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Churchwork

11-24-2006, 03:07 PM

4 Steps to Proving God of the Bible (http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/perfectproof.htm)

I read multiple articles at a site called fstdt, a critique by Juliet (and someone who calls themselves Yahweh inappropriately) of the 4 Step Proof for God of the Bible. It is a lengthy response to the 4 Step Proof, and I was praying how could I help them see the forest through the trees? So I sent them this message.

Simplicity is usually the key and as Gary Habermas says, use the minimal facts approach, that is, focus on the aspects that are central to your proof and put everything else aside for the time being, which you can come back to later. The problem with Juliet is she has gotten so far off the proof itself. She needs to come back to it, otherwise she would be guilty of trying to be couth, cunning, and attempting misdirection like a magician or charlatan selling snake oil. So let me bring you back and let you deal specifically with the proof itself instead of going on a tangent. Don't let Satan steer you away from the proof itself.

Step 1 is vital. It says, if anyone contends for an eternity of the past of cause and effects (and yes many have proposed this), then you would have had an eternity to be perfected (read the rest of the paragraph for why this is necessarily going to happen if there was an eternity of the past). However, since you still sin, you know there has not been an eternity of the past of cause and effects. Taking a sample of these past 6000 years in observing, quantifiably, the exponential progression of our conscience, you know it won't take another 6000 years to reach God's definition of sinlessness in the saved. It is not a valid excuse to say we are defining sin by God's terms. All you need realize is we do put people in jail with no mention of God because they sin. For our purposes all we need see is that sinlessness is at a bare minimum not making damaging mistakes such as mistreating another person or being unhealthy to yourself. Today, pagan nations don't usually throw their children into the fiery mouth of Molech. However, people do perform abortions and there are Islamic suicide bombers taught at the youngest of ages to be suicide mass-murders. Nonetheless, it is an exponential improvement in conscience since we would never commit to the actual throwing of the child into the idol of Molech's fiery mouth directly. Science and technology are NOT determinants of exponential improvements in conscience. Previously, it was common practice to marry multiple spouses. Today, this is frowned upon. Previously, it was common practice for two men to stand at a distance face to face in a gunslinging shootout. This would never be allowed today. Previously, men would be thrown into a stadium to be mauled by animals and gladiators would fight to the death. This is no longer conscionable. You could keep citing example after example.

Second step: someone says, ok fine, but what if the universe started all by itself at some point? Look at the cosmos and know it is very complicated. Since nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect. Therefore, since nothing, in more than a trillion examples, ever proves something happens without a cause, we can with the greatest of probabilities conclude everything has a cause. Since everything has a cause that is in known existence, then logic states that which is uncreated must have created. This is step 2 in the proof.

Step 3, which is misrepresented, does not say what Juliet says it said. Since the person, who can not overturn step 1 or 2, then tries to argue for something else, they try to argue against the attributes of some god, which is not the attributes of God of the Bible. Do you see how this is disingenuous? As the minimal facts approach is concerned, this proof does not care about other gods, but is merely proving God of the Bible, so if you want to put forth an argument, address it against God of the Bible and not trying to dispute some god.

Once the person appreciates step 3, they provide their one last stand at the ok corral-Step 4. They say, well why can't there be gods created gods for an eternity of the past so that your God is created also? This is just an offshoot of step 1, but instead of dealing with things in nature, it proposes gods created gods in the supernatural to explain our existence. This violates the principle proven in step 1 which say if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects, whomever the constituents are, you still would have had an eternity to be perfected due to our observation today of the exponential progression cited. Try yourself to think of some more examples of exponential progression of our conscience in the saved. Note the unsaved do not want to change so that is why hell is created. In eternity hell takes care of them, and Juliet.

Do you see how the proof has remained the same proof since the beginning: not the beginning of my mentioning it, but with Moses recording it on papyrus. Ultimately the first person this knowledge was acquired by would be Adam since Adam was the first man made in God's image with a spirit of God-consciousness. We are all given the ability to know this, which is why even in a simpler form, it is known by just looking up at the stars and the sky to know that this is vastly intelligently designed. Do you see how the proof proves itself, does not make any claims on the inspiration of the Bible, but merely deals with the minimal facts approach? It focuses just on the 4 points. Now knowing this is true, that the uncreated created whom we can call God-the uncreated God would be God of the Bible since God is righteous, holy, pure and true. Such God would necessitate His mercy and that mercy is revealed when Jesus entered into creation to die on the cross for your sins to give you eternal life if you were willing to receive it. None compare to the love of Christ, He said He is God and proved it, fulfilling 62 prophecies (probabilities less than 1 in a trillion for any mortal man to get lucky), surrounding 40 writers over 1500 years, in a historical-religio context, showing God's redemptive design, and the apostles died for testifying to His resurrection and ascension. The resurrection of Christ is unique and best testified. No person is more well documented in antiquity. There are 42 writers, both Christian and non-Christian speaking of Jesus in the first 150 years of his death. This far outweighs the number of writers about the Emperor of Rome who died 11 years after Jesus died by a margin of 4 to 1. Skeptics have no considerable valid explanation against Jesus being God.

Juliet

11-25-2006, 05:54 PM

Churchwork,

I appreciate your invitation to respond to your post. Some of things that will follow will, without a doubt, be extremely offensive to you. I'm going to be upfront: I have a tendency to come off as extremely elitist and condescending, and I have a tendency to talk down to other people (usually for good reasons).

Let me also state upfront that I've read a lot of proofs for God, and yours, no matter how much effort you put into it, is really the worst one I've ever read. I'm not sure if you already know this or not, but basically you're reiterating a very ancient argument for god called the cosmological argument, a particular variant that most people know as Kalam's Cosmological Argument (http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/kalamcosmological.html):
(1) Everything that has a beginning of its existence has a cause of its existence.
(2) The universe has a beginning of its existence.
Therefore:
(3) The universe has a cause of its existence.
(4) If the universe has a cause of its existence then that cause is God.
Therefore:
(5) God exists.

As near as I can tell, you're 4-step proof for God is really just an overly verbose way of stating the following:
1) The Universe is finite, so it has a beginning
2) Anything with a beginning has a cause
3) A first cause follows from an uncaused cause, which is god
4) Therefore god exists

(^^^^ note: please dont mind that this may not be an exact formulation of what you've said. I noticed that you accused me of being tricked by Satan when I made previous comments that "overassumed" (I've never heard of that word in my life) parts of what you were trying to say.)

You probably noticed that the cosmological argument really doesnt specify why god created the universe, what god did before or after he created the universe, or name any of his characteristics; essentially, the cosmological argument proves the existence of a deistic god, without providing any other details (and certainly no details that provide a basis for a religion). For this reason, you provided some reasons for why you think the god who exists just happens to be your conception of god.

Now, while cosmological arguments in all of their flavors are very popular for their simplicity and intuitive reasonableness, but yours is the least persuasive flavor of the cosmological argument I've ever seen in the 15+ years I've been studying the philosophy of religion. Basically, you tried to explain each premise of your four-step proof down to its axioms (or something very near to them), but your explanations were horrifically dubious and presumptuous, just take your Step 1 for example, which you describe as:
Step 1 is vital. It says, if anyone contends for an eternity of the past of cause and effects (and yes many have proposed this), then you would have had an eternity to be perfected (read the rest of the paragraph for why this is necessarily going to happen if there was an eternity of the past). However, since you still sin, you know there has not been an eternity of the past of cause and effects. ... For our purposes all we need see is that sinlessness is at a bare minimum not making damaging mistakes such as mistreating another person or being unhealthy to yourself.At first, this looks like a great big loop of circular logic (i.e. trying to prove Christianity based on the concept of sin, where the concept of sin is only meaningful if Christianity is true), but you redefined sin to mean any kind of harm you do to another person. At the very least, I can say you're not arguing in a circle...
... however, you are making some extremely unjustified and dubious presumptions:

- you are using the existence of humans as a way to measure the age of the universe when you havent shown that humans have existed since the very beginning of the universe. Your argument from sin, that we progress to a more sinless state over time, and that given an infinite amount of time we should be sinless, might be true (its not, and I'll get to that a little later), but the age of the universe and the existence of humans arent intrinsically connected to each other. Theres no contradiction in saying that the universe stretches back into infinity (perhaps in an endless cycle of bangs and crunches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch)), but things in the universe (such as humans) exist during fleeting moments in time; quite simply, the universe existed before humans, so humans could have a beginning (and hence still be sitting in their sinful state), but the universe could be infinite, no contradiction between the two.

For that reason, your four-step proof for God breaks down at the first level, because you havent actually tied the sinfulness of humans to the age of the universe. By application of your argument (once we've established that its not connected to the age of the universe), the fact I still sin says nothing about the age of the universe, only the age of humans. Humans have not existed for eternity, and that is all we can gather from your argument.

Believe me, there are other problems (such as whether we really are progressing morally, especially in light of the fact that most people are products of their culture and believe that their culture, no matter what it does, is more righteous than all other cultures), but I'm trying to keep my post brief. (You've probably never seen my posts on other forums, but I'm the most verbose person ever, and I can write and write and write for hours :) )

Of course, I want to note that your Step 1 makes a bizarre claim that is never substantiated or explained: that given an infinite amount of time, that humans would become infinitely righteous... the problem being that you havent shown that humans will even exist indefinitely. I think its extremely likely that we will kill each other off long before infinity. So the human species has a start, and it has an end, just like every other species that has ever existed. If the universe were eternal, we would have ceased to exist an eternity ago.

Basically, there are better ways to prove the finititude of the universe, you dont have to rely on the incredibly esoteric "sin" argument you have. I'll prove that universe is finite for you, using a more contemporary and well-accepted explanation:

- If you've taken even a high school level science class, you should know the laws of thermodynamics, you should know how they're applied, you should know the difference between an open and closed system.

- In laymens terms, you can never get out all of energy you put into a system, because some of it always becomes useless heat. Thats why, even in a vacuum, if you drop a ball on the ground and just let it bounce on its own, each successive bounce will be less intense than the last, until gradually the ball comes to a stop; where did all the energy go? With each bounce, the ball compresses slightly, which causes friction between the material inside the ball and converts a small amount of that energy into heat. Eventually, all of the kinetic energy is used up until it just stops.

-- The same principle explains why perpetual motion machines are impossible. You've probably seen a hand-cranked generator that turns on a lightbulb (or if you go to the gym, some eletronic machines like a stationary bike are powered by our own peddling), then you're familiar with an electric generator. You've also probably seen an electric motor, like a vacuum cleaner, which needs a constant stream of electricity going through it to power the motor. Some people have thought they could create perpetual motion machines by hooking up a series of generators and motors in a circle, where each motor turns the generator crank and each turn of the crank supplies the motor with energy, so that essentially the machine could be self-powered and run forever. That sounds intuitively correct, and some people have certainly tried to make it work, but it just doesnt. The friction from internal mechanisms of the machines turns a small amount of each crank of the engine into useless heat, and the machine will begin to slow down more and more until it just stops. Unless you supply that machine with some outside source of energy, it will just grind to a halt.

