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Thread: 4 Step Proof for God of the Bible

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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    Step 2: "The universe has a cause."
    At the very least, I think the claim that the universe has a cause might be the strongest argument for theism, however that argument would have had a lot more persuasive force 500 years ago than it does today, simply because of the leaps and bounds in scientific progress we've made. The claim "everything has a cause" isnt as obviously true as it used to be. I provided two reasons, a theological reason (namely that free will is not bound by the rules of determinism), and a scientific reason (namely the fact that scientific determinism breaks down at the quantum level).
    Step 1 shows the universe was created by the uncreated. Step 2 also shows the universe was created by the uncreated. They both show the same thing but in two different ways. One looks at sin and conscience, while the other looks at the fact that all things in nature have a cause, so the ultimate cause must be the uncreated being.

    I don't think Step 2 is any more stronger today than it ever was even though there has been leaps and bounds in scientific progress. Jesus said we would do amazing things far greater than he did, and scientific progress is certainly included. One could make an argument for the acceptance that people were more prone to accept God because of the simple fact that they were simple and could easily see one thing always led to another. But today, man has fancy theories that puff up self, so much so he even believes in puff the magic dragon theories that things just happen all by themselves. Such pride can render such absurd conclusions.

    Everything having a cause is certainly just as much true in yesteryear as it is today. Free-will is bound by rules of determinism which is to say that free-will ultimately has its cause too (both in origin and process as the person may be influenced by God, self or Satan) and that cause is God made us in His image with a free-will to have free-choice. This determinism does nothing to diminish free-will of yesteryear when it was written down by Moses in Gen. 1.26,27 we were made in God's image. And Abel was recorded as giving a free-will offering, and John 3.16 is given to advise us we have a choice.

    Determinism means everything has a cause and effect and can be determined by God in His infinite foreknowledge because He is all-knowing. It is all accomplished according to His holiness and righteousness.

    And determinism (laws of cause and effect) do not break down at the quantum level, just because you can't know all causes and effects. That is like saying, because you are not God to be able to see all things, therefore it must happen all by itself like puff the magic dragon. That is illogical. Men did not know the sun was the center of the solar system, but finally realized it by observing various causes. An atheist is someone who is still thinking the earth is flat because he can't see the cause of the motions of the solar system around the sun yet. Silly. One word depicts this overassuming attitude: pride! And pride because the evidence speaks so much to the contrary.

    Thus, nothing was said of sufficient value by Juliet the atheist to have any basis for atheism.
    Unfortunately, you didnt reply to my argument at all. My argument was that the process of free will is not bound by determinism, which falsifies Step 2; my argument said nothing about the origin of free will. So essentially, you changed the subject and replied to something I never said, then preceded to say that my original argument was false.
    This is a strawman argument you are using, for to think the process of choosing is separate from the free-will choice given by God is merely your attempt at trying to be cunning and couth. This is a logical fallacy by your misrepresenting my position. My position covers any process of free-choice ultimately given by God. Hallelujah!

    Since you don't define this change of subject but just self-declare it, then this is more of your acting like the devil in false accusations. You did mention free-will by saying it "is not bound by determinism," yet determinism is the law of cause and effect for all things, so let go of your doubletongue when you said you said nothing of the origin of free-will, because you have just mentioned that free-will is not bound by a cause of determinism. Your statement is false since free-will does have its cause. By the Holy Spirit it is so easy when someone speaks out the side of their face as have you done. Therefore, your underlined accusation is a false one as usual. The cause is the very fact that it is made in God's image! Just like in quantum mechanics we often can only speak of probabilities, so it is with man's free-will, still ultimately caused. Just because something has a probability does not mean it is without a cause of being afforded the free-choice and to employ its own processes and receive from God or not. How silly. The very right to a probability has embedded within it principles for probability. Just like a 20 sided die can come up any number from 1 to 20, it is because the die is a certain shape to allow for this to happen (it is a righteous die). So has God designed quantum mechanics. He can also foresee the outcome, not only the probability of it. He can take into account all probabilities to know the outcomes according to His righteousness and holiness. This makes God far beyond any expectation you may have of His greatness. Under all probabilities is a root cause, such as the die falls a certain way. But who throws the die? God does. How does He throw it? He throws it perfectly to allow us fall the way we may. Of course I responded to your argument. As I already wrote:
    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.
    So as we see here your argument failed you.
    Therefore, determinism stands in God's infinite foreknowledge. Though we have free-will and there is a cause and effect in all things, God has infinite foreknowledge (Rom. 8.29) to foresee our free-choice.

