if you will, if would be a tad premature to declare a winner. If we had had this discussion a few thousand years ago we might be declaring Zeus the winner. As for the Judeo-Christian God being the clear winner, I see no clear winner anywhere. You have a large base, to be sure, but so do other monotheistic religions. Plus, there are many branches of Christianity that believe they alone are correct. Again, it goes back to, you can’t all be right.

And you sum up a lot of atheists who think they are somehow smarter than the rest of us. Sounds very delusional to me. You think that atheism is somehow the only intelligent solution but you are clearly the one who needs to rethink. And I pray that you do so before it is too late for your soul.

I include this quote only to say that these issues are very personal to each of us. Sometimes in intense discussions it seems as if we are attacking the individual. I would just like to state that I only wish to engage in an enriching dialogue, and I mean no offense to you or anyone with what I write. Have a good day.

.murmur.

 

[Abu]

murmur
We are challenged by God to unlock the universe’s secrets. I no longer believe in the God behind the scenes. But, does the universe lose it’s beauty? It the birth of a child still not amazing? I can not see how understanding these events as natural and caused without outside influence dampen their spectacular wonder.

That’s why it’s essential to know that it is only in the West that science developed due to the reason and faith of the Catholic Church. The present chaos in reason and faith is the obvious result of the relativism and secularism following the revolt and so-called Enlightenment – that anything goes.

She supports the reasons for the existence of God and the natural moral law.

The mind or intellect produces ideas such as being, goodness, truth, beauty, virtue, honour, ambition, justice, wisdom – these ideas are beyond the grasp of any bodily sense organ. They require a spiritual power to comprehend them. This power is present in a spiritual substance which we call the human soul, present at the moment of conception of the human person.

 

[greylorn]

I agree. I was a little too excited when I wrote it down. I also didn’t have a Physics book in front of me at the time. I wasn’t trying to write a scholarly work.

Good thing, since you’d have failed.

You’ve offered a whiny retort, irrelevant as well, since there are no scholars or potential Nobel Prize winners posting here. Ideally, we are supposed to be regular people kicking our ideas and beliefs around in an analogy of 43-man Squamish with most of the team too busy or drunk to play.

Some posters to CAF have a truckload of degrees, some have not left grammar school with a C-average. Doesn’t matter. What matters is intellectual honesty. The common ground in an ideal world, at least in this Philosophy Forum, might be a willingness to honestly exchange ideas. The honesty of that exchange is trashed when someone finds some way to worm out of taking responsibility for saying something stupid.

I make lots of stupid statements, so I am an authority on this subject. I like to theorize, and imagine that I know a lot. Inevitably, I make absurd statements. After a lot of lying in various forms, and after becoming rather good at it, I learned that the best policy is to admit, upfront and without excuses, that I said something stupid, inappropriate, or ill-informed, or whatever, That is the only way to be done with it. It saves everyone lots of time and fretting when someone fesses up to being human.

So let’s get to your raison d’jour.

Fer shure, we all know about being excited. Next time, have a beer or a cigarette, or go for a nice walk in the woods, and then, only then, take a deep breath. You might then be ready to post on CAF in a manner which reflects your normal, waking, unexcited state of intelligence, and might never have to invent excuses.

An unsolicited tip from an ornery old f–t: Feel free to speak your mind. This will result in a lot of really stupid remarks and dumb things said, by you. When someone honors you with a correction (which sometimes means that they saw some latent potential in you), just cut the excuses and justifications, and admit that you said something dumb, stupid, or whatever.

It’s not a big deal. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not participating. If you’re making mistakes and then making up excuses for doing so, you are walking backwards. Turn around and get back to honest mindwork.

 

[greylorn]

Why is the Big Bang so absurd? It is accepted as how the universe began: we know the universe is expanding, so moving a step backwards in time means it’s a little smaller, another step and it’s a bit smaller, continue this until you have the “primeval atom.”

Which model do you prefer? The steady state? Milne? Tired light? One you’ve developed? Or, even crazier, the cyclic model?

My first choice is, None of the above.

My second choice is, one I’ve developed.

I know the reverse-time arguments. I accept that your understanding of these arguments as superior to mine, and will address the rest of this post accordingly.

So, back in time, matter, light, and all forms of energy compress. Into what, exactly? The original concept was, “a tiny lump of mass-energy, smaller than a proton.” Then they tried to determine the exact size of this thing, which I term the cosmic micropea… Impossible.

Upon realizing this, cosmologists did not discard the concept. Instead they simply renamed it, like B.O. renamed his “Economic Stimulus Program” a “Jobs Bill.” Etc. Honest physicists would not do that kind of thing. Nor would honest politicians, if such entities existed.

