http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9691385
2010-09-19 Show #675

Live debate today between Troy Brooks vs. Martin Wagner and Russell Glasser. I can handle a little double teaming on me. I think I won because I don't know how to disprove my case. Go to the last 10 minutes of the show. They weren't very gracious giving me time to speak, but I think people got it!

Notice how Wagner required there be a naturalistic explanation. Do you see that? He said, "You guys don't have a natural answer..." Of course we don't because the evidence shows us that nature can't always have existed nor start up from nothing. Why would I need a naturalistic explanation? That makes no sense. That is what you are trying to propose, not me.

Wagner says, "You are asserting the existence of a magical God". Not at all. Magic we know has a naturalistic explanation. There is the necessity of the uncreated Creator outside of nature based on the evidence no other option exists since nature can't always have existed nor start up from nothing. This is whom we call God. Very simple.

Since there is no other option by this well founded evidence it cannot be an argument from ignorance, but it is an argument from ignorance and special pleading to say the universe always existed or started up all by itself when the evidence that we do have is contrary to that position. Why the doublestandard in labeling argument from ignorance when that is your position without evidence? Shutting your mind down to this fact doesn't make it go away. When all known possibilities are impossible, it is what you, yes you, thought to be impossible that must be the truth -- the uncreated Creator outside of time and space that our puny brains have troubles grasping. This is the beginning of humility. There is no humility in claiming you have to wait to know all things to know for sure since the evidence is already in. Besides you can never know that much anyway, so get off the pot. Always waiting to discover the next caused cause apart from God is dishonest and unethical. Never met an ethical atheist. That's false humility and people see it every time you open your mouth even though you can't see it.

Russell Glasser asked how can I go from the uncreated Creator to the the resurrection of Jesus? Easily, since this is the best proof of who the uncreated Creator is. Resurrection cannot occur naturally, so it was supernatural. Since there are only two options, supernatural and natural, and the natural is shown to be impossible, then the supernatural must be it. No false dilemma.

Take a simple example. Assuming no magic trick. If you have 3 cups and one marble is hidden under one of those 3 cups, then you turn over two of those cups but no marble is seen. You are not being ignorant by saying the marble is under the third cup since no other option exists. But you are being ignorant and pretentious if you say there is some other explanation. Likewise, since all known naturalistic explanations are fully exhausted and accounted for for the explanation of the universe, we are left with no other option than the uncreated Creator who, of course, reveals to us only what He wants to reveal, no more and no less.

The argument from ignorance is not the approach being taken by theists for it is the evidence that leads us to this conclusion of the necessity for the uncreated Creator. We go with the evidence. The argument of ignorance is displayed in the position of claiming one is atheistic though since you can't be atheistic on the sole reason because of your opinion there is no God and no argument against such a wild claim. Atheism is the argument of ignorance. People who are in a false position will often project by accusation onto others that fallacy they themselves possess. For the atheist to escape their own argument from ignorance they would have to find a naturalistic explanation for the universe, but none have been forthcoming.

For false dichotomy to be true of the theist, the atheist would have to show some other option could be viable but you don't. So do you see how you are misusing these logical fallacies? You're inserting your own assumption into them that are unsupported and shown to be false, since you don't need a billion years more to know nature can't always have existed, that no other option exists, and nature can't come from nothing. Bottom line: no evidence for atheism but definitely evidence for the uncreated Creator. Let's go with the evidence.

For false dichotomy to not be true of the atheist, the atheist would have to show some other option exists than the uncreated Creator as well as tear down the evidence for the uncreated Creator that has been given. But since you can't do that, you would have to actually find a a third option to infinite regress and something from nothing in nature. No such third option exists not even in your fantasies.

Think of it this way. You really can't ask for better evidence than the fact nature can't always have existed nor start up from nothing. See if you can. I assure you that you can't. Hence, Romans 1.20 is our guiding principle in this debate,

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (Rom. 1.20).

Praise the Lord, you're leading people to Christ because you can't overturn this evidence for the uncreated Creator (God) and that none can compare to Christ. Very simply, since God's standards can't be less than ours then it follows He must be personal and accessible. Since the weird god Russell Glasser proposes fails to compare with Christ, Jesus trumps your silly god. Since Jesus has this quality of being personal and accessible, and you can't find a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the disciples' beliefs (which should be relatively easy to do since this isn't rocket science) which you don't even try in our discourse then the debate is over.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for strengthening my faith. This continues to prove the Biblical teaching of once-saved-always-saved (sadly William Lane Craig is a non-OSASer like the adherents of the Roman Church and larger part of Christendom), not that it had to be in experience, but because once you are made in God's image, and that is proven by what Jesus did for us on the cross, His resurrection and ascension, how can God's image ever cease to exist? Think how evil it would be of God to create you, give you a spirit of God-consciousness, yet you know you would cease to exist. What love is that? Surely God can do better than that.

So those like my two debaters will be going to Hell because deep down inside in their heart of hearts they want to be eternally separated from their Creator. How truly sad for them, for they know not what they do. As the Bible says they are "condemned already" (John 3.18).

But "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Rom. 8.28).

And "as it is written, 'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him'" (1 Cor. 2.9).

I almost forgot to mention Glasser and Wagner were disagreeing with each other. Wagner was still contending for no uncreated Creator while Glasser (an atheist) conceded the uncreated Creator. And really what do spectral evidence and the Salem Witch Trials that Glasser mentioned have to do with what we were talking about? Individual hallucinations are not the issue but group hallucinations which modern psychology says are impossible according to their latest DM-4 manual. And where did the quote I gave from Simon Greenleaf have anything to do with the Salem Witch Trials over a century before Greenleaf's time? Glasser and Wagner must have been tired from arguing so long they were getting a little crazy. I tried to get Glasser off that tangent. You can't tell me the center of the truth of all things falls upon some vague reference to Salem and spectral evidence. I don't even know what his argument was because he never said what it was. All he said was spectral evidence and Salem Witch Trials like Wagner asserted false dilemma, argument from ignorance and appeal to authority without actually showing it. When you quote an authority it is not the authority you are appealing to but his reasoning given. These guys think I am not a mind reader, but I am not, and secondary issues are irrelevant anyway to the 4 Step Perfect Proof for God and Minimal Facts Approach.

Part of the program was talking about what are the soul and spirit? Before you try to argue against them, figure out what they are first,
http://www3.telus.net/trbrooks/SMCFP.htm

Very simply your spirit is in your innerman and your soul and body comprise your outerman. Your spirit has God-consciousness with the functions of intuition, communion and conscience. Your soul has the functions of mind, will and emotion and produce self-consciousness. Your body with its five senses give us world-consciousness. It's like a computer in a way. When you turn your computer off the spirit of it in 1's and 0's are saved, but when you turn it on the software works like one being raised from the dead so the soul becomes enlivened. Easy enough for us. How much more easy for God!