    The origin of free-will is a cause. It does not happen all by itself. You are talking in a doubletongue, for you had written already, irrationally,
    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.)
    That there is always a cause and effect does not violate free-will, but substantiates it for free-will does not come from nothing, but is caused, and the only possible cause for a free-will is God. No other explanation is provided or accounted for. My response was:
    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.
    Don't blame God for your false predestination since it is your false view of reality, not a part of God's plan. Accept true Biblical predestination, which is God's way of salvation.
    As I was never talking about the origin of free will or where it comes from, but rather the process of actually making free choices, your rebuttal amounts to nothing.
    Since the origin of free-will and the making of free-choices all have their origins, ie causes, no free-choice is undetermined. The first giving of a free-choice is a cause and the act of choosing also has its cause which is inherent of the right to free-choice being made in God's image. You certainly could never separate the two, after all, God does not allow any such separation. By denying being made in God's image would never cut it since we have a free-will which exists because the uncreated caused it and allows its processes to unfold according to His righteousness allowances.
    So, I must reiterate, you stated, "nothing in nature happens all by itself, there is always a cause and an effect", and if you believe that people make genuinely free choices (which are not explicable by the rules of determinism), then free will choices are obviously the exception to the rule that all events have a cause and effect, so your statement is false. In fact, you conceded this fact yourself, in your very own words, you said, "Similarly, in God foreseeing all events does not infringe on our free-will. We still choose.", so are free will choices actually determined or not? If not, then Step 2 is false, just as I said it was in the beginning.
    Determinism says all things have a cause and effect. Free-choice exist within that framework and abides in this principle. However difficult it is for you fathom all things having a cause and effect and our having a free-choice makes no difference. These are both realities and laws of life. Having a free-choice is no exception to the rule of determinism, for they are both completely compatible. We are made in God's image. So the statement remains true still all things have a cause and effect and man's free-will is no exception. All man's choice is built up in being made in God's image. I concede nothing when I said, "Similarly, in God foreseeing all events does not infringe on our free-will. We still choose." Our determined free will has a cause, and that cause is in God making us in His image to have the choice. It is determined because it is caused by God making us in His image. Since it is determined, then Step 2 remains true, as I said from the beginning. Amen.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    Your reply to my scientific argument was weak, because you insisted that the trillions of events that have a cause and effect implies that everything has a cause and effect. However, that statement isnt true in a technical sense, simply because we have two seperate theories in physics that describe movement in the universe: general relativity referring to the movement of matter and bodies of matter, and quantum mechanics referring to the movement of particles smaller than matter. The first one is what we see everyday, and its deterministic; the second one may not be deterministic.
    I only state that since the odds are against you by a margin at least less than 1 in a trillion, you would be the worse gambler that ever lived. Someone who needs no evidence like that is quite pretentious don't you think? General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics don't change this at all. On the contrary, the evidence all sways against you, because in the most complicated things in history, we have learned to conquer, we discover there always was ultimately a cause to them. Since no scientific effort ever came up with any evidence for puff the magic dragon theories, we must realize that someone who fabricates such an idea is not operating on all cylinders. What a vain life you live to spend all this time trying to rationalize such a lie. You will suffering the consequences.

    The first of large objects is deterministic and so is the second. There is no reason to think otherwise. Just because an object is really small makes no difference. How silly. Now I have brought this up several times, but you just keep repeating yourself like a clanging bell and don't respond to what I have said. This is shutting your mind down. And how vain, just because you pick the most complicated thing so far away from being able to investigate that we may never know for that matter because of course there will always be some thing God keeps to Himself. This is not humility but borders on real and tangible evil to claim something happens all by itself. You live by this principle, for that is atheism. Evil to the bone! Only hell can handle you.