- The principle above is the second law of thermodynamics, where the amount of heat or entropy in closed systems tends to increase and their wont be any available energy left for movement. Because the universe encompasses everything, it is a closed system, so given enough time the universe will eventually use up all its available energy, and all movement will stop as a result of the same rules that ceased the movement of the bouncing ball. You might have heard of this scenario called heat death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death), which is projected to occur in 10^900 to 10^1000 years time.

- If the universe is infinitely old, it should evidently be older than 10^1000 years, and so heat death should have already occurred. It hasnt, so the universe cannot be infinitely old, so it is finite.

The heat death argument isnt exactly bulletproof for at least two reasons:
- You've probably heard of the Big Crunch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch), where the mass in the universe will eventually slow the expansion of the universe and cause it collapse in on itself. It is concievable that the universe is born and dies through an endless cycle of bangs and crunches, so that concievably the universe could be infinitely old and gone through an infinite number of heat deaths through each bang-crunch cycle. (Its worth nothing that theres just not very good evidence that there really is a bang-crunch cycle, and we have no way of knowing whether this universe we live in is the first and only universe, or whether its just another aspect of the universe that has existed for eternity.)

- Ironically, if God exists, then his continued existence negates the heat death, because his continued interference in the universe is constantly adding energy (that presumes that God isnt subject to the laws of thermodynamics himself), and the universe could concievably infinitely old if God is constantly supplying the universe with more energy.

In short, Step 1 mangles the cosmological argument because your reasoning doesnt sufficiently show that the universe really does have a beginning, you're just using a very dubious calculation of the universe. The problem with Step 2 is the amount of question begging:
Second step: someone says, ok fine, but what if the universe started all by itself at some point? Look at the cosmos and know it is very complicated. Since nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect. Therefore, since nothing, in more than a trillion examples, ever proves something happens without a cause, we can with the greatest of probabilities conclude everything has a cause. Since everything has a cause that is in known existence, then logic states that which is uncreated must have created. This is step 2 in the proof.There are 2 primary objections to this statement, the first is a theological objection, the second is a scientific objection:

- Theological objection:
This has probably never occurred to you, but if Step 2 is true, then your religion is false, even if God exists or not, because the statement "nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect" is a fundamental denial of free will, on the basis that the cause of all of their actions must come from a prior effect, which in turn must come from a prior cause, ad infinitum until the first cause which you believe to be God. If God is the ultimate cause of everything, he is the ultimate cause of all the evil in the universe, and people never actually made a free choice to believe or disbelieve in God, because all events were set in motion and determined from the very beginning. (Some people have no problem with predestination, but I think that view of God is extremely offensive to religion, because a god who predestines people to go to hell is a monster and not worthy of worship.)

On the contrary, if people do have free will, then we have at least one example of something in nature happening outside of the laws of cause and effect, which serves to falsify Step 2.

- Scientific objection:
My biggest problem with your argument is that you havent actually shown Step 2 to be true, you only stated it categorically. At best, you're statement is just an intuitional statement, but it is ignorant and arrogant to an extreme to think you can refute science with your own intuitional preconceptions, and its ignorant to think you can define science with your intuitions.

Intuition is one of the first, but least accurate tools for gaining knowledge of the universe. As is frequently the case, its just wrong, and there are many apparently "paradoxes" that have been developed with exploit our usually fallible intuitional beliefs:
- The classic example, the Birthday Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox): lets say started gathering random people into a room. How many people do you think we need to grab before we can say, with 50% probability, that two people in that room share the same birthday? How many people do we need before we have 99% probability that two people will share the same birthday? You only need 23 for 50% probability, and about 100 people for 99% probability. This completely contradicts our intuitional expectations that you need at least 365/2 people, but just look at the page I linked and you can play with the mathematics yourself.

- Another classic example, the Drug Test: lets say we have developed a new drug test that can detect the presence of a narcotic with 99.95% accuracy. What are the odds that a randomly selected person who tests positive is a drug user? Intuitionally, we say that the person is 99.95% likely to be a drug user, but in reality, the person is only 50% likely, and here's why:

Imagine you have a population of 1000 people, where 30 of them are drug users. Assuming that your drug test is 99.95% accuate, you can construct a chart to show the number of true negatives, true positives, false negatives, and false positives, like this:
TN - true negative, correctly identifies a non-drug user
TP - true positive, correctly identifies a drug user
FN - false negative, incorrectly identifies drug user
FP - false positive, incorrectly identifies a non-drug user

Population is 10000. 9500 are non-drug users, 500 are drug users

TN = accuracy * number_of_non-drug-users
TP = accuracy * number_of_drug-users
FN = number_of_drug-users - TP
FP = number_of_non-drug-users - TN

TN = 95% * 9500 = 9025
TP = 95% * 500 = 475
FN = 500 - 475 = 25
FP = 9500 - 9025 = 475
No matter the population or accuracy of the drug, number of False Positives will equal the number of False Positives, so the likelihood of a person being a drug user if they test positive is only 50%, which completely contradictions intuition.

Martin Gardner and Marilyn vos Savant are very famous for constructing other scenarios like the one above, that show how statistics frequently contradicts our intuitions.

- The most obvious scientific example: you are used to the world of motion, where if you are on a platform moving at 60 mph and your friend throws a ball in the same direction of the train at 40 mph, an external observe would expect see the ball moving at 60+40 mph or 100 mph (relative to the ground). And if platform were moving in the opposite direction, then the ball would be only be traveling at -60+40 mph or -20 mph (where negative means opposite direction).

So, how fast do you expect a beam of light to travel relative to the ground if your friend is riding on a train at 60 mph? Intuitively, you expect it to travel at c + 60 mph (where c is the speed of light, about 671 000 000 mph), but the beam moves at c. And if the train were travelling at 1000 mph, the beam of light still travels relative to the ground at c. No matter how fast the train travels, and no matter what direction, the light travels relative to the ground at a constant speed, which completely contradicts our intuitional expectations. Yet, its completely sound when you understand the math behind it.

With that out of the way, it should tell you something about your intuitional beliefs: they dont define the rules of the universe. The statement "everything needs a cause" seems very intuitional, you havent actually shown that such a principle is actually true for the universe. In fact, its not true at all, at least not on the very tiny scale, and in fact very few of the rules which hold true above the atomic scale are true below it -- if you are familiar with science, this problem is extremely fundamental, because havent quite unified macro and quantum physics (which is to say that we have two seperate scientific models, the first being einstein physics which explains the movement of objects larger than single protons, and the second model being quantum physics explains the movement of objects smaller than protons).

In the very tiny scale, the rules of "identify cause -> identical effect" is false, but rather "identify cause -> 40% probability of effect1, 30% probability of effect2, 25% probability of effect3, 5% probability of effect4". You stop dealing with causality and start dealing with probability distributions. In particular, when you stop dealing with causality, you get effects that really are completely acausal, specifically get these little things called virtual particles (http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/VirtualParticle.html), which flash into an out of existence spotaneously and they appear to violate the laws of conservation of energy (http://pdg.web.cern.ch/pdg/cpep/unc_vir.html):
Virtual Particles

In many decays and annihilations, a particle decays into a very high-energy force-carrier particle, which almost immediately decays into low-energy particle. These high-energy, short-lived particles are virtual particles.

The conservation of energy seems to be violated by the apparent existence of these very energetic particles for a very short time. However, according to the above principle, if the time of a process is exceedingly short, then the uncertainty in energy can be very large. Thus, due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, these high-energy force-carrier particles may exist if they are short lived. In a sense, they escape reality's notice.

The bottom line is that energy is conserved. The energy of the initial decaying particle and the final decay products is equal. The virtual particles exist for such a short time that they can never be observed.
These little virtual particles are flashing into an out of existence all the time, and they do so without any cause at all and even when there isnt enough energy to create them. Even in a perfect vacuum, there is a sea of these things popping into and out of existence.

This is just my speculation on the subject, but I think it provides a good explanation where the energy that gave rise to the big bang came from:
- if you imagine the universe at the very beginning, where it had no space, no length, no width, and no depth, its is just a 0-d "point" for all intents and purpose.
- imagine that one those virtual particles spontaneous pops into existence, just like the tend to do, what happens when one of those things pops into existence of that universe? In laymens terms, its what happens when you fill 2 gallon water balloon with 20 gallons of water, you get a boom! :)
- given the particle, if there is no space, it has infinite density, and with infinite density it has infinite energy. And so the universe is born, but fortunately now that we have space, those little virtual particles dont mean so much now, but we are still thankful they are around.

At least that is my own private speculation on the creation of the universe, and its compliant with the laws of physics without requiring the existence of any gods to assist the process.

The problem with Step 3 is its unnecessary constraint that has no purpose and does not constitute a formal premise for a proof:
Step 3, which is misrepresented, does not say what Juliet says it said. Since the person, who can not overturn step 1 or 2, then tries to argue for something else, they try to argue against the attributes of some god, which is not the attributes of God of the Bible. Do you see how this is disingenuous? As the minimal facts approach is concerned, this proof does not care about other gods, but is merely proving God of the Bible, so if you want to put forth an argument, address it against God of the Bible and not trying to dispute some god.So far, the argument for god looks like this:

Step 1) The universe is finite
Step 2) Everything which has a beginning has a cause
Step 3) Please dont talk about any other gods apart from the Christian God
Step 4) Therefore god exists

Your constraint in Step 3 is meaningless, because its perfectly conceivable that god exists, but the very specific and particular Christian God does not exist. Steps 1 and 2 could be true and prove the existence of God, but they even constraining all discussion of your proof to the Christian God doesnt actually make the Christian God more plausible than all the others; the constraint is irrelevant. A deistic conception of God could be correct, where the deistic god (for some reason or another) creates the universe and abandons it to move along at its own devices, where the existence of humans is merely an unintended consequence of creation. God could create the universe without making human beings into a special creation, or even caring about humans or knowing about them at all, and it would be completely consistent with your first two steps in your proof.

The constraint that we should only talk about the Christian God is artificial, and if you were trying to prove any other god, you could use the exact same arguments to prove the truth of every religion, so long as you changed Step 3 ever-so-slightly so that a critic is only permitted to talk about whatever god another wants.

Finally, Step 4 is just another example of irrelevance:
Once the person appreciates step 3, they provide their one last stand at the ok corral-Step 4. They say, well why can't there be gods created gods for an eternity of the past so that your God is created also? This is just an offshoot of step 1, but instead of dealing with things in nature, it proposes gods created gods in the supernatural to explain our existence. This violates the principle proven in step 1 which say if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects, whomever the constituents are, you still would have had an eternity to be perfected due to our observation today of the exponential progression cited. Try yourself to think of some more examples of exponential progression of our conscience in the saved. Note the unsaved do not want to change so that is why hell is created. In eternity hell takes care of them, and Juliet.You havent actually connected the creation of the universe or any other gods with the creation of humans; there is no contradiction between there is an infinite regress of gods who have created each other, but humans were only created recently in history rather than created an infinitely long time ago.