After discovering that they could not define it, the cosmologists, showing themselves to be a bunch of grant-grubbing nits, renamed the cosmic micropea a “singularity.” Before that, singularities were only mathematical concepts, obtained by calculating the tangent of 90 degrees or dividing by zero. Any nitwit who introduced a singularity into his answer to an exam question got an “F”. Once a nitwit gets a Ph.D, he, she, or it is apparently not a nitwit anymore, and is allowed to declare the existence of a physical singularity.

Do you know what that means? Does anyone? I submit, not.

There is no such thing, and cannot be such a thing in the real world. I am deeply sorry that Stephen Hawking, for all his courage, has in his dotage succumbed to the power of agreement.

Believers in Big Bang theory must answer one question, irrespective of their belief system. What caused the “singularity,” or cosmic micropea, to explode?

There are no interesting answers to this question. Until you find one that you understand and which you find interesting (i.e. worth understanding), I recommend that you put that notion in the “phlogiston theory” pile.

I understand your need, the generalized tribal need for agreement. Your second sentence, “It is accepted…” shows how you choose your beliefs. That mindset will prevent you from thinking for yourself.

It is absolutely okay to accept no agreed-upon theory in explanation of the beginning of the universe. This will free you to accept a theory that makes sense, or, even better, to invent your own!

 

[Thing]

My first choice is, None of the above.

My second choice is, one I’ve developed.

I know the reverse-time arguments. I accept that your understanding of these arguments as superior to mine, and will address the rest of this post accordingly.

So, back in time, matter, light, and all forms of energy compress. Into what, exactly? The original concept was, “a tiny lump of mass-energy, smaller than a proton.” Then they tried to determine the exact size of this thing, which I term the cosmic micropea… Impossible.

Upon realizing this, cosmologists did not discard the concept. Instead they simply renamed it, like B.O. renamed his “Economic Stimulus Program” a “Jobs Bill.” Etc. Honest physicists would not do that kind of thing. Nor would honest politicians, if such entities existed.

After discovering that they could not define it, the cosmologists, showing themselves to be a bunch of grant-grubbing nits, renamed the cosmic micropea a “singularity.” Before that, singularities were only mathematical concepts, obtained by calculating the tangent of 90 degrees or dividing by zero. Any nitwit who introduced a singularity into his answer to an exam question got an “F”. Once a nitwit gets a Ph.D, he, she, or it is apparently not a nitwit anymore, and is allowed to declare the existence of a physical singularity.

Do you know what that means? Does anyone? I submit, not.

There is no such thing, and cannot be such a thing in the real world. I am deeply sorry that Stephen Hawking, for all his courage, has in his dotage succumbed to the power of agreement.

Believers in Big Bang theory must answer one question, irrespective of their belief system. What caused the “singularity,” or cosmic micropea, to explode?

There are no interesting answers to this question. Until you find one that you understand and which you find interesting (i.e. worth understanding), I recommend that you put that notion in the “phlogiston theory” pile.

I understand your need, the generalized tribal need for agreement. Your second sentence, “It is accepted…” shows how you choose your beliefs. That mindset will prevent you from thinking for yourself.

It is absolutely okay to accept no agreed-upon theory in explanation of the beginning of the universe. This will free you to accept a theory that makes sense, or, even better, to invent your own!

Cool, can I invent one too. There was no, what did you call it, - cosmic micropea. Before the BB there was no physical thing, only God in His eternal, infinite Heaven. The singularity did not exist, it did not need to be stored indefinitely or held back or be the product of anything else. It just popped into existance when He said the words ''Let There Be Light"…

 

[jdwood983]

My first choice is, None of the above.

My second choice is, one I’ve developed.

I know the reverse-time arguments. I accept that your understanding of these arguments as superior to mine, and will address the rest of this post accordingly.

So, back in time, matter, light, and all forms of energy compress. Into what, exactly? The original concept was, “a tiny lump of mass-energy, smaller than a proton.” Then they tried to determine the exact size of this thing, which I term the cosmic micropea… Impossible.

Upon realizing this, cosmologists did not discard the concept. Instead they simply renamed it, like B.O. renamed his “Economic Stimulus Program” a “Jobs Bill.” Etc. Honest physicists would not do that kind of thing. Nor would honest politicians, if such entities existed.

After discovering that they could not define it, the cosmologists, showing themselves to be a bunch of grant-grubbing nits, renamed the cosmic micropea a “singularity.” Before that, singularities were only mathematical concepts, obtained by calculating the tangent of 90 degrees or dividing by zero. Any nitwit who introduced a singularity into his answer to an exam question got an “F”. Once a nitwit gets a Ph.D, he, she, or it is apparently not a nitwit anymore, and is allowed to declare the existence of a physical singularity.