    You spend all your time focusing on the trillions of cause and effects on the macroscopic world, but you completely ignore all of the trillions of acausal events in the quantum world. In fact, we have a whole branch of science called quantum mechanics which studies these acausal phenomena, formally called quantum indeterminancy. You come across this phenomenon everytime you come in contact with any substance that goes through radioactive decay (on the long-term scale, this would be C-14 decaying into its daughter elements, on the short-term scale this would be phosphorescent paint where the light emitted is a byproduct of decay). For a long time, the process of radioactive decay was very confusing for scientists, because it didnt appear to be a deterministic process, refer to this article on the subject; the decay of atoms isnt correlated to anything, the radiation is more or less the same no matter what the temperature of the substance or its interactions with other substances. In all conditions, and in all tests, a substance will decay with the same rate; however, interestingly, it is not possible to point to any single atom and state that it will decay or not over a half life with more than a 50% certainty (which indistinguishable from chance). And famously, the movement of electrons whizzing around a nucleous appears indeterministic, because as we all know from the uncertainty principle, there is no way to determine the exact position and momentum of an electron simultaneously.
    I consider all avenues of information, but I don't make big fat assumptions full of pride without evidence such as "acausal events in the quantum world." Do understand that is pride and arrogance that thinks just because you can't see the cause there must not be a cause. Such an idea has always been wrong in the past, so why should it not be wrong again! The science of quantum indeterminacy is not studying acausal, but is rather to seek out the cause, because scientists know in some of the most difficult areas in the past that were solved, a cause was finally determined. All things with uncertain outcomes only means we don't know the actual cause yet. Just because I see two people running in a sprint and I can only attribute a certain probability to one runner winning more often than the other, does not mean there is not ultimately real causes for why this is the case. I feel like I am talking to a 5 year old.

    Because on the electron level, we don't know how it works exactly and thus can not predicted with certainty, does not mean there isn't real deterministic things going on there. To think otherwise is just nonsense. If a scientist thought that, then he might as well pack up his books and go home. It is a never ending search to find the cause and we just might uproot some of these root causes to some of these most difficult questions which we know for a fact have a deterministic cause, since this has been the precedence found on both a large scale and small scale. No exceptions.
    At the very least, its worth mentioning that quantum physics need not be necessarily indeterministic, see the wikipedia article on the subject:
    With probability of greater than a trillion to one, you can be very confident quantum physics is deterministic. Though we never know anything really with 100% certainty, trillion to 1 odds are pretty good in accepting that all things are deterministic on all levels, sizes and shapes.
    Of course, the above statement has an interesting consequence with respect to the first cause problem:
    - The first being, that if quantum physics is indeterminstic, then at the very least, the beginning of the universe is acausal but also compliant with the laws of physics. I explained this in a little more detail in my last post.
    Since the probability of quantum physics being indeterministic is with such low probability, it is not even worth considering in a thousand thousand life times. If it were true that quantum physics was indeterministic that would violate the principle that nothing is ever seen in nature on any scale that is without a cause; therefore, God created, which is the truth of Step 2. Nothing you stated previously would suggest indeterminism would be compliant with the laws of physics.
    - The second being, that if quantum physics is really deterministic, and that it is described by the Schrodinger equation, then the universe doesnt need a cause at all, at least not in the explicit sense. The fabric of the universe is a consequence of mathematics, and the energies which fluctuate, including the energies that give rise to those virtual particles, are just a consequence of mathematics; the universe would be no more "caused" than any of the other rules of mathematics. In every possible universe, it is true that pi =
    Code:
    pi = 4 - 3/4 + 5/4 - 7/4 + ...
     
               infinity
                 __   (n*2 + 1)^(-1^n)
    pi = 4  +    \    ----------------
                 /_           4
                n = 1
    It does not follow that the fact of quantum mechanics being deterministic, then it need no cause at all. Since the universe has a cause in all its parts because it is deterministic, then nothing in nature itself can be the ultimate cause. Therefore, the universe had to have been created by what we call that which is not a natural cause, but that which is a supernatural uncreated cause. And none meet that qualification except God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. Praise the Lord!

    This is explicitly stated with perfect clarity and is Step 2 in the 4 Step Perfect Proof of God of the Bible.

    So your sin remains to merely self-declare a contradiction by claiming non-deterministic virtual particles that happen all by themselves while at the same time saying the universe is deterministic. This is the sin of 1 Tim. 3.8, be "not doubletongued"! A sinner loves his double tongue and mindless contradictions because he himself is a walking and self-righteous contradiction who tries to self-exalt himself while rejecting God who can exalt infinitely higher than he could ever achieve on his own.

    The energy that gives rise to any so-called virtual particles has itself a cause of some other energy and so on and so forth. But this can't go on for an eternity in the past because nothing in nature ultimately causes itself. And the laws of math which the universe is governed by themselves have a cause too. They did not just puff out of nowhere. How silly. Evil souls make up evil ideas.

    Yes there is the unending number Pi. However, this does nothing to help you in preventing you from going to hell because you are an atheist. Pi has its own reasons too why it never ends. It doesn't just happen all by itself.