What seems like a perfect proof to you is actually an extremely poor, non-academic proof that could easily be mistaken for a parody. You need to seriously address the problems in Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4, because it fails to stand under its own weight, otherwise you will have taken the almost elegantly written Kalam argument and mangled it beyond theological repair. You do not have a proof of god, and definitely not a proof of the Christian god.

However, after you restated your proof, you wrote the following:
Such God would necessitate His mercy and that mercy is revealed when Jesus entered into creation to die on the cross for your sins to give you eternal life if you were willing to receive it. None compare to the love of Christ, He said He is God and proved it, fulfilling 62 prophecies (probabilities less than 1 in a trillion for any mortal man to get lucky), surrounding 40 writers over 1500 years, in a historical-religio context, showing God's redemptive design, and the apostles died for testifying to His resurrection and ascension. The resurrection of Christ is unique and best testified. No person is more well documented in antiquity. There are 42 writers, both Christian and non-Christian speaking of Jesus in the first 150 years of his death. This far outweighs the number of writers about the Emperor of Rome who died 11 years after Jesus died by a margin of 4 to 1. Skeptics have no considerable valid explanation against Jesus being God.If it means anything to you at all, I wanted to get my degree in New Testament history (however many odd things lead to others, and I earned degrees in Business/Finance instead), so I know about the history of the bible, when it was written, and so on, and I'm 100% positive I know more about the bible than you do. Long story story short, here are some facts to digest:
- Israelites did not exist anytime before 1000 BC, and didnt begin to write down their stories until 900 BC.
- We dont know how any of the apostles died, apart from Judas. The martyrdom of the apostles is something of an extra-biblical addition that isnt actually recorded in the bible or history, so much as it circulated by word of mouth until it became "accepted" as a fact.
- We dont know anything about the life of Christ. We are fairly certain he existed, but his life is completely lost in myth and legend. Was he a good person who preached that people should humble themselves to God? Probably. Did he feed 5000 people with a few fish and two loaves of bread? Probably not. Was he crucified as a political criminal? Probably. Did he reanimate from the dead and begin preaching to people in the streets? Probably not.

The supernatural elements of Jesus' life make it so difficult to believe. 2000 years ago, people were very superstitious, and they lived in a world where the supernatural was readily observable and obvious. You think that, with all the technology we have now, if the supernatural used to be so plainly evident to people without the aid of scientific instruments, then surely we could detect the supernatural even more readily with instruments!...
... but we dont. Precisely the opposite: the more we study the universe, and the more sensitive our scientific instruments become, we see the universe is really a system of interacting mathematical equations. Billions of experiments are performed every year, some with the expressed purpose of uncovering psychic and supernatural powers, but not even once have we reliably observed any instance of the supernatural. From the point of view of skeptic, its very difficult to believe that the records of Jesus's miracles and displays of the supernatural are actually genuine or even happened at all, simply because the growing implausibility of supernatural powers.

- The most respected, mainstream scholars believe that Jesus existed, but that his life is exaggerated by a few zealous followers. If you want to know more about the historical Jesus, and certainly learn a lot more than you would learn reading second-rate apologetics all day, go to your library and pick up A Marginal Jew by John P Meier, The Historical Jesus by Gerd Theissen, The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan, and for a little more background on the development of the bible its worth the time to read Truth and Fiction in the Bible by Robin Lane Fox.

I honestly dont expect you pick up any of those, but I would really appreciate it if you knew a little more about your religion. Believe me, I've seen the pattern of belief a million times, and you are just a textbook example of someone who believed the bible was true long before you even had the faintest idea of why you thought it was true or even knew about it from an academic point of view.

I'm not trying to be condescending, but you're just a garden-variety fundamentalist who believes first and tries to prove later, essentially no different from the fundamentalists of every other religion who do the exact same thing, and you're beliefs are no better off than theirs. Jesus fulfilled just as many prophecies as Mohammed, and there is no argument that you can provide to disprove that claim. Why? Because you're making categorical statements without qualifying them, and there is fundamentally no reason to prefer your categorical statements above a Muslims unqualified categorical statements about his own religion.

Of course, if you're like me, then it should be fairly evident that all the gods of religion are false. They are made in the image of man, put man in the center of the universe, and give man an special place above any other animal; these kinds of gods are so obviously manmade fictions that they just cannot be believed. Even worse, the moral prescriptions these gods make are so completely naive (I could give a long long long list of naive morals if you like) that they just cannot come from a being who presumably has all the knowledge, all the wisdom, and the most perfect morals of any being in the universe; but it makes perfect sense if those naive moral commands come from egocentric, superstitious humans. A god might exist, but he certainly doesnt look like the gods of any religion.

Alright, I think I've said all I've felt like saying. Also, I'm an admin/mod at [removed forum], feel free to stop by and talk to me some more if you feel like it :)

Best wishes!
Juliet

Churchwork

11-25-2006, 06:27 PM

Churchwork

11-25-2006, 08:18 PM

Churchwork,
You probably noticed that the cosmological argument really doesnt specify why god created the universe, what god did before or after he created the universe, or name any of his characteristics; essentially, the cosmological argument proves the existence of a deistic god, without providing any other details (and certainly no details that provide a basis for a religion). For this reason, you provided some reasons for why you think the god who exists just happens to be your conception of god.
Since you have been invited to deal with the 4 Step Perfect Proof of God of the Bible and not bring up other matters, then you should show the courtesy to do so, i.e., stay on topic of the first post of this thread. Belligerency is a false fruit. The reasons given, as you continue to read, bear fruit of being not my reasoning per se, but God's reasoning is in revealing himself to us. I am disclosing this information, but it it agrees with what we find in nature and draws us back to God in proving Him. The reasons I give, since they can't be overturned with your ideas, should help you to see they remain as true as before. A deist god also can not overturn God of the Bible.

Any god who created the universe but has no concern for it is a god who is not God of the Bible, since an ambivalent god would be without purpose and he would utterly vain. He would also not be real.Now, while cosmological arguments in all of their flavors are very popular for their simplicity and intuitive reasonableness, but yours is the least persuasive flavor of the cosmological argument I've ever seen in the 15+ years I've been studying the philosophy of religion. Basically, you tried to explain each premise of your four-step proof down to its axioms (or something very near to them), but your explanations were horrifically dubious and presumptuous, just take your Step 1 for example, which you describe as:
Step 1 is vital. It says, if anyone contends for an eternity of the past of cause and effects (and yes many have proposed this), then you would have had an eternity to be perfected (read the rest of the paragraph for why this is necessarily going to happen if there was an eternity of the past). However, since you still sin, you know there has not been an eternity of the past of cause and effects. ... For our purposes all we need see is that sinlessness is at a bare minimum not making damaging mistakes such as mistreating another person or being unhealthy to yourself.I would not construe the 4 Step Perfect Proof of God of the Bible as a solely cosmological a argument, but rather simply the Perfect Proof of God of the Bible, relying on the depth of its 4 Steps of pure solid reasoning with a conscience.

Since you are still unable to find any mistake with it, then it is in fact the best proof you ever seen.

The proof itself has no axioms, for it is all proven in all its parts. As Step 1 shows, it is true, without assumption, and you could find no fault with it, so it remains solid.

At first, this looks like a great big loop of circular logic (i.e. trying to prove Christianity based on the concept of sin, where the concept of sin is only meaningful if Christianity is true), but you redefined sin to mean any kind of harm you do to another person. At the very least, I can say you're not arguing in a circle...

It is illogical to say a sin is only defined within the confines of Christianity, as the larger text of the Proof points out (http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/perfectproof.htm). If this was true, then we would not throw people into jail. It is because of sin they go to jail. There is no circular logic not even at first glance, for it is quite clear, there is sin, we see it in nature, and there are consequences to sin. However, there is also the washing away of sins in time through God's redemptive design. We observe this actually happening these past 6000 years. This is the evidence. Christianity also believes it is a sin doing harm to another. I don't think anyone questions that who is not utterly obnoxious. It's good you see there is no circular argument.
... however, you are making some extremely unjustified and dubious presumptions:
As you will see there is no extreme unjustified and dubious presumptions except in your own heart in this discussion.
- you are using the existence of humans as a way to measure the age of the universe when you havent shown that humans have existed since the very beginning of the universe. Your argument from sin, that we progress to a more sinless state over time, and that given an infinite amount of time we should be sinless, might be true (its not, and I'll get to that a little later), but the age of the universe and the existence of humans arent intrinsically connected to each other. Theres no contradiction in saying that the universe stretches back into infinity (perhaps in an endless cycle of bangs and crunches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch)), but things in the universe (such as humans) exist during fleeting moments in time; quite simply, the universe existed before humans, so humans could have a beginning (and hence still be sitting in their sinful state), but the universe could be infinite, no contradiction between the two.
Even crunches have a cause, so on and on, therefore, they too are restricted by a first cause law and under the "dust" (Gen. 2.7) being the cause of our bodies. Also, scientists are agreed that the dark energy is pushing out the gravity of dark matter and matter at an exponentially increasing rate since inception of the big bang, so the crunch idea is not even supported, but is just in your imagination.

I never claimed that humans existed from the very beginning of the universe. Rather, step 1 of the proof is only saying if such a thing had occurred it would not be possible given the evidence of the exponential progression in our conscience. The age of the universe is not the issue, but whether there is infinite regression in the past and that the exponential progression of our conscience does not allow for an infinite regression in the past of our existence. Thus, in your misrepresenting step 1, you are arguing from sin and as usual, falsely accusing, from sin in accusing of arguing from sin.

The universe is intrinsically connected to humans since our body was created from the "dust" (Gen. 2.7) of the stars. Scientists all agree to this finding. It took time for the dust to create man's body in God's divine providence, so this took place in the universe's time and part of its age at least.

It is not possible for the universe to stretch back into infinity because of the very fact, as was shown, if you had an eternity of the past in the universe, then our existence now would have had an eternity to exist in all its previous forms, so that today there would be no sin. Since all we see is an exponential progression in our conscience, we know that sinlessness is ahead of us and we must have been created.

Humans having been created, even so, we know the universe too had to have been created because at any point in the past of eternity from which humans would have been created approximates eternity itself (as calculus teaches), so that you know we would have had an eternity to be perfected.

Consequently, this response shows you are still in state of contradiction, because we still sin. The evidence is against you and there is no reason you have whatsoever of these endless looping cycles of existence that are without a first cause. Hence, step 2 is quite important because it shows us that since nothing in nature is without a cause, the only possibility is the uncaused must be the cause, and none compare the uncauseness of Christ.
For that reason, your four-step proof for God breaks down at the first level, because you havent actually tied the sinfulness of humans to the age of the universe. By application of your argument (once we've established that its not connected to the age of the universe), the fact I still sin says nothing about the age of the universe, only the age of humans. Humans have not existed for eternity, and that is all we can gather from your argument.
For the reasons given in my response, your reasons don't stand up. The 4 Step Proof of God remains a solid at all points, starting at the first level of step 1, that we sin and this helps show us something in the exponential progression of our conscience to realize that there has not been an eternity of the past of cause and effects in the universe, otherwise we would be without sin now.

