What property of the universe leads us to conclude that it required a cause to exist?

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Cathdoki:

Except that He can’t (or, won’t) do that which is antithetical to His Nature (And, this is doctrinal). Hence, it would seem that there are some things that are impossible for God.

God bless,
jd
Not impossible. Just what He won’t do.
 
Luke 1:37 from the DR Bible

Because no word shall be impossible with God.
 
Luke 1:37 from the DR Bible

Because no word shall be impossible with God.
Again, if God absolutely won’t do something, no matter what, that is identical with impossibility - don’t you think? There is no potency (lack) in God.

God bless,
jd
 
Kindly remember to read the Post you are responding to. Either one of us may have moved on by the time you answer. 🙂

God bless,
jd
We have gone on a bit of a tangent here, but if nothing is impossible for God, then nothing is impossible for God to give to man. That is what I was commenting on. Please don’t disregard my evidence as trivial.
 
We have gone on a bit of a tangent here, but if nothing is impossible for God, then nothing is impossible for God to give to man. That is what I was commenting on. Please don’t disregard my evidence as trivial.
I’m sorry. If that’s what you were commenting on, could you please direct me to the post wherein I might find that? Also, to what “evidence” are you referring?

God bless,
jd
 
I’m sorry. If that’s what you were commenting on, could you please direct me to the post wherein I might find that? Also, to what “evidence” are you referring?

God bless,
jd
This whole thread was pointing to the idea that time is fixed. The special theory of relativity explains that and it has been shown. The CC accepts that.

From there we got onto the subject of what is possible for God. Everything is. He stands outside of time. That gift can be given to anyone that God chooses. With that said, time is not fixed. Or else God could not stand outside it.

If’ I’ve lead the thread astray, then I’ll cease to post.
 
I’m sorry. If that’s what you were commenting on, could you please direct me to the post wherein I might find that? Also, to what “evidence” are you referring?

God bless,
jd
OOOPS. I forgot to reiterate. Luke 1:37

Because no word shall be impossible with God.
 
This whole thread was pointing to the idea that time is fixed. The special theory of relativity explains that and it has been shown. The CC accepts that.

From there we got onto the subject of what is possible for God. Everything is. He stands outside of time. That gift can be given to anyone that God chooses. With that said, time is not fixed. Or else God could not stand outside it.

If’ I’ve lead the thread astray, then I’ll cease to post.
Absolutely not! No one here “owns” these threads. You’ll get talked to.

God bless,
jd
 
I have no desire to get involved in this discussion, except that I’m reading a good book which addresses the questions raised on this thread quite well. It’s called Thinking About Religion, a philosophical introduction about religion by a university professor named Richard Purtill. If you can find it, I recommend reading it–with a highlighter readily at hand.
 
That depends on what you think the point is.

The point, to me, is satisfying my curiosity. I like finding out what people who disagree with the Church believe and why. I also like finding out how people who agree with the Church think about and approach various concepts and teachings. Converting people is not my goal. It’d be great if you chose to place your faith in Jesus Christ based on my words, but I don’t consider myself adequate in that capacity so have no expectation in that regard. I’m too much of a self-centered dork to be a great example.

Should your goal not be sharing your opinion but converting people to your point of view, then I’m not going to lie - you will not achieve that goal when it comes to me. It doesn’t mean I think negatively of you. I simply consider Jesus Christ to be a stronger authority figure in these matters. It’d be like if Jesus was an auto shop and you were a bank. You could be the best bank in the world and know all about financial things. I might use you for my checking/savings account or a mortgage. But I’m still going to take my car to the auto shop instead of you when it breaks, because the auto shop is an authority in car repairs and you aren’t.

Yeah, I know. My analogies are usually rather silly :o

But regardless, if my statement that you will not convert me means you don’t want to share your opinion, then that’s your choice. I make no demands of you.
Your honest self-appraisal deserves an honest reply.

There’s a lot that you like, and that I’d like. I’d like to wake up to gourmet breakfasts that Raquel Welsh cooked for me out of gratitude, but guess what? I get to eat the crud I serve up for myself.

IMO converting more than a few people to my viewpoint would be a dreadful turn of events that would end in my violent demise. On the other hand, it would mean that I get to quit, having done my job.

That job is primarily to get people who do not think about fundamental issues such as the beginnings of things, but simply accept the conventional explanations for them, to start thinking. Your final comment implied a disinterest in doing so. That puts you on my “why bother,” list. However, your reply moves you from the top to the bottom of the list, which is easiest to scratch off.

