Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the Big Bang.
In their quest for answers regarding the origins of the universe, and imagining themselves to be rational inquisitors, atheists say that they follow the evidence wherever it takes them.
Ah - not so much. Because the implications are so distasteful for them, atheists are barely willing to accept the two words “Big Bang.” Some in fact perform mental contortions to avoid the implications of the universe having a beginning. Their narrow and irrational definition of “evidence” causes atheists to a priori reject the first five words of the verse with hardly a blink of the eye. The contradiction between what they say and what they do passes right over their heads.
“Roughly five hundred years before Jesus was born, Heraclitus coined the term Logos. In Stoicism, logos expresses the ordered and teleologically oriented nature of the cosmos. It can thus be equated with God and with the cosmic power of reason of which the material world is a vast unfolding.” Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich eds., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Abridged in One Bolume, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 1985, 506
John 1:1-5 says: - “In the beginning was the Reasoning Mind (Logos) and the Mind was with God and the Mind was God. / In the beginning was the Cause of the beginning of the universe. / In the beginning the Cause of the beginning of the universe was the Mind and the Cause was with God and the Cause was God. / Through the Mind all things have had a beginning. / All things that have a beginning were given a beginning by the Mind. What the Mind gave a beginning to was Life. / And this life was a light to live by. / The light shines in the darkness but atheists have not understood it.
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>atheists are barely willing to accept the two words “Big Bang.”
Actually it's astronomers who don't like "big bang". See it wasn't big, in fact it was the smallest thing ever and as it happened in a vacuum there wasn't a sound. The term "big bang" was coined by the media of the day when the theory was unveiled.
But the theory still holds for the most part, the universe started with a singularity that started to rapidly expand and is still doing so to this very day.
>Some in fact perform mental contortions to avoid the implications of the universe having a beginning.
Um I don't can you provide some sort of evidence of atheists doing this?
>Their narrow and irrational definition of “evidence” causes atheists
Atheists have their own definition of evidence that is different from theist? Really? What is that definition?
>to a priori reject the first five words of the verse with hardly a blink of the eye.
Well yes because there is no evidence that any sort of god made anything much less the "big bang". And if your god did make the universe why did he wait some 10 billion years to make the Earth? Why did he wait another 4.5 billion years to make us? Why are there so many black holes and fatal to life regions?
>The contradiction between what they say and what they do passes right over their heads.
You haven't provided any examples of that either.
Have you noticed you make a lot of claims but make no effort to back them up?
I just don't get it Makarios, because we don't know what happened before the big bang, or what caused it - it must be god that is responsible for it?
You would have to admit, that if physicists/astronomers one day come up with conclusive proof of how it occured, you would simply take another step back and ask, what caused that? - A.) must be god.
You always, always, always infer that the 'evidence' points to the supernatural. Again, a position i don't understand. What would you do out of interest, if say, the parallel universe theory was true?
I take it god is responsible for each and every one of those universes too?
I think a better question would be,
What would you do if it was discovered that matter COULD be eternal or that it could create or pre exist itself?
What would you do if it was discovered that there COULD be an infinite regress of cause?
What would you do if it was discovered that the physical infinite DOES exist?
Those are the things that keep the option of Creator God a very realistic option and those are the things that lead Richard Dawkins to say, "a compelling case for a deistic God can be made."
Of course for Dawkins, that God would have had to evolve which really solves nothing, but . . .
I don't mean, not exactly, to say that atheists are ignorant jackasses. My target is the incoherent and self-defeating belief of atheism. Of course how does one target the latter without taking down the former who are proponents of the latter?
Mak wrote: My target is the incoherent and self-defeating belief of atheism
Hmmmm ... let's see which position is incoherent:
1. Rely on natural observations and theoretical scientific conjecture to arrive at probable explanations for existence of natural phenomenon and continue pursuit of knowledge to answer that which remains unexplained; or
2. Presuppose a supernatural first cause and rely on ancient holy texts written by people who thought the world was flat to support that view.
>I think a better question would be,
All of that is fine for theoretical discussion but what does any of it have to do with your particular brand of sky god?
See you can pick and choose from science and your creation myths all you like but any argument you make for the Judeo-Christian god could be applied to Zeus, Odin and the Rainbow Serpent.
In other words if the universe was created by a god why was it yours?
There isn't any single group on the planet that's invented more creation myths than atheists.
Makarios said: "There isn't any single group on the planet that's invented more creation myths than atheists."
A MYTH is a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, esp. one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature.
How does this apply?
Every atheist creation myth is
"without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation,"
Mak, your new nickname is Bubbleboy.