The sinfulness of humans and exponential progression of our conscience shows us unequivocally therefore the age of the universe is not infinite. Once you see this connection, the fact you still sin shows you the vital principle of the age of the universe is not infinite. It bespeaks not merely of the age of humans, but also the age of the universe as we bring in calculus. Humans have not existed for eternity AND the universe has not existed for eternity. This is what we can gather. But we don't stop there, because some people like to claim the universe started all by itself and block out their mind to the proof of step 1. Hence step 2 is an important follow-up to corroborate step 1's findings.
Believe me, there are other problems (such as whether we really are progressing morally, especially in light of the fact that most people are products of their culture and believe that their culture, no matter what it does, is more righteous than all other cultures), but I'm trying to keep my post brief. (You've probably never seen my posts on other forums, but I'm the most verbose person ever, and I can write and write and write for hours)
That we are progressng morally by our conscience is proven by several examples given, and so many more can be offered up as well. Culture is an improving element as well, for our culture is a product of our conscience and actions that flow from it. While culture, which is environment really, impacts people, this does not take away from the fact we see an exponential progression in conscience. In my experience in this proof, this has always been the number one place where atheists and agnostics shut their mind down. I alway try to bring them back to this essential fact, but they divert to other matters and miss the initial proof which is the foundational piece of evidence. You will notice in yourself already, your willingness to shut your mind down to this exponential progression in our conscience as witnessed in so many affairs in humanity. Try to come back to it because that is the key element for you to receive Christ into your life for someone who is so verbose and admits his own verbal diatribe.

So far now at this point we have seen you have made some extreme claims of a universe eternally existing without a first cause which you have no reason for doing. Therefore, your idea is extremely dubious and unjustifiable and a lame excuse to reject God of the Bible. Be intellectually honest with yourself that the real reason you like being in sin and reject God is because you don't want to enter His new creation and receive eternal forgiveness. So you fabribate ideas with your presumption and overassuming. Lacking humility is the root cause of your false claim. The cause of lacking humility is your hostility to your Creator. Your hostility is due to the fall of Adam and your unwillingness to be saved.

Churchwork

11-25-2006, 09:37 PM

Churchwork,
Of course, I want to note that your Step 1 makes a bizarre claim that is never substantiated or explained: that given an infinite amount of time, that humans would become infinitely righteous... the problem being that you havent shown that humans will even exist indefinitely. I think its extremely likely that we will kill each other off long before infinity. So the human species has a start, and it has an end, just like every other species that has ever existed. If the universe were eternal, we would have ceased to exist an eternity ago.
You'll find as you read this your claim is bizarre and mine is perfectly reasonable.

It is so easy to misread. I did not say an infinite amount of time would allow for righteousness, but that if having had an eternity of the past in cause and effects, we would be without sin. We are only focused here on the matter of sin, not on righteousnesses. We don't even need to show if humans will exist for eternity (though we will) in the future. All we need show is that if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects we would be without sin, and we showed this by showing today the exponential progression of conscience these past six thousand years. It can reasonably be expected that the human race will live such an extremely long time it is close enough to approach infinity.

The human race can move out to solar system after solar system and galaxy after galaxy. Then it would be reasonable to believe that we can live for a heck of a long time and take up every last ounce of the universe for billions and billions if not trillions of years. Unlike every other creature we know, only humans have God-consciousness and a self-awareness of the degree of the soul made in God's image. So it is not reasonable to think we would have annihilated ourselves. There is no precedence for our even coming close to that point. Though Jesus said He needs to return otherwise we would have done great damage to ourselves, He is not saying ceasing to exist.

The idea we would have annihilated ourselves does not hold sway since the evidence speaks for exponential progression of our conscience these past 6000 years, which is quite the opposite of your failing idea. Notice too you provide no evidence for your assumption. Again, the difference between Christians and atheists or agnostics is we can prove our case.
Basically, there are better ways to prove the finititude of the universe, you dont have to rely on the incredibly esoteric "sin" argument you have. I'll prove that universe is finite for you, using a more contemporary and well-accepted explanation:
You'll find the 4 Step Perfect Proof for God of the Bible remains the best proof in agreement with the Word.

Actually, I am not proving the finiteness of the universe, for no reasonable scientist is even saying the universe will cease to exist. Rather, we have proved that the universe began. Your terms are inadequate.

Sin is not esoteric. If it was esoteric, why are we so easily able to throw someone into jail who commits a crime in such definitive and well thought out terms?

Understand the reason you don't want to deal with the sin issue is because your mind is darkened and your conscience is dead to obvious things such as sin.

- If you've taken even a high school level science class, you should know the laws of thermodynamics, you should know how they're applied, you should know the difference between an open and closed system.

- In laymens terms, you can never get out all of energy you put into a system, because some of it always becomes useless heat. Thats why, even in a vacuum, if you drop a ball on the ground and just let it bounce on its own, each successive bounce will be less intense than the last, until gradually the ball comes to a stop; where did all the energy go? With each bounce, the ball compresses slightly, which causes friction between the material inside the ball and converts a small amount of that energy into heat. Eventually, all of the kinetic energy is used up until it just stops.

-- The same principle explains why perpetual motion machines are impossible. You've probably seen a hand-cranked generator that turns on a lightbulb (or if you go to the gym, some eletronic machines like a stationary bike are powered by our own peddling), then you're familiar with an electric generator. You've also probably seen an electric motor, like a vacuum cleaner, which needs a constant stream of electricity going through it to power the motor. Some people have thought they could create perpetual motion machines by hooking up a series of generators and motors in a circle, where each motor turns the generator crank and each turn of the crank supplies the motor with energy, so that essentially the machine could be self-powered and run forever. That sounds intuitively correct, and some people have certainly tried to make it work, but it just doesnt. The friction from internal mechanisms of the machines turns a small amount of each crank of the engine into useless heat, and the machine will begin to slow down more and more until it just stops. Unless you supply that machine with some outside source of energy, it will just grind to a halt.

- The principle above is the second law of thermodynamics, where the amount of heat or entropy in closed systems tends to increase and their wont be any available energy left for movement. Because the universe encompasses everything, it is a closed system, so given enough time the universe will eventually use up all its available energy, and all movement will stop as a result of the same rules that ceased the movement of the bouncing ball. You might have heard of this scenario called heat death (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death), which is projected to occur in 10^900 to 10^1000 years time.

- If the universe is infinitely old, it should evidently be older than 10^1000 years, and so heat death should have already occurred. It hasnt, so the universe cannot be infinitely old, so it is finite.
You actually don't need to get this complicated especially dealing with such big numbers that are such big assumptions and uncertainties. All you need do is look at the fact that we need nowhere near the time aloted for heat death to reach sinlesness just by observing the exponential progression in our conscience. It won't take another 6000 years to reach sinlessness, but even if it took a million years, this is a far cry from heat death.

Also, you assume the universe is a closed system. There is noway anyone could know that. As far as we know it is expanding forever and spreading out more and more. This approach then you provide is too uncertain.

And the matter of when heat death may occur does not need to come into play when considering the concept of an eternity of the past because eternity of the past does not need address the issue of heat death. All that is needed to be known is that since we still sin, you know the universe has not existed for eternity in the past, otherwise we would not be sinning now. This is pure logic. Even if we needed a full eternity, you know there has not been an eternity, because we still sin, and the exponential progression of our conscience approaches sinlessness itself because of the exponential aspect of the progression.

You are quickly learning that sin is the center of the issue and proof for God.

We are left with only one conclusion and the best method of that conclusion: the universe was created at some point at least 13.7 billion years ago, and scientists seem to agree.

The heat death argument isnt exactly bulletproof for at least two reasons:
- You've probably heard of the Big Crunch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Crunch), where the mass in the universe will eventually slow the expansion of the universe and cause it collapse in on itself. It is concievable that the universe is born and dies through an endless cycle of bangs and crunches, so that concievably the universe could be infinitely old and gone through an infinite number of heat deaths through each bang-crunch cycle. (Its worth nothing that theres just not very good evidence that there really is a bang-crunch cycle, and we have no way of knowing whether this universe we live in is the first and only universe, or whether its just another aspect of the universe that has existed for eternity.)

- Ironically, if God exists, then his continued existence negates the heat death, because his continued interference in the universe is constantly adding energy (that presumes that God isnt subject to the laws of thermodynamics himself), and the universe could concievably infinitely old if God is constantly supplying the universe with more energy.

The 2nd step of the 4 Step Proof of God of the Bible easily takes care of this big crunch and big bang recycling for the eternity of the past. Since this is a suggestion there has been an eternity of the past, and all things in nature have a cause, then we can easily conclude that the first cause of it all is the uncaused, uncreated creator. Because the natural cause can not be the cause since all natural effects have causes, then we are left with no choice but to accept Christ. We discover that creator is Christ.

Non-ironically, God's continued existence does not negate any heat death or its vital relevance because any miracles He performs entering into His creation need not add energy to such a degree you propose or even require any be added at all, or even that heat death is an axiom for the universe. And since the 4 Step Proof does not need to discuss such esoteric things as heat death and such big fat assumptions of things that are going to happen so far away, it need not be brought up, is not helpful and is a non-issue, relatively off-topic.

This is why I told you at the start, stay on topic of the 4 Step Proof of God of the Bible. Satan likes to deflect onto other things, because he is the author of confusion. He uses confusion to go off topic all the time. People that like to disprove falsely something that is true tend to rely on the most far fetched things that are not able to be proven any time soon.

So far since you can find no error in the 4 Step Proof, it remains our proof of God of the Bible.

Churchwork

11-25-2006, 10:04 PM

Churchwork,
In short, Step 1 mangles the cosmological argument because your reasoning doesnt sufficiently show that the universe really does have a beginning, you're just using a very dubious calculation of the universe.
Your mistake tries to introduce a cosmological argument into the frey that is so dissimilar to the 4 Step Proof, instead of dealing specifically with the 4 Step Proof itself. You would need to have left out someone elses' proof, and refocus back on the 4 Step Proof itself. This is a horribly mangled attempt when you try to do that. The call here is for you to be more specific in seeing the exponential progression of our conscience.

Step 1 has been shown to perfectly prove why the universe had to be created and have a beginning. Your attempt to try to disprove it was to use dubious caclulations of things you just can't know about the universe such as whether there is a heat death or not or whether the universe could ever implode on itself. We just don't know that, nor whether the universe is a closed system, so it is better to take the humble approach and keep your assumptions, dubious at best, out of the discussion.

Even if the universe were to implode on itself, step 2 easily destroys an infinity of the past of heat deaths and so does step 1, since heat death recycling is of meaningless value. If the purpose of the universe was meaningless, then there was no need for all the good things that were done on earth so far inspite of the bad things. Most people don't believe in such meaninglessness.