Do you know what that means? Does anyone? I submit, not.

There is no such thing, and cannot be such a thing in the real world. I am deeply sorry that Stephen Hawking, for all his courage, has in his dotage succumbed to the power of agreement.

Believers in Big Bang theory must answer one question, irrespective of their belief system. What caused the “singularity,” or cosmic micropea, to explode?

There are no interesting answers to this question. Until you find one that you understand and which you find interesting (i.e. worth understanding), I recommend that you put that notion in the “phlogiston theory” pile.

I understand your need, the generalized tribal need for agreement. Your second sentence, “It is accepted…” shows how you choose your beliefs. That mindset will prevent you from thinking for yourself.

It is absolutely okay to accept no agreed-upon theory in explanation of the beginning of the universe. This will free you to accept a theory that makes sense, or, even better, to invent your own!

I think your biggest problem is confusing the mathematical definition of singularity as compared to the cosmological definition. The former refers to what you have: an undefinable point of a function. The latter refers to the unknown; we literally don’t know anything about it so we call it a singularity.

Let me ask you a few questions: Have you seen earth from a spaceship so as to see that it is indeed round? Have you seen the other planets with your own eyes (and not from a picture in a book or internet)? Have you seen an atom or an electron? I bet your answers to these are: no, no, no and no. Yet you still believe these as truth, much in the same way that I believe in the Big Bang theory. As a Catholic astrophysicist, I maintain that God is the mechanism for which the singularity exploded, but the physical event that occurred is likely to be unknown for a long time (if it can ever be found).

To this extent, gravity is also just a theory. If even one scenario arises that disproves it, we cannot use the idea of it. Similarly, quantum mechanics is a mathematical model that works; if something else comes along that does a better job we’ll use that one (there is a model out there, called Bohmian mechanics, that does explain some QM but isn’t as widely used; check its wiki page for some mediocre description).

If you want to take the “I’ll believe it when I see it” approach, I would suggest walking out on physics and picking up another science whose axioms are far more provable. Or taking a non-science. (Don’t take these suggestions too seriously, just pointing out a slight flaw in your logic)

 

[ProveIt312]

No, contraception is a preterm abortion. No, means (other than abstinence) that prevent fertilization are not Ok. Implantation and in vitro fertilization are a can of worms which I do not know how to evaluate.

Is this a trick question? I remember several different atheists claiming that if there’s proof, it’s not really faith. I have only my own anecdotal observation that there are so many people who do everything they can to have babies, and don’t; and there’s so many people who try not to have babies (pills, condoms et al) and do, that pregnancy is not a result of natural processes, but of divine will.

See my remark on a natural process above. And, no, it’s not the same with trout.

Nor with dogs.

Nor with whales.

God is life. There is little more important to life, than life.

I think that you have acquired beliefs that deprive you of recognizing a creator, from other people, since you came into this world with a blank mind.

This statement validates my above observation that you’ve acquired such an attitude from other people, because all the evidence abundantly reveals the Creator.

Wrong. My tax dollars, under this administration, will be channeled to government abortion programs. I don’t want my money spent that way.

Yes, they can choose to have the baby; but government propaganda and commericialized abortion franchises’ advertisements try to brainwash them to have an abortion.

Then, stand against it.

Well, it is your call, it is your place and it is your business. And, it’s every American’s call, every American’s place and every American’s business, including mine since the Rove vs Wade decision put abortion onto the public pallette. The media publicizing abortion makes it a public issue…everybody’s business, place and call.

Any way, I think your post to be off topic, since this thread is about peoples’ favorite proof of God, not about abortion, nor evolution, nor disbelief in God.

Well I guess we’re done discussing it here. You’re stance on the subject is obviously based on your religious beliefs, and that’s fine - for you. But considering the source of those religious beliefs (the bible), it’s hardly a compelling enough source to jump to some of the bold conclusions you assert, nor is it compelling enough to legislate the lives of everyone.

Oh, and your tax dollars WON’T be going to “government abortion programs”. Abortion was actually a sticking point in the passage of the health care reform bill, and to frame any part of it or the government as being endorsers of abortion is asinine.

 

[ProveIt312]

Help for atheists
Those befuddled atheists who don’t accept that reason alone can prove the existence of God, have not used their reason reasonably. How starnge that there should be “laws of nature” and no lawgiver!