So, what 'myths' have any atheists came up with?
Also, i'd like to remind you that although i find it highly improbable, if a god of somesort created the universe, then he is most certainly not the christian god, or any other god that man has perceived.
Like i alluded to previously though, your stance seems to be because we can't explain it, god must be responsible with his supernatural ability.
However, you are someone who apparently believes in the Noah's Ark story. So i suppose you are capable of believing anything.
TAM's post regarding incoherrency was spot on. Any rational, non-deluded person would quite clearly say they fall into category one.
EVEN YOU MAKARIOS, THE ONLY TIME YOU DROP THIS IS WHEN IT COMES TO THEISM/RELIGION.
“What myths have atheists come up with?”
Oscillating universe - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Baby universes - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Multi verses - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
The Cyclic Ekpyrotic Scenario - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
The Chaotic Inflationary universe -What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Brane-cosmology - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Inflationary multi-verse - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Bubble universes floating in a sea of false vacuum - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
The many worlds hypothesis - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
The black hole hypothesis - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Quantum gravity models - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Vacuum fluctuation models - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Imaginary time and imaginary space - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
Space aliens brought life to earth - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
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"then he is most certainly not the christian god,"
What evidence allows you to make a statement like that?
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"your stance seems to be because we can't explain it, god must be responsible with his supernatural ability."
Well here’s what we know or at least know beyond a reasonable doubt.
. Anything that exists has an explanation of it’s existence, either in the necessity of its own nature (It can’t NOT exist), or in an external cause.
. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is external to as well as transcendent to the universe.
That is because:
Existing outside of time, the Cause is infinite or Eternal,
Existing outside of matter (which is finite), the Cause is immaterial or Spiritual,
Existing as the Cause of time and energy, space, matter and the laws of physics, the Cause is immeasurably more powerful than the mathematically precise universe and its exquisitely Finely Tuned constants and quantities.
The Cause cannot be “scientific” because neither matter nor the laws of physics (i.e., the laws that science has observed and identified), existed prior to the Singularity.
Therefore the Cause of the beginning of the universe is not scientific but Personal.
The transcendent Cause of the universe is therefore on the order of a Mind.
That Cause is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
You don't have to call that Cause God, but that term is a lot shorter than "Greatest Conceivable Being."
...
Wow.
Okay... deep breath.
Right, that list are theories, theories are things that scientist use to describe what MAY be going on.
The beautiful thing about theories is how they drive the scientific process with ego as the lubricant.
Scientist A comes up with a theory, he publishes it and his proof. A bunch of scientists in the field read it and some go "That's right!" but a whole bunch say stuff like "Poppycock" and "twaddle" and run off to their own blackboards to savage the theory.
Then as time goes on, experiments are reproduced, refined, more interest is generated and then the theory is proven or disproved.
Some times this happens right away sometimes it takes decades.
But once a theory is dis/proven that's it, it's over for one side or the other.
Evolution for instance is no longer theoretical, every predication made by evolution theory has been confirmed with the mapping of the DNA genome.
Evolution is a fact and it took nearly a hundred years to prove it so.
Now in the case of quantum mechanics right now what science says is "if you think you understand quantum theory then you don't understand quantum theory" so it's no surprise it's still theoretical and highly controversial.
But the controversy ends when a theory is dis/proved.
Religion on the other hand? Oh boy! No matter how many times you show it to be illogical, insane, the product of a Bronze Age culture struggling to explain the world and just a bunch of superstitious nonsense its advocates won't budge.
Why? Because you want it to be real.
Science and the sane on the other hand wants to know if it's real.
Oh and:
>Space aliens brought life to earth - What’s the evidence for it? - There isn’t any.
There is exactly as much evidence for that as there is for your god.
>"then he is most certainly not the christian god,"
>What evidence allows you to make a statement like that?
The same evidence that allows me to make a statement like these:
"then he is most certainly not a unicorn in the Bronx Zoo,"
Why? Because they don't exist, that's a horse that someone stuck an ice cream cone on.
"then he is most certainly not a poltergeist hammering on my wall,"
How do I know that? Because they don't exist, the hammering is my neighbors because they're jealous of how awesome I am at "Guitar Hero" the haters.
"then he is most certainly not the Norse god,"
How do I know that? Because someone as bad-ass as Odin and Thor would not just sit there in Valhalla, they'd be coming down here and do all kinds of crazy things.
Not as crazy as sacrificing themselves to themselves so they don't destroy the world they created in their own image of course.