What we have show so far so perfectly in step 1 is that it is a fact that you sin, you know there could not have been an eternity of the past of cause and effects since if there was we would not still be sinning. Interestingly, sinlessness can not happen within a heat death, unless there is an avenue out of the heat death, because sinlessness provides for no death as sin leads to death. Therefore, even if there was a heat death, it is not an issue because the sinlessness escapes the creation, like gravity seaps out of it as well. Scientists agree there is a loss of gravity in the calculations somehow as though we are losing some of it in its dissipation out of the universe. This also is a reason for possibly no closed system if it can escape out of the system.

It is a most amazing proof step 1. We still sin. Therefore, even if the universe had an infinite amount of time to get us to be sinless, it still failed. Therefore, the universe was not infinite in the past. At some point God created and we are still in the redemptive design.

Churchwork

11-25-2006, 10:43 PM

Churchwork,

The problem with Step 2 is the amount of question begging:Second step: someone says, ok fine, but what if the universe started all by itself at some point? Look at the cosmos and know it is very complicated. Since nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect. Therefore, since nothing, in more than a trillion examples, ever proves something happens without a cause, we can with the greatest of probabilities conclude everything has a cause. Since everything has a cause that is in known existence, then logic states that which is uncreated must have created. This is step 2 in the proof.
There is no question begging except in your accusing of such and in your own beliefs of an eternity of the past. Again, the difference is, Christians have evidence, but you don't put anything forth yet to make your case.

There are 2 primary objections to this statement, the first is a theological objection, the second is a scientific objection:

- Theological objection:
This has probably never occurred to you, but if Step 2 is true, then your religion is false, even if God exists or not, because the statement "nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect" is a fundamental denial of free will, on the basis that the cause of all of their actions must come from a prior effect, which in turn must come from a prior cause, ad infinitum until the first cause which you believe to be God. If God is the ultimate cause of everything, he is the ultimate cause of all the evil in the universe, and people never actually made a free choice to believe or disbelieve in God, because all events were set in motion and determined from the very beginning. (Some people have no problem with predestination, but I think that view of God is extremely offensive to religion, because a god who predestines people to go to hell is a monster and not worthy of worship.)

On the contrary, if people do have free will, then we have at least one example of something in nature happening outside of the laws of cause and effect, which serves to falsify Step 2.

Because all things have a prior cause including free-will, this poses no problem for the fact that God created. The free-will cause is that God made us in His image and since God is uncreated, this is acceptable. The finding is that the uncreated is the only thing that does not need to be caused since all things in creation are caused.

God did not create evil, but those beings that existed chose to be evil. God did not force them to be that way, they chose it. Similarly, in God foreseeing all events does not infringe on our free-will. We still choose. To set in motion events is not to pre-program robots, but to allow the free-will to choose freely to receive God or not. God predestinates by foreknowing (Rom. 8.29) our free-choice (John 3.16, see Abel's free-will offering).

There are two kinds of predestination. One is false, one is true. The one that is false is the kind you describe which is under calvinism. Calvinism is not Christianity. God's way of salvation is to predestinate us by foreknowing our free-choice: a conditional election, unlimited atonement, resistible grace, for preservation of the saints. This is called OSAS Arminian.

So as we see here your argument failed you.

- Scientific objection:
My biggest problem with your argument is that you havent actually shown Step 2 to be true, you only stated it categorically. At best, you're statement is just an intuitional statement, but it is ignorant and arrogant to an extreme to think you can refute science with your own intuitional preconceptions, and its ignorant to think you can define science with your intuitions.

Actually, step 2 is not stated categorically, but is proven. With the highest of probabilities we know nothing in nature is causeless that we know of, therefore it is a reasonable assessment to conclude that the ultimate cause was causeless. It is both logical and reasonable, intuitive and with a clear conscience.

Now what is illogical and extremely arrogant is to see that nothing in the trillions of effects in our universe is without a cause and we are able to test trillions of causes for effects, yet still hold out the idea that the universe has been going on infinitely in the past. That's like rolling a twenty sided die and expecting to get the number 1 to land each time for a hundred times in a row. Your intuition is sorely wrong to think you can win that way. Your preconception is simply to assume an eternity of the past of causes and effects, but still you have no basis, none whatsoever.

God does not want those with such horrible reasoning and mindlessness.

Since what I have shown is based on hard evidence and not only intuition, and what you believe is based on your corrupted intuition only, does it not stand to reason that you should repent?

Intuition is one of the first, but least accurate tools for gaining knowledge of the universe. As is frequently the case, its just wrong, and there are many apparently "paradoxes" that have been developed with exploit our usually fallible intuitional beliefs:
- The classic example, the Birthday Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_paradox): lets say started gathering random people into a room. How many people do you think we need to grab before we can say, with 50% probability, that two people in that room share the same birthday? How many people do we need before we have 99% probability that two people will share the same birthday? You only need 23 for 50% probability, and about 100 people for 99% probability. This completely contradicts our intuitional expectations that you need at least 365/2 people, but just look at the page I linked and you can play with the mathematics yourself.

Don't accuse someone of only using intuition, when they are using reason. After all you are only using intuition and not reason, so your accusation applies to you.

However, your reasoning is incorrect. Intuition happens to be the best tool of all, because if your intuition is clear, so shall you reasoning be right. You must understand that the reason your reasoning is so bad is because your intuition is so dull. One must aid their intuition with their mind with correct facts and not be so overassuming. The spiritual knowledge you receive in your innerman will cause you to conduct yourself outwardly in your soul and body, and to think properly non-overassumingly about the universe.

Understand why the Birthday Paradox for you is a true axiom, because your intuition is not right and your math skills suck. But for Christians it is not a paradox at all, but our intuition leads to proper reasoning of the finding that you need not the greater number cited because we know reasonably there is much overlapping for two people to have a birthday on the same day. Why is that so difficult to understand?

Where the problems lie is in your assumptions which were wrong, just like your assumptions about the universe. The fact of the matter is you don't know if the universe is a closed or open system. You don't know how much more time exists. But what a Christian says is not to overassume things you don't know and just look at the evidence from the minimal facts approach. This is the beginning of wisdom: humility.

Since all things are created then it must be true the uncreated created since no other possibly reveals itself. This is why we believe in God.

It doesn't stand to reason that since your intuition is so bad, that others would be as bad as yours is in assessing probabilities by guessing. That same intuition actually is infused with God-consciousness, so deep down inside you know God did it, but like Satan, you would rather see what hell is like even to spend eternity there. Your choice. God did not make you do it.

Churchwork

11-25-2006, 11:21 PM

Churchwork,
- Another classic example, the Drug Test: lets say we have developed a new drug test that can detect the presence of a narcotic with 99.95% accuracy. What are the odds that a randomly selected person who tests positive is a drug user? Intuitionally, we say that the person is 99.95% likely to be a drug user, but in reality, the person is only 50% likely, and here's why:

Imagine you have a population of 1000 people, where 30 of them are drug users. Assuming that your drug test is 99.95% accuate, you can construct a chart to show the number of true negatives, true positives, false negatives, and false positives, like this:
TN - true negative, correctly identifies a non-drug user
TP - true positive, correctly identifies a drug user
FN - false negative, incorrectly identifies drug user
FP - false positive, incorrectly identifies a non-drug user

Population is 10000. 9500 are non-drug users, 500 are drug users

TN = accuracy * number_of_non-drug-users
TP = accuracy * number_of_drug-users
FN = number_of_drug-users - TP
FP = number_of_non-drug-users - TN

TN = 95% * 9500 = 9025
TP = 95% * 500 = 475
FN = 500 - 475 = 25
FP = 9500 - 9025 = 475
No matter the population or accuracy of the drug, number of False Positives will equal the number of False Positives, so the likelihood of a person being a drug user if they test positive is only 50%, which completely contradictions intuition.
So the reader can see, you are trying to show that that expectations and intuition can be wrong. However, since the 4 Step Proof for God is proven fully with sound reason and evidence founded on a clear conscience through intuition, then the Proof does not suffer the weight of error in intuitively thinking without basis that the universe was eternally existing in the past. It may seem reasonable to think that there is always yet another cause for an event in the universe, but then you have to ask what caused that, so on and so forth. Since no cause can be the ultimate cause, therefore, it must be the uncaused. As hard as that is to grasp we must accept it. Like Spock on Star Trek said, if all known possibilities are impossible then the seemingly impossible must be fact.

Martin Gardner and Marilyn vos Savant are very famous for constructing other scenarios like the one above, that show how statistics frequently contradicts our intuitions.

- The most obvious scientific example: you are used to the world of motion, where if you are on a platform moving at 60 mph and your friend throws a ball in the same direction of the train at 40 mph, an external observe would expect see the ball moving at 60+40 mph or 100 mph (relative to the ground). And if platform were moving in the opposite direction, then the ball would be only be traveling at -60+40 mph or -20 mph (where negative means opposite direction).

So, how fast do you expect a beam of light to travel relative to the ground if your friend is riding on a train at 60 mph? Intuitively, you expect it to travel at c + 60 mph (where c is the speed of light, about 671 000 000 mph), but the beam moves at c. And if the train were travelling at 1000 mph, the beam of light still travels relative to the ground at c. No matter how fast the train travels, and no matter what direction, the light travels relative to the ground at a constant speed, which completely contradicts our intuitional expectations. Yet, its completely sound when you understand the math behind it.

This example should help convince you then that just because you see no end in site for the eternity of the past of cause and effects, does not deem it to be necessarily so, because all things in nature have a cause, without exception. Therefore, to begin the universe, you would need that which is uncaused who would be God. As hard as it is to fathom intuitively that there is an uncreated being out there, we must logically accept this finding given all that we know, and you must let go of your faulty intuition if you want to be saved.

Your faulty intuition is actually just based in selfishness and a choice to remain that way.

With that out of the way, it should tell you something about your intuitional beliefs: they dont define the rules of the universe. The statement "everything needs a cause" seems very intuitional, you havent actually shown that such a principle is actually true for the universe. In fact, its not true at all, at least not on the very tiny scale, and in fact very few of the rules which hold true above the atomic scale are true below it -- if you are familiar with science, this problem is extremely fundamental, because havent quite unified macro and quantum physics (which is to say that we have two seperate scientific models, the first being einstein physics which explains the movement of objects larger than single protons, and the second model being quantum physics explains the movement of objects smaller than protons).

Christians have never said our intuition defines the rules of the universe, so your thinking we thought that is just your false accusation. Always remember, when you accuse, realize who is the great accuser - Satan!

Since we show everything we have ever seen has a cause and can never see anything without a cause, to assume the latter is overassuming, since there is no evidence for it.

While we have trillions of examples of thing with a cause, we can not yet find a thing without a cause, nor can you, so to assume something with such low odds is quite insane.

Now just because something is tiny, does not mean this principle is violated. On a small scale we see time and time again things that are caused.

