To whom it may concern,  I must go home know but I shall return here about lunch time tommorow.  I would love to be proven wrong because if I am wrong I have alot of partying to do.  However I hope to find several engaging conversations. til tommorow

I apologize in advance for feeding the troll.  I’ve never been good at following zoo directions.

The argument that “You can’t get something from nothing” can just as easily be applied to dog, er, god.  Where did God come from?  If it is possible for god to simply have always existed, why not the essential building blocks of the universe?

BTW, no scientific article I’ve read that seriously discusses the big bang has implied that matter came from nothing.  Whether through an energy to matter conversion, or an explosive reaction due to critical density, there was something that interacted to create the big bang.  That matter did not need to be created, it has always been there, just as creationists claim god has always been there.  The current cycle of our universe, which began approximately 12 billion years ago, is almost certainly not the first event.

As to time, if you believe the bible, god himself operated within the constraints of time.  He created the earth in six days.  His first act was to create the heavens and the earth, then he divided the light from the dark.  It doesn’t say, “First god created time, so that he might know one day from the next.“  You would think that god would have made sure Moses got that one down, if it were a critical element.

teddy, have you ever considered that you might be boring as fuck? No? Then you wouldn’t begin to consider that you’re coming across as a little bit psycho.

At the very least consider that you aren’t likely to see the inconsistencies in your own statements:

teddy said: Since he is the creator of all energy and matter and can create more without effort, then why must he be limited in scope to what he can do.

Then teddy said: Something cannot come from nothing.

Make up your mind dude. Can something come from nothing or not?

It’s my opinion that nothing is nothing and even a god could not make something of it unless it was something else to begin with.

But I can already tell that you’re going to give us nothing and that is something after all.

I’m a quality engineer, which means I deal with the collection, interpretation, and analysis of data to make decisions.  Harmless enough, right?

When I think I have a correlation between data (evidence) and a result (which then drives a decision), I test this data statistically to determine the degree of correlation based on the data available.  To do this, I must formulate a null hypothesis.  Essentially, I start from the foundation that X does not affect Y, and then statistically evaluate the data to determine if the null hypothesis holds true.  If it does not, it means that X does affect Y, (which is good for me in most cases, because it means I have determined a correlation.)  If the null holds true, then there is insufficient data to support the failure of the null.

The point being, that if we start from the assumption that there is no god, and then data clearly shows that there is a god, then the original hypothesis has failed, and there must be a god.  However, if the hypothesis holds true, there may still be a god, but we have insufficient data to prove his existence.

If we start from the perspective that there is a god, and the data clearly shows that there is no god, then the hypothesis fails, and there must be no god.  However, if the hypothesis holds true, we simply do not have enough data to deny the existence of god.

When taken this way, it is overwhelmingly in favor of the creationists for an atheist to assume that the null hypothesis is no god.

However, the simple fact is that god, as defined by himself, his followers and the supposed written works, is unquantifiable.  Opinions, hypotheses, and conjecture can be offered by either side, but there is no REAL MEASURABLE data that can be used to test the hypothesis one way or the other.  If there were, then the discussion would be completely irrelevant, and there would be no need for faith.

I believe there is no god.  I cannot prove this hypothesis, nor is there sufficient evidence to convince me that the alternate hypothesis is correct.  If there were, then again, there would be no need for faith.  Since god himself clearly states that faith is a requirement for his followers, he must then have engineered his existence such that he will remain undetectable, unquantifiable, and unprovable to us, if he in fact exists.

:groan: Teddy - Please go back and read some of the archives as even your presuppositions about atheists are flawed.

Try this, in your mind, go back in time until you get to point where you are not absolutely sure what took place.  Here we find a fundamental flaw of most Christians.  This is where Christians will presuppose an imaginary being and continue onward.  Atheists tend to stop here, turn around and examine everything that has taken place and develop theories and tests.  In doing so the atheist continues to expand the known and lessen the unknown.

Christians have a tendency to start with the unknown, weakly define it, and move back toward the known.

Atheists tend to start with known and work toward the unknown. That way, when we arrive at that point we have a strong, scientific foundation on which to base logical theories about the unknown.

Awwww, I miss all the fun these days.

*pout*

Teddy, I can’t answer your god-fantasy but I can help you with posting.  You can address several people in the same post like this:

Skippy - Hey! 

Brock - you rascal, you…

DeadScot - Aw, hell, Teddy won’t go back and read the archives to see that this shit’s been asked and answered lots of times.  They never do.

Zilch - If I forgot to mention this, you totally crack me up.

See?  Try it that way.

I’m surprised that no one asked teddy (on an aside, I used to have a friend named Teddy in highschool, we all called him Spready) if something cannot come from nothing and therefore the universe had to be made by God, where did God come from?