Antony Flew, the most notorious atheist, now attests to reason and is now a deist.
“I now believe that the universe was brought into existence by an infinite Intelligence,” he affirms. "I believe that this universe’s intricate laws manifest what scientists have called the Mind of God. I believe that life and reproduction originate in a divine Source.
“Why do I believe this, given that I expounded and defended atheism for more than half a century? The short answer is this: this is the world picture, as I see it that has emerged from modern science. Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.” (There Is a God, 2007, pp. 88-89).

The existence and nature of God can be proved by pure reason from: order and law in nature; motion and change; causality, and dependence.

The *Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine *(CD), Our Sunday Visitor, explains:
“Rational ‘proofs’ for the existence of God are constructed by looking at natural phenomena and then reasoning to a cause or a formal order of things beyond finite nature.
St. Thomas Aquinas’s five proofs for the existence of God (cf. CCC 32) are cases in point. Aquinas’s arguments presuppose that nature is not self-explanatory, and the force of each argument depends upon agreement that the human intellect can make legitimate inferences from the seen to the unseeable, from the finite to the infinite. Because modern philosophy begins with doubt, many philosophers now would limit the reach of the intellect to what can be verified by immediate sense experience or proved by testing hypotheses in a laboratory. The First Vatican Council (1869-1870), therefore, took great pains to defend the human mind’s integrity and its capacity to know spiritual as well as material realities.”
The ideas produced by the intellect show the spiritual nature of the human person.

You’re rehashing the old argument from ignorance with a bit of philosophy-lite thrown in. Additionally, there’s a HUGE leap from being a deist (belief in some sort of vague, non-personal higher power) and the very specific, personal traits of a theistic god.

The deistic god is so vague that no one could ever disprove the existence of one, as the definitions are, well, undefined. However, the Abrahamic god, for example, has very specific attributes that we can test and/or observe. Created the earth, a la the book of genesis? Wrong. Answers prayers? Doesn’t. Created the universe? No need for that hypothesis. Interferes with or suspends the laws of nature? Nope.

I don’t think I’m unreasonable at all; if an amputee prayed and regrew their limb, I’d be quite compelled to reconsider my position. If the bible weren’t so flawed, self-contradictory and flat-out wrong, and instead contained some sort of knowledge - be it scientific, clearly prophetic, etc - that couldn’t possibly been known back then, I’d again reconsider. But the bible reads just as you’d expect it to, given it was written by a bunch of ignorant sheepherders and edited by men in power seeking to consolidate and strengthen it.

Thankfully there have been and continue to be plenty of people that don’t take the lazy way out of hard questions and, rather than shrug and go “Well I’m stumped - must be god!”, they push forward and actually come up with the REAL answer. Otherwise, we’d still believe the earth was flat, that the sun revolved around it, that bats are birds and disease (including epilepsy in particular) comes from devils.

 

[ProveIt312]

Cool, can I invent one too. There was no, what did you call it, - cosmic micropea. Before the BB there was no physical thing, only God in His eternal, infinite Heaven. The singularity did not exist, it did not need to be stored indefinitely or held back or be the product of anything else. It just popped into existance when He said the words ''Let There Be Light"…

And of course that light was created BEFORE the stars…uh huh…sure. Basically, it’s being asserted that god is magic, can pull matter and energy out of his cosmic rear-end and the entire hypothesis is excused of any and all scrutiny. It’s lazy, it’s ignorant and it’s why the religions of today will be the mythology of tomorrow - just like it’s always been.

Widespread child rape and subsequent cover-ups by the highest ranking scumbags don’t help either.

 

[ProveIt312]

That’s why it’s essential to know that it is only in the West that science developed due to the reason and faith of the Catholic Church. The present chaos in reason and faith is the obvious result of the relativism and secularism following the revolt and so-called Enlightenment – that anything goes.

She supports the reasons for the existence of God and the natural moral law.

The mind or intellect produces ideas such as being, goodness, truth, beauty, virtue, honour, ambition, justice, wisdom – these ideas are beyond the grasp of any bodily sense organ. They require a spiritual power to comprehend them. This power is present in a spiritual substance which we call the human soul, present at the moment of conception of the human person.

Wrong. First, science, art and literature were crippled by the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages, and any progress has come IN SPITE of religion, not because of it.

Additionally, our entire personalities and sense of morality exist PRECISELY within the “grasp” of a specific bodily organ - our brain. Brain injuries, tests, exposure to magnetism or medication have shown to profoundly alter a person’s personality, sense of right and wrong, decision making ability and anything else attributed to “god”, a “soul” or any “spiritual substance”. You can believe otherwise, but you’d be incorrect.