Understand what you are attempting to do in your flesh. Just like your argument before was based on things so far away we can not know them yet, you are using the same idea on a quantum scale. There are things we see that have a cause in the quantum scale and others we can not yet find the cause. Just because we did not ever see small bacteria, did not mean they did not exist in their causal relationship to our getting illnesses.

In the very tiny scale, the rules of "identify cause -> identical effect" is false, but rather "identify cause -> 40% probability of effect1, 30% probability of effect2, 25% probability of effect3, 5% probability of effect4". You stop dealing with causality and start dealing with probability distributions. In particular, when you stop dealing with causality, you get effects that really are completely acausal, specifically get these little things called virtual particles (http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/VirtualParticle.html), which flash into an out of existence spotaneously and they appear to violate the laws of conservation of energy (http://pdg.web.cern.ch/pdg/cpep/unc_vir.html):

These little virtual particles are flashing into an out of existence all the time, and they do so without any cause at all and even when there isnt enough energy to create them. Even in a perfect vacuum, there is a sea of these things popping into and out of existence.

Just because something has 40% probability does not mean it does not have a cause. Just like free-will. Just because our free-will was created by God does not mean it does not have a cause. Just because a person may have a probability of 40% of doing a particular thing, does not mean this is without cause. God gives the free-will to have the probability, but it is perfectly righteous because the person is made in God's image to have that choice to freely choose. It may seem to us like 40%, but in reality the person has an authentic choice before her, which just so happens to turn out, people choose it 40% of the time.

Probability does not violate the law of causality. When you stop dealing with causality, you start dealing pseudo-science and presuming non causality, which is nonsense. Particles that even flash in and out of our awareness does not mean they flash in and out of existence, but rather we just can't see their root cause of what brought them into our awareness. Many things in life have seemed to in one's intuition to violate the laws of cause and effect, but later we discover the actual cause. Just because something is so complex and apparently spontaneous, does not mean it is without cause as nothing in nature has ever seen to be without a cause that we can confidently say was causeless.

Conservation of energy does not get violated either, but we just can't see where the dissipation gets lost. Understand what pride is. Pride is claiming something must be without the humility of allowing for what we can't yet see. Just because you can't see the cause, doesn't mean one is not there. What it does suggest is your lack of humility to be willing and be open to the possibility of the cause as we have so often found before in things.

Churchwork

11-25-2006, 11:53 PM

Churchwork,
These little virtual particles are flashing into an out of existence all the time, and they do so without any cause at all and even when there isnt enough energy to create them. Even in a perfect vacuum, there is a sea of these things popping into and out of existence.
This is illogical. Just because they go out of your peripheral vision in your limited skill set bespeaks of your pride when you claim nothing happens to cause them and they end up being nothing when you can't see them. Scientists don't hold this view. That's why they are looking now for such causes, because they are sure they exist as root causes. For example they are looking now for what is termed a God particle. Precedence in history has always shown that there is a cause and effect in everything. From the simple to the more complex we discover we can't find the root cause of something, but as we gain more knowledge we eventually figure it out.

Even to assume there is not enough energy to create them is illogical. That they exist shows there is enough energy to cause them. Whatever these things are you think you see, I love that you can't see their root cause and where they eventually end up. I love God that He doesn't let you see, because in fact there will always be something God won't let you know. Wow!

This is just my speculation on the subject, but I think it provides a good explanation where the energy that gave rise to the big bang came from:
- if you imagine the universe at the very beginning, where it had no space, no length, no width, and no depth, its is just a 0-d "point" for all intents and purpose.
- imagine that one those virtual particles spontaneous pops into existence, just like the tend to do, what happens when one of those things pops into existence of that universe? In laymens terms, its what happens when you fill 2 gallon water balloon with 20 gallons of water, you get a boom!
- given the particle, if there is no space, it has infinite density, and with infinite density it has infinite energy. And so the universe is born, but fortunately now that we have space, those little virtual particles dont mean so much now, but we are still thankful they are around.

It may have been a very simple mechanism God used to start the big bang. Just like He won't let you understand all the causes such as these virtual particles, so He is not going to let you know how He started the big bang otherwise, you could cause lots of destruction. For now, He is going to limit you to nuclear explosions.

It's funny to see you struggle in your hostility against God; it's also sad because it means you are going to hell, using lame reasoning to reject salvation. I find that the lame reasoning is just front, because deep down inside you know you are a bad person who doesn't want to be saved. That's why I say just be intellectually honest with yourself. If that is what you want, so be it. But don't create this silly mask your wear: silly reasoning. It's like someone who drives a car with a license plate that says "I'm Ok".

If the universe has infinite density and infinite energy, then there is no implosion, but it is going to increase exponentially forever. That blows your mind to think that and goes totally against your intuition, but to date the evidence only suggests this.

I am thankful God is in firm control of all the particles.

At least that is my own private speculation on the creation of the universe, and its compliant with the laws of physics without requiring the existence of any gods to assist the process.

The problem with Step 3 is its unnecessary constraint that has no purpose and does not constitute a formal premise for a proof:Step 3, which is misrepresented, does not say what Juliet says it said. Since the person, who can not overturn step 1 or 2, then tries to argue for something else, they try to argue against the attributes of some god, which is not the attributes of God of the Bible. Do you see how this is disingenuous? As the minimal facts approach is concerned, this proof does not care about other gods, but is merely proving God of the Bible, so if you want to put forth an argument, address it against God of the Bible and not trying to dispute some god.So far, the argument for god looks like this:
Step 1) The universe is finite
Step 2) Everything which has a beginning has a cause
Step 3) Please dont talk about any other gods apart from the Christian God
Step 4) Therefore god exists

Your argument fails you because you still have no reason for thinking something happens all by itself like puff the magic dragon. It being a natural particle as are all known particles, they have their causes. God then being uncreated would be the cause. It's hard to believe I know, but we have to put our intuition aside and accept the miraculous because it is the only feasible possibility. Do you worship puff the magic dragon of meaninglessness or do you accept the reasonableness of purpose in God's intent?

Your position might have some ground if a flashing object always kept going on and off in your living room and you could never figure out what it was. But then again, maybe it is God's divinee intervention trying to get you to wake up! :)

Be honest with yourself, and don't look for the most complicated of things to make your wild theories which you know so much speculate exists about anyway, but try to capture evidence from that which is near to home like that flashing light in the middle of your living room if you can find such a thing.

Step 3 is a most essential element of the proof, because so often people bring up an argument against some god that is foreign to God. So it is important to keep it on God of the Bible, not other gods. We are only concerned with defending our God of the Bible.

Even after mentioning Step 3, to discount it without reason is quite belligerent. Remember, this proof is of God of the Bible, not about other gods.

You are still misreading all 4 steps. Let me repeat them again for you.
1) Not that the universe is infinite, but that the universe is not eternally existing in the past because if it was you would still not be sinning, considering observation of the exponential progression of our conscience very soon mankind in the saved will not be in sin anymore.
2) Not that everything which has a beginning has a cause, but that everything we have ever seen in nature is not without a cause, so therefore, the ultimate cause is the causeless God.
3) Not that you don't talk about other gods but God of the Bible, but don't try to argue against anything accept the tenants of God of the Bible if you would be so hostile against God.
4) Not that therefore God or a god exists, but that if there was an eternity of the past of gods creating gods, you would have had an eternity to be perfected without sin; since you still sin, you know God created.

Just a warning, if you keep restating the 4 Step Proof incorrectly I will have to issue Infractions for your sin bearing false witness in obstinacy. What is the point of trying to disprove something if you are trying to disprove something else that is not the 4 Step Proof. :grin:

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 12:22 AM

Churchwork,
Your constraint in Step 3 is meaningless, because its perfectly conceivable that god exists, but the very specific and particular Christian God does not exist. Steps 1 and 2 could be true and prove the existence of God, but they even constraining all discussion of your proof to the Christian God doesnt actually make the Christian God more plausible than all the others; the constraint is irrelevant. A deistic conception of God could be correct, where the deistic god (for some reason or another) creates the universe and abandons it to move along at its own devices, where the existence of humans is merely an unintended consequence of creation. God could create the universe without making human beings into a special creation, or even caring about humans or knowing about them at all, and it would be completely consistent with your first two steps in your proof.
Is it really a constraint to ask that you stay on topic which is what Step 3 is for? For example, let's say you try to disprove the god of mormonism. How does that relate to the Bible? It doesn't. Since mormons believe God is gods, you would be trying to disprove tritheism of mormon gods being one God, but Christians don't believe in that heresy anyway. So we say, hello mcfly! Hehe.

Whether another god exists is irrelevant, since the proof is about whether God of the Bible exists, and so far as we have seen Step 1 & Step 2 solidly show us the uncreated creator is God of the Bible given Christ and His resurrection given by the mercy of God the Father.

Step 3 does not say not to talk about other gods, not at all, only that if you are trying to disprove God of the Bible, don't do so by thinking you are arguing a point against Him but is really arguing a point against some god that is not God. Such a simple step should not be so complicated for you unless you are just being belligerent.

Deism has already been proven false since God is not vain. You don't just create something for no reason at all. Though you might, God would not. Nothing God does is unintended. Since we are created in His image and the most intelligent beings on earth we are more than merely a passing thought. The probability of life on other planets is so remotely small, it is very unlikely. A reaonable person says, humans stand out as something extraordinary.

The very fact that the universe can move along could not have been possible if it was not accounted for to be able to do so by God. Moreover, God if He could, would not stop at just some natural elements, but He is going to create a creation to the fullest, including making man in His image. It is so unfortunate for you that you prefer to go to hell; that is, you like being a bad person.

It would be completely inconsistent with the first two steps that God would abandon His creation, since along the 4 Steps is the principle of a caring God who wants to walk with His creation (http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/perfectproof.htm), not an evil god that leaves to fend for yourself. The latter would be quite unreasonable, unrighteous and unholy of the God. In recording the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and comparing all know proclamations of God, we see none can compare to Christ.
The constraint that we should only talk about the Christian God is artificial, and if you were trying to prove any other god, you could use the exact same arguments to prove the truth of every religion, so long as you changed Step 3 ever-so-slightly so that a critic is only permitted to talk about whatever god another wants.
The assumption you make that only the Christian God can be talked about is your misreading. Remember, step 3 doesn't say you can only talk about God of the Bible, but rather if you are going to try to disprove God of the Bible, it would not serve any purpose to do so by trying to disprove a point of some god that Christians don't agree with anyway. Do you see the error in your thinking?

You can't use the 4 Step Proof for every religion for only one religion has Christ embedded in it, and that is Christianity.

Do you see how you are reaching in your arguments to misreading the Proof?