Your analogy was actually quite interesting, but not for the reasons you might think. You compared apples to beavers.

My ideas do not conflict with Christ’s teachings. Read the first three books of the New Testament again, slowly please (as I did) and very, very consciously. You’ll find that J.C. does not address the beginnings of things. He does not address the purpose of creation. Those are my subjects.

Christ teaches human beings how to behave, and how to regard one another. I cannot improve upon those teachings. You will not catch me trying.

When my car breaks, I don’t take it to the bank, whose accounting work I’ve had to correct too often. Nor do I take it to a mechanic who will overcharge me for a crummy job and screw up something else in the process of fixing the original problem. I go out and buy mosquito repellent, a bottle of vodka, and a few cheap cigars, then get out my service manual and toolbox and fix it myself.

That’s pretty much what I had to do with religion.

If churches had the integrity to deal with human morality, and just that, and if they had the wit to avoid subjects for which they’d not bothered to acquire the qualifications, such as cosmology and evolutionary biology, neither you nor anyone else would have heard from me.
 
I will not believe in something unless there is evidence for it. I have never seen any compelling evidence for the special theory of relativity. Moonstruck gave me some hokey about some temporal disparity in four clocks in planes which were in nanoseconds; not only was there no causal explanation for this disparity it does not seem to demonstrate anything beyond a general disparity. If there have been some proffessionally replicated tests which give exactly the same results with a proffessional error margin (<1%) then I might see it more clearly.

I am not a man of faith I am a person who believes in evidence. I don’t care for pseudoscience and conjecture.

👍
The 1971 experiment has been replicated. The only reason you don’t accept Special Relativity is because you are scientifically illiterate. If you were willing to employ a little effort and actually investigate what ratification there is for Special Relativity, you could remedy that, but you’re not, you’d rather deliver the sermon on the moral highground from a flood plain of unadulterated ignorance.

I’m just about done even reading any more posts from you…
 
I fail to see what is wrong with keeping a friendly chat on the internet civil and charitable - I am not publishing an academic paper here; and from the sloppy standard of your posts; neither are you. As I have said before; my age is irrelevant; as is yours. It doesn’t matter if you are ten or seventy years old; telling other people to “grow up” when you are committing an ad-homiem fallacy is ironic at best.
I dislike intellect without discipline. I dislike arrogance and conceit without base. I owe you nothing John. I don’t really know you and what little I do know I don’t like. I don’t entertain any friendly or positive thoughts about you. I see little point, beyond the most basic politesse, in maintaining any pretense that you and I have anything in common or have any frienship or respect for each other.
Don’t chastise other people for a lack of an education when you are stumbling over two thousand year old philosophical fallacies in a philosophy forum - it’s quite frightening; I knew educational standards were slipping but wow…
How would you know? You’ve already admitted that you’re not educated and proven your point with repeated evidence. Reading books on your jack jones is all very well, but you sit no exams and have no peers to correct anything you’ve misconstrued, which from what I can see is quite a bit.
Nb; I find it ironic that a person would find it childish to use a happy sybol at the end of their writings when the complainer has a ludicrous theorem that is contrary to what they are claiming in thier post. Applying Young’s “theorem” please; as I have never observed time manipulation; why should I give credit to it’s existence - and no; four clocks on jetplanes with a few nanoseconds difference is not evidence and never will be.
It most certainly is evidence as anyone who has studied science can tell you. It agrees quite precisely with theoretical predictions. Every single time you’ve went for a walk or driven your car or climbed a hill you have observed manipulation of time.

Imagine two space craft travelling side by side holding station with each other at 0.5 C. If an observer on one space craft was to fire a light beam at the window of the other, the person on the other space craft would see the beam travel in a straight line from one spacecraft to the other.

An observer on a planet below would see the light beam move diagonally by virtue of the fact that the two space craft are moving past him at a very high rate of speed.

You can see that from each observers point of view the lightbeam has to trace a different distance.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4871077007_f7cec31d8f_m.jpg

Let s = displacement, v = velocity and t = time.

Using the simple equation s = vt, you can see that something has to give. Either the distance has to be variable, the velocity of light has to be variable, or time has to be variable. Observations that concur with the predictions that were made by Einstein confirm that it’s time that gives.
 