See you are the one making the fanatical claims of supernatural beings playing a game of cosmic chess with you as a pawn. You need to prove that, not me, that's the theist's burden I'm afraid.
Thanks for answering on my behalf salvage, and i couldn't agree more. So my response couldn't really be any better than what salvage has said mak.
He's spot on with the fact everything you stated are not declared as fact, they are theories - hilariously, despite the fact many of them have the title 'model', or 'hypothesis', you still continue with your utterly pointless rant.
“ and then the theory is proven or disproved.”
My point exactly. Google Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem - If that’s too much trouble I’ll give you the conclusion. Each and every one of those theories is unworkable. Each and everyone of them requires a definitive space / time boundary, a beginning, a singularity a Big Bang Creation Event. Because of the metaphysical implications of Big Bang cosmology, atheists continue to cling to what are now becoming atheist mythologies.
. According to atheism the universe doesn’t have an explanation of its existence. They say that “It just happened.” Over a dozen theories and over a dozen more variations on those theories have come and gone in a vain attempt to rule out God as the Cause of a beginning universe. Despite the current scientific knowledge, atheists persist in stating that either matter has always existed (impossible) or that matter created itself (also impossible). Why do they do this? Because >
. If there is an explanation of the universe’s existence (because it's not Necessary its cause is from something from outside itself), then atheism is not true.
And that is because the only explanation that fits the evidence of how and why the universe came into being is Creator God. That is why Richard Dawkins himself has lately admitted that a good case could be made for the existence of a Deistic God. Actually, I believe that some day there won’t be any atheists. There will be people for God and people against God but there won’t be anyone who believes that God doesn’t exist. And, irony of ironies it will be science that will prove the existence of God.
As one atheist single mother of two said, “A big fuck-you to anyone who believes in original sin. The christian god, should it exist, should be fought and resisted by every MORAL person who has ever lived.”
. Because of overwhelming scientific evidence, most atheists do grudgingly admit that the universe does indeed have a beginning.
Unfortunately for atheists, it can be said with absolute confidence that no cosmogonic model has been:
As repeatedly verified in its predictions,
As corroborated by attempts at its falsification,
As concordant with empirical discoveries, and
As philosophically coherent as the Standard Big Bang Creation Event Model.
. Hence, most atheists are implicitly committed to God being the explanation of why the universe exists. This is why I call atheists irrational agnostics.
>. Each and every one of those theories is unworkable.
Sigh.
When Darwin came out with evolution as the origin of the species the more clever critics said stuff like
“Hey Chuck, how the heck do these traits get passed on from parent to child?”
And Charles had to admit he had no idea but he had a theory that there was some sort of device that did it.
It wouldn’t be until Crick and Watson came along that the theory was confirmed with DNA being the trait-bearer.
Think about that for a moment, DNA was predicted by Darwin, he couldn’t name it, he couldn’t explain it all he saw was a big hole in his theory and he was able to estimate what might fill it.
And he was right. Brilliant, brilliant man. Did more for humanity's advancement than your Jesus ever did.
So you can quote all the top-math nerds you like saying this and that are impossible theories and for each one I can show you another top-math nerd who will say the exact opposite and both of them, if they are honest, will admit that it’s all still theory so either one can be right (or more interestingly, wrong. Science loves being wrong btw).
In short what is unknown today can be found tomorrow but only if we look. Religion doesn’t encourage that sort of thing because every time we go looking for answers and find them gods get smaller.
Surely you've noticed that? As we explain and prove more and more your god fades away? Think about the power religion held in society 500 years ago, 100 years ago, 50 years ago? How much has church attendance declined in developed nations?
> atheists continue to cling to what are now becoming atheist mythologies
>According to atheism the universe doesn’t have an explanation of its existence.
Atheism is the belief that there are no such things as gods, that’s the only mythology it concerns itself with. Why do you have such a hard time understanding that fact?
> Despite the current scientific knowledge, atheists persist in stating that either matter has always existed (impossible) or that matter created itself (also impossible).
Er no. No scientist has ever declared any of those two statements possible or impossible in relation to the origins of the universe. What they do say is “This is what we know and this is what we theorize.” Some theories have aspects of your statement others do not. Right now “membrane” theory is the hot one (or at least the one I like) and it suggests that it’s an endless multi-verse in vibrating membranes (explains why the universe seems to be straight and curved at the same time) that occasionally smacks into each other creating a “spark” of energy that has transformed over billions of years into what we now live in. It all may have a beginning and end but it's so huge it almost doesn't matter.
> If there is an explanation of the universe’s existence (because it's not Necessary its cause is from something from outside itself), then atheism is not true.