 

[Thing]

And of course that light was created BEFORE the stars…uh huh…sure. Basically, it’s being asserted that god is magic, can pull matter and energy out of his cosmic rear-end and the entire hypothesis is excused of any and all scrutiny. It’s lazy, it’s ignorant and it’s why the religions of today will be the mythology of tomorrow - just like it’s always been.

Widespread child rape and subsequent cover-ups by the highest ranking scumbags don’t help either.

And God said ‘Let There Be Light’

Do you think there was no light before stars? They calculate that around 10 seconds after the Big Bang: After most leptons and anti-leptons are annihilated at the end of the lepton epoch the energy of the universe is dominated by photons. These photons are still interacting frequently with charged protons, electrons and (eventually) nuclei, and continue to do so for the next 300,000 years.

And there was light, and God saw the light that it was good.

I consider the rest of your post to be abuse of a different type and not on-topic for this thread.

 

[donsnow]

Well I guess we’re done discussing it here. You’re stance on the subject is obviously based on your religious beliefs, and that’s fine - for you. But considering the source of those religious beliefs (the bible), it’s hardly a compelling enough source to jump to some of the bold conclusions you assert, nor is it compelling enough to legislate the lives of everyone.

Oh, and your tax dollars WON’T be going to “government abortion programs”. Abortion was actually a sticking point in the passage of the health care reform bill, and to frame any part of it or the government as being endorsers of abortion is asinine.

I have tested God in my life and the results satisfy me that He is there.

I’m not asinine as Pres. B. H. Obama has come out in favor of abortion, many a time. The presentation of abortion is its endorsement, imho. I guess we see this differently, too.

But, you’re right. We’ve discussed this as much as we can. And it’s best we get back to peoples’ favorite proof of God; instead of evolution, atheism nor abortion, nor Bible bashing nor Chruch bashing.

 

[ProveIt312]

I have tested God in my life and the results satisfy me that He is there.

I’m not asinine as Pres. B. H. Obama has come out in favor of abortion, many a time. The presentation of abortion is its endorsement, imho. I guess we see this differently, too.

But, you’re right. We’ve discussed this as much as we can. And it’s best we get back to peoples’ favorite proof of God; instead of evolution, atheism nor abortion, nor Bible bashing nor Chruch bashing.

Obama isn’t pro-abortion, but pro-choice. There’s a BIG difference.

 

[Abu]

ProveIt312
First, science, art and literature were crippled by the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages, and any progress has come IN SPITE of religion, not because of it.

Same falsehood. You have no answer. With no facts, you have no reason to doubt the facts you have now seen. To do so would be most unreasonable – based merely on impulse.

“The rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.
**“These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.” **The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 22-23. My emphasis].

These are the reasons that explain the fact that the theology and philosophy of the Catholic Church motivated and enabled the flowering of science.** As no other religious society had these crucial ideas, ALL others failed to spark scientific achievement.** It is a classic example of cause and effect to produce a watershed in science.

Alfred North Whitehead, F.R.S. rejected the notion of a perfect and omnipotent God [alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/]](http://alfrednorthwhitehead.wwwhubs.com/]), but he knew that Catholic theology was essential for the rise of science in the West, while stifled elsewhere. He explained: “The greatest contribution of medievalism to the scientific movement [was] the inexpugnable belief that …there is a secret, a secret which can be unveiled. How has this conviction been so vividly implanted in the European mind?..**It must come from the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher. Every detail was supervised and ordered: the search into nature could only result in the vindication of the faith in rationality.” **(My emphasis). [E.L. Jones, 1987; in Stark, op.cit., p 15].
See Catholicism and Science by Rodney Stark (from Catalyst 9/2004) at:
catholicleague.org/research/catholicism_and_science.htm

Brain injuries, tests, exposure to magnetism or medication have shown to profoundly alter a person’s personality, sense of right and wrong, decision making ability

…
There is no basis for denying that we are rational human beings. That is why being, goodness, truth, beauty, virtue, honour, ambition, justice, wisdom – these ideas are beyond the grasp of any bodily sense organ. They require a spiritual power to comprehend them. This power is present in a spiritual substance which we call the human soul, present at the moment of conception of the human person. Since they utilize the irreducible complexity of the brain, naturally injury to the brain impairs its function, as do drugs. We are not souls only but bodies with souls. No one assumes that we are spirits only.

It’s not rocket science.

 

[greylorn]

Cool, can I invent one too. There was no, what did you call it, - cosmic micropea. Before the BB there was no physical thing, only God in His eternal, infinite Heaven. The singularity did not exist, it did not need to be stored indefinitely or held back or be the product of anything else. It just popped into existance when He said the words ''Let There Be Light"…

Thanks for the insights. I’d totally forgotten my first grade catechism classes.