Imagine two space craft travelling side by side holding station with each other at 0.5 C. If an observer on one space craft was to fire a light beam at the window of the other, the person on the other space craft would see the beam travel in a straight line from one spacecraft to the other.
An observer on a planet below would see the light beam move diagonally by virtue of the fact that the two space craft are moving past him at a very high rate of speed.
You can see that from each observers point of view the lightbeam has to trace a different distance.
The observation of a material entity per se has no causal relationship with the actions of the material entity. How the beam is percieved is irrelevant to how the beam operates; it either operates lineraliy or diagonally; to say it does both using the same mediums is violating the law of noncontradiction.
How would you know? You’ve already admitted that you’re not educated and proven your point with repeated evidence. Reading books on your jack jones is all very well, but you sit no exams and have no peers to correct anything you’ve misconstrued, which from what I can see is quite a bit.
Another ad-hominem. My education is irrelevant to the points I am making. If I claimed the earth is round; and a person educated in science a medieval university claimed it was flat - would he be correct specifically in light of his qualifications? - no; that is absurd. Likewise; the points I am making are irrelevant to my level of education; it is patently clear you have no understanding of predicate logic; so even someone who has read a few books on their “jack jones” is more qualified to talk on this topic than a person with no relevant qualifications or experience. I have pointed out you make a fallacy of equivocation; ad hominem and you ignore that point; instead feeling it more prudent to impugn my education – I tell you this much; it would not matter if it was Einstein or a talking dog that told you you are making an equivocal fallacy - if you are; you are - the person telling it is absolutely irrelevant.

Your equasion is to put it bluntly; pathetic.

S is an accident of obvervance; thus not equatable to the genera of T & V. To include them in the same equasion without the qualification of observance is absurd.
I dislike intellect without discipline. I dislike arrogance and conceit without base.
I am not arrogant. You are self-confessed as someone who has little or no knowlege of Philosophy - you should listen up and not keep tauting the low sciences as though they are some bastion of intellect. Quite frankly I don’t care how many scrips of paper you hold; if your argument is fallacious then it is fallacious.

With the utmost charity; try to ignore for a second who it is who is correcting you; and concentrate instead upon the mistakes that are being illuminated; to personalise a discussion is not good academic standards.
 
The observation of a material entity per se has no causal relationship with the actions of the material entity. How the beam is percieved is irrelevant to how the beam operates; it either operates lineraliy or diagonally; to say it does both using the same mediums is violating the law of noncontradiction.
It only breaks the law of non contradiction if you grant your assumption that time cannot be manipulated. Since your assumption is utterly and stupidly wrong, there’s no problem here.
Another ad-hominem. My education is irrelevant to the points I am making.
Not really. The fact that you don’t know what you’re talking about and are making points that are an affront to reason is a direct result of your being uneducated.
Your equasion is to put it bluntly; pathetic.
Not my equation, Gallieo’s, if I remember correctly.

Incidentally, Equation doesn’t have an s in it.
S is an accident of obvervance; thus not equatable to the genera of T & V. To include them in the same equasion without the qualification of observance is absurd.
ROTFL!!!

It’s an accident that occurs every single time anything moves.
I am not arrogant. You are self-confessed as someone who has little or no knowlege of Philosophy
True, but I do have a towering knowledge of science, including Relativity.
With the utmost charity; try to ignore for a second who it is who is correcting you; and concentrate instead upon the mistakes that are being illuminated; to personalise a discussion is not good academic standards.
You are not correcting me. You haven’t got the wit or the knowledge to correct me. You’re in the presence of a superior mind.
 
It only breaks the law of non contradiction if you grant your assumption that time cannot be manipulated. Since your assumption is utterly and stupidly wrong, there’s no problem here.
The temporality of function X is an accidental property.
Incidentally, Equation doesn’t have an s in it.
Does pettifogger have one or two g’s?
It’s an accident that occurs every single time anything moves.
I am glad we agree it is an accidental property. Why is it relevant how often it happens?
True, but I do have a towering knowledge of science, including Relativity.
That knowlege is irrelevant in verifiying a philosophical claim. My un-scientific perspective on relativity is absolutely irrelevant also. You should know full well that you cannot answer the question of this topic using the low sciences; as it is a metaphysical question.
You’re in the presence of a superior mind.
I dislike arrogance and conceit without base.
If you dislike arrogance and conceit without base; and you have a superior mind then either;

You dislike yourself; OR
You are not arrogant; OR
You know the answer to the question; OR
Your earlier statements were misrepresentations or lies.

Which is it?
 
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