So there is a Zeus? Holy crap! I better get a bull, I’m waaay behind in my sacrifices to him.
Once again, you can say that there is a god because something can’t come from nothing but then why your god? I’m more inclined to believe in the Pagan ones, at least they made sense and knew how to par-tay.
>And that is because the only explanation that fits the evidence of how and why the universe came into being is Creator God.
Er… no, not really. See the universe we’re in is a violent and hostile place, most of it is empty, lethal to life and seems more interested in turning everything into black holes rather than helping humanity out. If this universe was made by a god it’s a god that has no interest in sentient life. We only showed up 14.5 billion years and only after the dinosaurs! How can anyone think that we were a priority of any god? More a side-effect I think.
>That is why Richard Dawkins himself has lately admitted that a good case could be made for the existence of a Deistic God.
Dawkins is a scientist, science hates saying anything for certain without proof. Sure you can look at life and think that maybe something intelligent started it (not designed it, there are so many stupid mistakes no one with that kind of power would make) but why your god? What makes your myths and superstitions more likely than the Muslim, Jewish, Hindi, Native American ones?
> Hence, most atheists are implicitly committed to God being the explanation of why the universe exists. This is why I call atheists irrational agnostics.
Ah yes, theist boilerplate number 7; there are no such things as atheists, classic.
No, I’m sorry but since an atheist is someone who knows there are no such things as gods they do not believe that the universe was made by one. It is a chaotic maelstrom of death in the void not the work of some intelligent being. It’s matter being squished together by gravity and then reacting in all kinds of strange and wonderful ways.
Your god did not make the stars, your god did not make us, you and your kind made your god and that's why atheism just makes sense.
“I can show you another top-math nerd who will say the exact opposite and both of them,”
No you can’t. Even Hawking who owns several of those theories admits that none of them are workable for precisely the reason stated.
Have you ever heard the line, said by people who have been looking for something, “It was in the last place that I looked.”? Sounds stupid, right? Well, each of these theories was someone looking for something. Guess what? They’re still looking. Why? Because the answer wasn’t in the other theories. If the answer had been in theory #4 there wouldn't have been theories 5 though 12.
None of them are workable!
And do you know why they keep looking past the Big Bang? Not because it doesn’t fit what we know, but because it points to a supernatural Cause. That’s the one thing that takes atheists from practising science to devolving into mythology. Even fairy tails are better than allowing God into the picture.
The Creation Event is so serious a problem for those who have devolved into Scientism that they are now claiming, without any evidence whatsoever, that something CAN have a beginning without a cause. Here are some examples of what atheist scientists are saying.
Astronomer Arthur Eddington - “The concept of the Big Bang is preposterous, incredible, repugnant.”
Physicist Philip Morrison - “I find it hard to accept the Big Bang theory. I would like to reject it.”
Physicist Victor Stenger - “The universe may be uncaused and may have emerged from nothing.”
On the “bright” side David Hume stated, “I have never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without cause.”
Well, back in his day, when atheists were still hopeful that their faith system would prevail, that might have been possible for him to say. It is my belief that if Hume had known that Christianity would prove so resistant to destruction, he would have joined today’s atheist scientists in throwing off all restraints, put his integrity on the shelf, proposed ever more ridiculous scenarios and in that manner he would have increased his intellectual stature among the atheist crowd.
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Right now “membrane”
Hey! Doofus! Brane cosmology requires a singularity, a definitive space / time boundary. See what I mean? This is what I’m talking about. Atheists will have known science smack them right upside the head and they’ll still cling to what has been proven impossible because the alternative is Creator God
Dawkins is a scientist, science hates saying anything for certain without proof.
Just the opposite of you, I see :-)
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For one, Christianity is the only philosophy whose prime character is historical and verifiable for anyone willing to apply the same criteria to other historical works of the time.
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It’s matter being squished together . . ."
Excuse me? And what matter would that be? The stuff that at one point in time didn’t exist? Right?
And that’s why this so-called rational atheism says that everything came from nothing without any cause whatsoever. It just happened. Pfft!
You just don't want to give up on the, 'what made the big bang?', question do you?
I've tried this before.
We don't know.
There are theories, but we do not know. There is no shame in admitting that, at least not to me.
That does not mean that god is the default. Stop it. This is getting tiresome.
You like posing the thought of matter being eternal. If we humans try to think about something as having existed forever, you will find that we struggle to conceptualise this thought. We can't really comprehend something having been around forever without something making it.
Funnily enough, christians and other religionists abandon this when it comes to the inevitable question of what created their god? Is he eternal?