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 01:15 AM

Churchwork,

Finally, Step 4 is just another example of irrelevance:Once the person appreciates step 3, they provide their one last stand at the ok corral-Step 4. They say, well why can't there be gods created gods for an eternity of the past so that your God is created also? This is just an offshoot of step 1, but instead of dealing with things in nature, it proposes gods created gods in the supernatural to explain our existence. This violates the principle proven in step 1 which say if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects, whomever the constituents are, you still would have had an eternity to be perfected due to our observation today of the exponential progression cited. Try yourself to think of some more examples of exponential progression of our conscience in the saved. Note the unsaved do not want to change so that is why hell is created. In eternity hell takes care of them, and Juliet.You havent actually connected the creation of the universe or any other gods with the creation of humans; there is no contradiction between there is an infinite regress of gods who have created each other, but humans were only created recently in history rather than created an infinitely long time ago.
Step 4 is most relevant, for it addresses not the natural cause and effects (Step 1), but any supernatural cause and effects that may be out there in gods or otherwise; so, since we still sin, you know there was not an eternity of the past of causes and effects in the supernatural arena. We would have certainly have been without sin by now!

What seems like a perfect proof to you is actually an extremely poor, non-academic proof that could easily be mistaken for a parody. You need to seriously address the problems in Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4, because it fails to stand under its own weight, otherwise you will have taken the almost elegantly written Kalam argument and mangled it beyond theological repair. You do not have a proof of god, and definitely not a proof of the Christian god.

What else can you do but mindlessly accuse of parody or non-academic since you don't rely on any evidence yet. On the contrary the parody and the non-academic is the idea of puff the magic dragon that you propose or disregarding sin. Your approach is in the scholarly community considered absurd and of no account. No reasoning scientist would ever suggest to you that things happen all by themselves or that there is nothing to this evidential exponential improvement in our conscience these past 6000 years. Your approach is extremely poor and of no substance. And may I say that of a dullard!
However, after you restated your proof, you wrote the following:
I never restated my proof. It is the exact same proof for many years now. Nothing has changed of the basic 4 step proof. Something so consistently strong says something, don't you think?

Such God would necessitate His mercy and that mercy is revealed when Jesus entered into creation to die on the cross for your sins to give you eternal life if you were willing to receive it. None compare to the love of Christ, He said He is God and proved it, fulfilling 62 prophecies (probabilities less than 1 in a trillion for any mortal man to get lucky), surrounding 40 writers over 1500 years, in a historical-religio context, showing God's redemptive design, and the apostles died for testifying to His resurrection and ascension. The resurrection of Christ is unique and best testified. No person is more well documented in antiquity. There are 42 writers, both Christian and non-Christian speaking of Jesus in the first 150 years of his death. This far outweighs the number of writers about the Emperor of Rome who died 11 years after Jesus died by a margin of 4 to 1. Skeptics have no considerable valid explanation against Jesus being God.If it means anything to you at all, I wanted to get my degree in New Testament history (however many odd things lead to others, and I earned degrees in Business/Finance instead), so I know about the history of the bible, when it was written, and so on, and I'm 100% positive I know more about the bible than you do.
Lots of people know more about the Bible on details of various kinds than me and lots of people know less, but it is knowledge for knowledge sake alone that NOT is the salvation of Christ, but in coming to the cross to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior for the forgiveness of sins and receive eternal life. If you believe in this man who was also God so shall you be saved. If you are willing to stand up for the one who died for you, so shall you be saved. Since you find no problem with the Bible, then you should accept it. Why sit on the fence? A degree in religion is not going to save you. Anyone can be saved, for it is the simplest thing in the world. There is one thing though may I say, I don't know anyone alive today that knows the depth of the Scripture on spiritual truths revealed in the 5 Deeper Truths (http://biblocality.com/forums/rules.php#five) and the 37 questions in your profile (http://biblocality.com/forums/profile.php?do=editprofile) to this extent, which are things that really count and spiritually motivate you to overcome in Christ! Take a look.

Long story story short, here are some facts to digest:
- Israelites did not exist anytime before 1000 BC, and didnt begin to write down their stories until 900 BC.
- We dont know how any of the apostles died, apart from Judas. The martyrdom of the apostles is something of an extra-biblical addition that isnt actually recorded in the bible or history, so much as it circulated by word of mouth until it became "accepted" as a fact.
- We dont know anything about the life of Christ. We are fairly certain he existed, but his life is completely lost in myth and legend. Was he a good person who preached that people should humble themselves to God? Probably. Did he feed 5000 people with a few fish and two loaves of bread? Probably not. Was he crucified as a political criminal? Probably. Did he reanimate from the dead and begin preaching to people in the streets? Probably not.

Abraham was born about 2091 BC, Isaac born about 2066 BC, Jacob and Esau born about 2006 BC. Jacob fled Haran around 1929 BC. Joseph was born 1915 BC. Moses was born about 1526 BC. David became king of Israel 1010 BC. So you can see the Israelites that Jacob became existed long before you propose.

The real life events Moses recorded himself. If writings existed this old in other cultures, there is no reason it can not also be true in the promise land of Israel. There is no reason to suggest otherwise. This has long since been accepted and no change of view has ever arisen. We can place some trust in our forefathers for the integrity that stands. Have you ever thought why this information remains with us today in the most popular book ever sold? It is because of its truths.

James who is a brother of John is recorded in the Bible as being martyred. For you to say otherwise indicates how out of touch you are. Since there is no reason to doubt the recordings of the martyrdoms by those who knew the apostles such as Polycarp and Clement and so forth in good conscience, and various other writers of which there are many, to suggest otherwise is really without foundation. These are recordings of history, not by oral tradition. What starts off by witnessing through the eyes is transferred orally and then onto written paper. They are actually documented in the earliest church fathers just as you might expect who would take responsibility in sharing this data. I recommend you get Gary Habermas' "The Case for the Resurrection for Jesus Christ" (2004). Awesome proof texts of the primary writers in the first and second century. There is direct connection from person to person from the earliest apostles to the second and third generation of apostles.

There is no possibility of legend, for Paul writes about his meetings with Peter and James and so does Luke for the Jerusalem council in which they agreed on several things. Not only this but Paul was saved about 2 years after Christ died, he saw Christ resurrected as did 11 different group settings. Within 3 years after Paul being saved, he came to Jerusalem to meet Peter and James, so these were very early creeds he taught such as in 1 Cor.15. He was with Barnabas and his travels are recorded on 3 missionary journeys with Timothy, Silas and others.

Since the Stephen and James were put to death in the Bible, and Paul nearly died several times it is recorded, it is not unreasonable to believe early church fathers in the first and second century documenting where and how the apostles died. Nearly all of them were put to death in various ways. Get that highly recommended book.

Jesus made in clear and in no uncertain terms He is God. Jesus said He is the Son of Man and the Son of God. Jews new this to mean He is God, so they killed Him. The apostle are in agreement, saying In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.

We know so much about Christ. We have 42 writers within the first 150 years of his life who wrote about him. Did He feed 5000? Of course. Being God, it would be no problem for Him to intervene in His own creation, just like someone who owns a computer can upload software.

Was he seen resurrected as testified by Matthew, John, Paul, Peter, James and Jude (his two brothers)? Remember these are eyewitnesses accounts who knew Jesus personally: the 12 apostles saw him resurrected, Paul saw him. These are not second hand stories passed down as in other religions. James did not believe his brother was God until after Jesus died and was seen resurrected by his own two eyes. Paul was killing the saints, but they miraculously one day Jesus appeared before Paul in Person, and he could not but be repent and give his life to Christ. Isn't that wonderful? The disciples and the women could literally touch Jesus (http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/jesus_resurrection.htm).

Paul even said that if what he and the apostles are saying is false then the many who know of these events could prove otherwise and write about them and make a laughing stalk of them. But none ever did. Nobody denied the empty tomb. Nobody before Christ had a resurrection. Copycats came after His resurrection and they are not well evidenced or with much context. How wonderful that God enters into His own creation to provide salvation. Imagine! Lets say Christ doesn't even return for a billion years. What will always be the most cherished document that gives us comfort? The 66 books of God's Word. Millions of books will be written on Christ, but one book remains. How wise, righteous and holy He is to make Himself so easily known! Thus, leaving you without excuse!

This same power of resurrection is available to all of us who are saved and is a sure promise of our salvation.

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 01:45 AM

Churchwork,
The supernatural elements of Jesus' life make it so difficult to believe. 2000 years ago, people were very superstitious, and they lived in a world where the supernatural was readily observable and obvious. You think that, with all the technology we have now, if the supernatural used to be so plainly evident to people without the aid of scientific instruments, then surely we could detect the supernatural even more readily with instruments!...
... but we dont. Precisely the opposite: the more we study the universe, and the more sensitive our scientific instruments become, we see the universe is really a system of interacting mathematical equations. Billions of experiments are performed every year, some with the expressed purpose of uncovering psychic and supernatural powers, but not even once have we reliably observed any instance of the supernatural. From the point of view of skeptic, its very difficult to believe that the records of Jesus's miracles and displays of the supernatural are actually genuine or even happened at all, simply because the growing implausibility of supernatural powers.
If one is supernatural, then he is outside the natural. Therefore, supernatural occurrences are not surprising events at all. They may even be daily routine. Daily one may be taken aback spiritually by the manifestations in one's life in their spirit being uplifted by Christ.

The supernatural occurrences are deemed objective visions. They actually saw angels. Today people actually see angels through visions. They aren't subjective. An hallucination can not be seen by 11 different group settings. It's not possible, so you know it was real. They did not live in a world where the supernatural was regularly obvious anymore than today. However, we can say that the mind today is more scientific and heady, so it may because of this be less receptive to supernatural communications apart from revelation in the spirit. As the mind has developed in human kind a case can be made for more receptivity to angelic communications. I see no problem with this observation. It is no less real. They obviously saw something and it is conveyed what was seen and heard and felt.

It would not stand to reason that you could detect supernatural events anymore today than before, since instruments ought to never have the power to seep into God's heaven. This would place God somewhat under our observation and intrusion in our microscopes. I don't think God would ever allow that.

Just as in antiquity, the universe is full of equations no more or less today. It is the same universe, the same supernatural events. Often an event is so miraculous not because of the event itself, but the timing of the event that became so saving and precious or was a judgment. For example, if you read the Miracles of Exodus by Colin J. Humphrey's we can explain the cause and effect (I know you are not a big fan of this, lol) of the 10 plagues, how one affected the other like a chain reaction.

Many times too we have seen through scientific observation supernatural occurrences. There are recorded events of people seeing things that had no brain activity in NDE-Near Death Experiences. They describe things outside their body that they could not have known otherwise. This has been documented extensively and can not be overlooked. Again see The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Habermas.

The most convincing proof you will find is to rely on the minimal facts approach of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have 11 different group settings which record the seeing of a physically resurrected Jesus and the apostles went to their deaths on this account professing having seen Jesus resurrected.

People don't just die for a lie, but for what they actually believe in and see. And it is one thing to die on second hand knowledge, but a completely different matter to die on first hand eyewitness attestations.

It does not make it difficult to believe at all. Is it so hard to believe that if the human race is going to continue on for millions and billions of years that God would not give a point of ultimate reference for His design. He has done that in the 66 books of His Word which is from my findings 100% all genuine truth.