Actually Skippy did ask that very question.

Teddy, we’ve been here and done this too many times already. So far you’ve not put forth any ideas that haven’t been beaten to a bloody pulp too many times in the past here on SEB. When you come up with an original thought then I’ll try to engage you in a discussion, but until then you’d be best served with reading through the archives.

{quote] Skippy said: The argument that “You can’t get something from nothing�? can just as easily be applied to dog, er, god.  Where did God come from?  If it is possible for god to simply have always existed, why not the essential building blocks of the universe?

Dude, where have you been?  Don’t you realize that Dog can do Anything, including Wagging His Tail at logic?  Let me it lay down for you:  there’s a hard and fast line between the Real Universe, where logic and laws apply, and Dog, where Anything Goes.  He can Bark and Time Disappears!  He can Fetch a Stick, and He has Fetched Himself! (don’t ask me to explain how- I’m merely a Kitten in His Sight)

errr….  yeah….  I guess I should read a little more carefully….

  I would love to be proven wrong because if I am wrong I have alot of partying to do.

Teddy- unfortunately, proving you wrong is impossible, just as disproving the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn (Hallowed be Her Unitarian Horniness) is impossible.  However, I have it on good authority, my beloved Baptist Grandma Hattie, that Baptists can party too (as long as she isn’t married), so have a great time!  And don’t forget the condom (you’re not Catholic, too, are you?)

Dude, where have you been?  Don’t you realize that Dog can do Anything, including Wagging His Tail at logic?  Let me it lay down for you:  there’s a hard and fast line between the Real Universe, where logic and laws apply, and Dog, where Anything Goes.  He can Bark and Time Disappears!  He can Fetch a Stick, and He has Fetched Himself! (don’t ask me to explain how- I’m merely a Kitten in His Sight)

And I would be nothing more than an absorbent piece of clay in the Great Litterbox.

And I would be nothing more than an absorbent piece of clay in the Great Litterbox.

Don’t knock it, dude.  What do you think The Supreme BowWow made the Earth of?

Zilch: A preposition is something you shouldn’t end a sentence with.
Teddy: “Somewhere in you youth or childhood…“ You were quoting the lirics from “The Sound of Music”, no?
Skippy: A very logical conclusion.
Zilch, again: How do I find out more about The Invisible Pink Unicorn? Must I wait until New Year’s Eve? And why do so many humans seek mind-altering substances and books?

“Oh, it’s a “great read.�? Yes, some parts are worth reading; others closely resemble the rantings of a lunatic, and still others sound like a kind of prehistoric telephone book.“

Your statement reminds me of readers who read a whole lot, but hate the classics.  Most of the time, those readers are intelligent and love to read, but don’t like the classics because the language is old and takes more time to read, and a lot of the connotations and inferences are lost.  If they knew the historical situation, the language, the inferences, they would realize they are reading some pretty juicy stuff that’s much better that what they usually read. 

I didn’t think the Bible was a good read either, until I got some context.  An example is the “prehistoric telephone book.“  It would read that way to someone who read all the begetting.  So and so begat so and so and at some point, you say, so what?? 

A thorough understanding of the historical and prophetic portions of the Bible would give you the context necessary to understand WHY the so and so begat so and so is listed.  All of a sudden, understanding the reason behind it makes it interesting and meaningful. 

If someone were to make a series of movies about the Bible that actually reflected what was described in it, it would be the most fantastic epic you have ever seen.  It would be rated X or at least NC-17, and have violence, illicit sex, kings, peasants, incredible love stories, torture, acts of courage, sacrifice, joy, heart warming stories, and the most incredible character ever contemplated on in the history of the world: God.  And that is not because God is some horrible being, but because it is filled with the stories of humanity.  There is no situation you are in now that is not reflected in the Bible.  Thousands of years ago, people were still people and God was still God.

Amazing.  God bless!

Les, on your main page, you should have a permalink to a master entry on the “known arguments of religious types.“ List out the core required reading material and have links to past discussions that refute/discuss each one.  Highlight it as “Read this shit before you start another pointless rant.“

At the very least, we could then simply click on that link when discussing this stuff, instead of having to search for, “Oh, where the hell did I read the discussion on the Intelligent Design premise?“

Or am I just being lazy?  Wait…don’t answer that.  I fully admit my slothfulness.

Quoth Charlamarla:

Thousands of years ago, people were still people and God was still God.

Amazing.  God bless!

Wow. If things get any more sappy around here I’m likely to go into sugar shock.