The obvious answer from christians would be of course he is, but supernatural or not, the same conundrum applies.
To ignore that is a classic display of the suspension of critical thinking.
I don't have any problem with conceiving the eternal.
The FACT is, matter cannot be eternal.
That's a scientific FACT.
Prior to science confirming this FACT religious scientists / philosophers said that in order for the universe to be here EITHER matter had to be eternal OR an external cause had to be eternal.
Because of science, we know that matter cannot be eternal. It's as well established as gravity or the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
So, as you seem to be doing yet again, to ask What created an eternal being? or When did an eternal being begin to exist is just really, really, silly.
Absolutely brilliant.
You highlight precisely what i was trying to point out.
You have this understanding that matter cannot be eternal, but your god can.
Nothing had to create him?
He has been around from the beginning - oh wait, what beginning?
Never mind, an eternal being, ever-so more complex than the problem at hand, and therefore introduces even more complexities a la 'who created him?' to the scene, makes way more sense than any of the theories we currently have or may make in the future.
Right.
Also, ironic that you allow science to convince you on the matter of our beginnings (pun intended, immediately regretted lol) - yet you WON'T let science convince you on, for example, the story of Noah's Ark.
Well played.
How does that make your point?
Creator God is not material. Existing prior to the creation of matter, the Cause must be Spirit or immaterial.
The Cause cannot be “scientific” because neither matter nor the laws of physics (i.e., the laws that science has observed and identified), existed prior to the Singularity.
Therefore the Cause of the beginning of the universe is not scientific but Personal.
The transcendent Cause of the universe is therefore on the order of a MIND.
Now, you talk about the Cause of the Universe being more complicated that the universe itself. That's ridiculous.
Richard Dawkins says that a complicated God is very improbable. Maybe, but improbable is better than impossible. Eternal matter or matter creating or pre existing itself is impossible.
As well, whose to say that God is complicated? A mind may be capable of doing complicated things but that is another issue. A mind, in and of itself is not complicated.
The fact is Richard Dawkins and the atheists who follow him haves absolutely no problem with highly improbable odds when they suit his cause.
Thats no exactly what i said, what i said was if the complicated problem is what created the universe, and the answer you give is a god created it.
Then that answer introduces more complexities to answer for.
My point stands because it doesn't matter if god is immaterial, the problem of conceiving infinite still applies. How could he have been around for ever? What made him? It doesn't make sense.
If he can have existed forever, then why not matter?
I believe Hawking's theory of the big bang is that it is the reversal of a black hole. All the matter was in there, but somehow it managed to escape.
Just putting that out there.
Oh, and just because you have convinced YOURSELF that the creation of the universe being done by anything other than god is improbable, does not mean that Richard Dawkins and co. agree. I think you'd find that if Dawkins found out that in all probability, a god did create this universe, he would not discard it.
In fact Makarios, he covers this in 'The God Delusion', he is willing to concede that it is possible, indeed plausible that a 'god' created the universe, as we simply don't know.
However, that 'god' is most probably not the christian god, or any god we have ever conceptualised if it exists.
How could he have been around for ever? What made him? It doesn't make sense."
Atheists, as I've stated before don't seem to have any problem with something (including matter) being infinite. As long as it's not Creator God. Why is that. It makes sense if matter is infinite, it doen't make sens if Creator God is infinite. THAT's what doesn't make sense to me.
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If he can have existed forever, then why not matter?
Because the physical infinite does not, and indeed cannot exist.
You have it all wrong.
I'm not saying matter has always existed, i'm just making you aware of a theory.
But yeah mak, i have no problem admitting that the concept of eternal matter is easier to comprehend than an eternal god.
Why?
At least we irrefutably and unambiguously know matter exists.
Again, i'm not saying it is eternal. I was just pointing out that you don;t like the diea of eternal matter, but are more than happy to accept eternal god.
Your point is twisted because its no infite that is the problem, it is god that is the problem.
I'm not going to tell you again that i do not reject the idea of something creating everything.
What i reject with every electron in my body is that if there is an improbable creator, he is not the god of the christian bible, or any other religion.
I was just pointing out that you don;t like the diea of eternal matter,"
If there was evidence that showed matter could be eternal instead of showing that it can't be eternal, then I would accept that.
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Your point is twisted because its no infite that is the problem, it is god that is the problem.
Well, if you're trying to say that the materal infinite is possible, then the infinite IS the problem.
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if there is an improbable creator, he is not the god of the christian bible, or any other religion.
I don't understand that. Why do you say that?
Magic Word: Evidence.
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