Considering all these facts it makes it very difficult to be an atheist or agnostic or a believe of any other religion except Christianity. Deism doesn't cut it either because it would be utterly vain.

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 02:00 AM

Churchwork,
- The most respected, mainstream scholars believe that Jesus existed, but that his life is exaggerated by a few zealous followers. If you want to know more about the historical Jesus, and certainly learn a lot more than you would learn reading second-rate apologetics all day, go to your library and pick up A Marginal Jew by John P Meier, The Historical Jesus by Gerd Theissen, The Historical Jesus by John Dominic Crossan, and for a little more background on the development of the bible its worth the time to read Truth and Fiction in the Bible by Robin Lane Fox.
Most respected scholars don't believe Jesus life was exaggerated, but accept that:

He died by crucifixion and was buried
the disciples sincerely believed that He rose from the dead and appeared to them
the church persecutor Paul (outsider skeptic) was suddenly changed
the skeptic James (family skeptic), brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed
the tomb was empty
the disciples were in dispair, lost hope, but in seeing his resurrection, they became bold proclaimers
the resurrection was the central message
the church was born and grew from JerusalemThe early documentation to support this is substantial. There has been no contrary account proposed by skeptics that have been deemed viable to explain the eyetwitness accounts of Jesus and the martyrdom of the apostles in their claims of the resurrection of Christ.

Though not everyone accepts Christ, the scholarly community agrees on these points and for that matter, they can find no logical explanation to provide a natural explanation. That is why Antony Flew who is considered himself the leading scholar in the world for atheism has turned to believing in an uncreated creator, though he still fights with believing in Christ.

All of those books, I recall, you mentioned are in the references and used and quoted by Gary Habermas (http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/garyhabermas.htm) in The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. He addresses all those books' major concerns. So you need to uplevel yourself to the response to their ideas by reading this book. He is most comprehensive and thorough, and who is considered by many to be the leading scholar on the resurrection. You will love taking the Resurrection Challenge on CD that comes with the book. This book is like his consummating work of many previous books. It is so precise in its delivery I highly recommend it.

Have you heard of the lawyer in the guiness book of records who is reported as having won 400 cases in a row. Well he said that he has never seen a better case than for the death and resurrection of Christ. In other words, if the resurrection is true, you won't be able to provide better evidence than the evidence that has existed these past 1900+ years.

The religio-historical context fits by 40 writers over 1500 years, the miracles, fulfilled prophecies (62 with amazing odds that only God could fulfill) and the reasonableness of it all that we are sinners and sin leads to death and the second death because our souls can't be annihilated in being made in God's image. Therefore, a redemption is needed and no better redemption can be achieved than the salvation of God Himself entering int creation to provide the perfect sacrifice for sins. If you believe in this man who is also God, you are going to be recruited by God into His kingdom to receive the glory of His eternal blessings.

For Christ to enter into His creation now for the first time would be utter confusion and logistically impossible. He would be killed in an instant, cutting short his 3 year ministry which was short enough as it was. I think in those days in Judea and Galilee at least Jesus could escape for a short while those who were trying to kill him. I have talked to a lot of non-Christians about Christ if He were to first enter creation today, and they say to me they feel the world would kill him right quick. What does that say of humanity, their sin nature, hostility to their creator and love for the god of this world who is Satan? Islam for example would kill him the first chance they get.

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 02:29 AM

Churchwork,
I honestly dont expect you pick up any of those, but I would really appreciate it if you knew a little more about your religion. Believe me, I've seen the pattern of belief a million times, and you are just a textbook example of someone who believed the bible was true long before you even had the faintest idea of why you thought it was true or even knew about it from an academic point of view.
I would appreciate it, if you do respond, to learn a little more about your religion as well as my religion. So do get that book (The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habermas, 2004) for it talks about your religion and my religion in the most precise detail possible so you can see the fullest evidence.

Actually, I am quite unlike most people you meet who say they are Christians. I believe God chose me in this way, so I could not be accused effectively like you would accuse others in the way you think they came to Christ. Logically I know that the uncreated had to have created given the 4 Step Proof for God which you have nothing against, so the only question becomes, who is the Creator? Where does He reveal Himself in creation? That answer existed in the One that none could compare to, who is Christ. All the other major religions fail in their logic and conscience. Atheism is utterly destroyed since puff the magic dragon theories of quantum mechanism is utterly mindless. Agnosticism is pretentious, for Jesus said, if you are not for Him, you are against Him. Also if you are agnostic, understand this principle. By saying you are not sure if Jesus is God or if there is no God, what you are doing is at the very minimum, exposing yourself because at the very minimum, you know nothing in nature happens all by itself, so therefore, to deny the uncreated creator, whoever he is, is intellectually dishonest and really atheism in disguise. I love being able to see this. There is in fact no such thing as real agnosticism. All agnosticism is, is atheism.

The pattern you hoped to see fails you since it is dependent on your assumptions which are false in hoping I am like those who you perceive. The evidence for Christ wins out, so any person who wants to be reasonable will receive Christ. Anyone who doesn't want to be reasonable is free to reject Christ. Since there is no better alternative of reality, Christ wins.

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 02:59 AM

Churchwork,
I'm not trying to be condescending, but you're just a garden-variety fundamentalist who believes first and tries to prove later, essentially no different from the fundamentalists of every other religion who do the exact same thing, and you're beliefs are no better off than theirs. Jesus fulfilled just as many prophecies as Mohammed, and there is no argument that you can provide to disprove that claim. Why? Because you're making categorical statements without qualifying them, and there is fundamentally no reason to prefer your categorical statements above a Muslims unqualified categorical statements about his own religion.
You are not unlike any other agnostic or atheist in the same overassuming position of claiming the universe has forever been going on without a cause. I call this the puff the magic dragon faith. Since all things in nature have a cause, then it is not logical to believe that which has a cause is the ultimate cause. This is the lie in your heart, and now you try desperate to prove it by picking the most complicated subject (quantum mechanics far beyond your capacity to understand) to say that therefore it happens all by itself. This is not intelligent, but the big assumption, just like the Roman Church has the big assumption they call Mary being sinless (even though I count no less than 5 time Mary sinned in the Bible alone). Christians have the first hand testimony of those who saw Jesus resurrected and gave their lives to Christ on the cross. What do you have? Puff the magic dragon or a meaningless universe, so you are compelled to do anything you like such as nuke 10 cities without conscience. Christians are constrained by the Holy Spirit to walk by the spirit to the glory of God.

It's not difficult to compare the what the right choice is. I also don't think it is so wrong to receive Christ even though you don't have the best evidences out there like I have of His death, deity and resurrection. It really is quite enough to look at the overwhelming aura of Christianity, the death of Christ for forgiveness of sins and eternal life. To stand up for someone who said they were God, lived as God, and died as God is so compelling, it is very difficult to deny. The most encompassing religion that ever was remains as the guiding beacon in a world of darkness. Many in the faith, especially spiritual Christians testify the deeper their life in Christ gets the more they prayer and study and walk by the Holy Spirit, the more faith increases and proofs are rounded out. Once saved always saved!

Did Mohammed fulfill any prophecies at all? What prophecies? The OT existed centuries before Christ. Mohammed has no documentation before his cave experience and rejection by Israel, no prophecies about him at all are of the need of his hostility to Christ. Jesus fulfilled 62 prophecies dating back before 1000 BC. Mohammed comes along six and a half centuries later and calls Jesus a liar. Does Mohammed all by himself in a cave have any credibility for this claim? The same problem exists for the Mormons, JW's, 7th Day Adventists. Mohammed was a murdere before he wrote the Koran and after. Christ never hurt anyone before or after His Ministry.

I can show the prophecies fulfilled in Christ and I can show testimony of 40 writers about those prophecies over 1500 years in complete harmony. If you think Mohammed can equate to that, I will let you try. Not only is this your big challenge, but you have to account for how Mohammed could alter the Word of God, by claiming something completely opposite about Christ than does the writers of the Bible (eg. see Isaiah 53). Remember, Jesus said He is God, so to say He is not six and a half centuries later doesn't hold much weight now does it?

So Christians have all this tangible evidence (corroboration among people who had the Holy Spirit), but what does Mohammed have? He was a murderer and a pedophile. He alters the Bible six and a half centuries later and none of his miracles are said to occur until over a century after his death. The NT was written within a few decades of Christ's death.

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 03:13 AM

Churchwork,
Of course, if you're like me, then it should be fairly evident that all the gods of religion are false. They are made in the image of man, put man in the center of the universe, and give man an special place above any other animal; these kinds of gods are so obviously manmade fictions that they just cannot be believed. Even worse, the moral prescriptions these gods make are so completely naive (I could give a long long long list of naive morals if you like) that they just cannot come from a being who presumably has all the knowledge, all the wisdom, and the most perfect morals of any being in the universe; but it makes perfect sense if those naive moral commands come from egocentric, superstitious humans. A god might exist, but he certainly doesnt look like the gods of any religion.

Yes, all the gods of religions including yours are false except one. Only Jesus is God. He is God the Son with God the Father and God the Spirit - The Trinity of the Godhead. God's Triune Being is How God reveals Himself to us. When we pray, we pray to the Father through the Son by the Spirit indwelling. When the council of the Godhead created the Father spoke, the Son created and the Spirit executed and renews creation today.

Just like all religions are made in the image of a man or their particular idols, so do you have a religion in the image of your idol which is that puff the magic dragon, which stems from your independency and disobedience to God. Think of it this way: if you believe in puff the magic dragon then you can believe in yourself as entering into existence without a cause and making yourself a god. It's all selfish.

The myths of old are quite unlike the resurrection of Christ and His walking on earth. Myths of old were just myths, not actually God on earth in His creation. Most of these gods were created gods, not question where they came from. You must remember none were claiming a resurrection on parallel with Christ before Christ was resurrected. This was a new turn of events. Moreover, gods of old myths are shoddy in their documentation, sparse at best and their earliest known parchments are a thousand years divorced from their events, so they are of no consideration on pare with Christ. Of all the major religions none can compare to Christianity. Hinduism and Buddhism say if you are sinner you can come back a dog, but if you are a good dog, you can come back as a man again. There is no accountability for sin in this idea so you can keep on sinning because you know you can always come back as a man. Islam says you get to have I think 72 virgins. This is making sex an idol. Christianity says in eternal life there is no procreation for those who have resurrected bodies.

There is really is no legitimate faith than faith in Christ. Faith in self is self-exalting a sinner of agnosticism and atheism.

The only God that could exist is revealed in the Bible, for you can see none more righteous, holy and true. Now that you can see all this evidence and sound reasoning leaves one no choice but to accept Christ, if you don't realize Hell is for you to keep you eternally separated from God and His sons and daughters.

With love, in Christ :)

Churchwork

11-26-2006, 03:33 AM

Summary

For a quick summary this is my finding. No new idea was introduced by the atheist Juliet that I have not heard before. It comes down to this. We have substantial evidence for the resurrection of Christ using just the minimal facts approach from James the brother