Skippy squeeked:

Les, on your main page, you should have a permalink to a master entry on the “known arguments of religious types.�? List out the core required reading material and have links to past discussions that refute/discuss each one.  Highlight it as “Read this shit before you start another pointless rant.�?

I have plans for something along those lines such as a FAQ of sorts. It’s still a work in progress though.

leguru queried: Zilch, again: How do I find out more about The Invisible Pink Unicorn? Must I wait until New Year’s Eve? And why do so many humans seek mind-altering substances and books?

1)Just google Her.  Mind, don’t oogle Her- She’s got that Horn, remember…
2)Yes.
3)Uh… I forgot the question… yes, I’ve had enough…

teddy queried: Zilch, Can something come from nothing?

teddy, if you’re still with us, I answered, albeit flippantly, with my Dog stuff above.  But for your shopping convenience, here’s a summation of the answers to your question, and other common reasons for supposing the existence of God to have explanatory power.  SEB regulars, you may groan and skip this.

How come there’s anything at all?
How can time have a beginning?
How can something come from nothing?
How come there’s order in the universe?
How can life have come from chaos?

The first four questions are in the purview of Cosmology and Physics, and the last of Biogenesis and Evolution.  While physicists are struggling to answer their questions, and theories abound, no all-encompassing solutions acceptable to everyone have been formulated yet.  Moreover, while someday there may be found mathematical models that fit the evidence well, it is not a foregone conclusion that they will be intuitively understandable- as Richard Feynmann said of quantum mechanics, anyone who thinks he understands it doesn’t.  It might be that our animal brains simply can’t conceive of these things.  I’m agnostic on that, however.

The last question is not close to a solution yet, either, although biochemists understand more and more about how order, feeding on energy to escape the Second Law of Thermodynamics, can become ever more ordered: that’s evolution. And some of the Just-So stories of how it all might have started, such as Smith-Cairns’ crystal formation on clay, may be testable someday.

The problem of proposing God as an explanation for something-from-nothing, or order-from-chaos, is that it simply moves the question one step back: where did God come from?  This weakness has of course been realized for many centuries, from at least Plato to Hume, and many a person (I did too) comes up with this question independently.  Supposing a god has no explanatory power whatsoever.  If the problem is to explain how matter and order came to be, then it is a problem to explain the existence of God as well, and this problem is not addressed by believers.

Usually, of course, believers ascribe some power to God that defies logic- He created Himself, or He was always here, and deny that the universe could have created itself or always have existed.  But if logic is tossed out the window, why ask logical questions about the real world at all?  One might as well suppose that we’re all brains in vats, or living in the Matrix, and all we can do is try to guess what the Supercomputer has is store for us.  A mug’s game at best.

But logic, and its extension: information plus logic equals science, has explanatory power that, while never perfect, we can and do bet our lives on.

Note- this is of course not a disproof that God exists.  As someone said, God is found neither at the end of a syllogism, nor at the end of a telescope.  Maybe She exists, and my ass is grass.  But I doubt it.

zilch,

If she exists she’s probably a nice lady and would be willing to overlook your lack of faith.  I hope her name’s Max and she has a nice….  Ummm…  What were we talking about again?

I hope her name’s Max and she has a nice….  Ummm… What were we talking about again?

I hope she has twonice… what was it again?

This is to les:

“Wow. If things get any more sappy around here I’m likely to go into sugar shock.“

That’s just the beginning my friend! I could tell you about His sweet love, the miracles I’ve had in my life, but I won’t right now, since you’re a skeptic.  At the very least, the Bible stories are so much fun!  I was just talking about the story of David and the Ark of the Covenant, where David, the king of Israel strips to his loincloth and dances with all his might in the middle of the street in a festival to honor God.  His wife, who thought this was horribly undignified for a King, had some not so nice words for him. He told her he would humiliate himself even more if it was necessary.

Now, if you can’t enjoy that story…something is WRONG with you, LOL.  Imagine if Dubya stripped down to his underwear on the Whitehouse lawn, cameras rolling, dancing for all he’s worth, hollering, Lawd, Jesus! I would have a field day.

That book is the most entertaining book you could ever read.  Some churches might be boring, but the Big Guy wins the “most intriguing” award hands down!

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it? (Amos 3:6, KJV)
Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? (Lamentations 3:38)

Wow thanks for that Sue. I am just SOOOOO enlightened.  My response to that is “And…?“

We can all quote- doesn’t make it true.  If I quote bits of the Koran, does it make Islam more true than Jesusanity?

Aww fuck- why bother- just another drive by troll who won’t be back.

Aww fuck- why bother- just another drive by troll who won’t be back.

Oh Hussar of little faith- some trolls do come back for more and more and more, and we of small minds and idle fingers do also come back for more and more and more…