    This conversation is really dull, for I just keep hearing the same mindless self-declaration that you think things happen all by themselves like puff the magic dragon. You give no valid reason. It is retarded.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    The rules of math are necessarily true, they dont need a creator. The universe then, starting from the beginning where it had no space or time, basically a 0-D point, came to exist because the principles of mathematics are necessarily true. God cannot create necessary states of affairs; If you'd like a partial explanation for why this is relevance, there is a short blurb in this article which discusses omnipotence and necessary objects:

    The rules of mathematics obtain whether or not God exists or not, and that includes the mathematics that gave rise to the universe in the first place.
    The rules of math are necessarily true. Like all things in nature, math is itself a law of nature and has its cause. Since they can not be the ultimate cause, therefore, the uncreated creator caused them.

    Understand you have just self-declared mindlessly math is the creator. Math caused the first event. Don't you feel embarrassed by such a ridiculous comment? Can you feel all the scientists in the world laughing at you?

    God can create necessary state of affairs. How silly that He cannot. These state of affairs are necessarily created by Him.

    Mathematics cannot exist without a precedent cause for them. Mathematics don't make a decision, they are like anything in nature, they just react to their laws. Math would not exist if something didn't put math in motion to be a law. It is not even clear whether the universe needs math or math needs the universe. Math may just be the outcropping of the universe's properties. And that's ok.

    Just as I said originally, the statement "everything has a cause" is very intuitional, but you still havent shown that its true. You merely state that its true without going through the rigors of proving it scientifically, you dont show any of the math you used to arrive at your position (in fact, given that you dont even have a good understanding of calculus, I dont think you even could). This is a profound weakness in your argument, something you never address any further than your own intuitional introspection.
    Not only is everything with a cause intuitional, but it is objectively observable in the case of precedence time and time again we discover the cause of something to lead us to the conclusion all things have a cause. The most surprising things we could not find a cause to initially we later discover, leaving us confident that all things in nature have a cause. So based on the fact we can cite at least a trillion things with a cause and not one thing with certainty that is without cause, therefore, the odds against the atheist are astounding. To be an atheist is insane!

    Scientifically this is our finding. But we can never know all things since we never know with 100% certainty, only a great amount of certainty. And since science can't even prove itself, we recognize the limitations of science itself. God places His restrictions on the law of science as well to limit our ability to break into His domain beyond His will.

    Since you can provide nothing to counter this evidence, your proclamations lie dead as is your heart to God. It is not necessary to be a calculus scholar to observe these facts, and God forbid only calculus majors could be saved. That would be a very dull eternity.
    :hilarious

    Your own intuition perspective is what fails you every time. Understand your spirit is your inner man or woman as the case may be. It uses the functions of intuition and conscience. Since you have the evil spirit in your spirit, naturally you are committed to the lie of thinking things happen all by themselves, but as we have seen that is asinine and deadly to your assumed faith in the idol god of mathematics that you think is the cause of all things even itself. We must conclude easily that your ideas are clouded by a darkened mind, and your mind is darkened because your spirit is shut-in and covered up by demonic control of your members. Nothing else explains adequately your big assumptions that are without basis.

    Part of the problem is introspection. God never asked you to be so introspection. An analogy might be someone standing all day in front of mirror looking at himself to discover the secrets of the universe and his conclusion is since all he sees is himself, therefore, whatever crazy idea he fathoms must be the truth.

    One sense of ‘omnipotence’ is, literally, that of having the power to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever, including necessary and impossible states of affairs. Descartes seems to have had such a notion (Meditations, Section 1). Yet, Aquinas and Maimonides held the view that this sense of ‘omnipotence’ is incoherent. Their view can be defended as follows. It is not possible for an agent to bring about an impossible state of affairs (e.g., that there is a shapeless cube), since if it were, it would be possible for an impossible state of affairs to obtain, which is a contradiction (see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, 25, 3; and Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Part I, Ch. 15). Nor is it possible for an agent to bring about a necessary state of affairs (e.g., that all cubes are shaped). It is possible for an agent, a, to bring about a necessary state of affairs, s, only if possibly, (1) a brings about s, and (2) if a had not acted, then s would have failed to obtain. Because a necessary state of affairs obtains whether or not anyone acts, (2) is false. As a consequence, it is impossible for an agent to bring about either a necessary or an impossible state of affairs.
    This is a logical fallacy. Let me explain. The sense described of omnipotence is false. Omnipotence is "Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful". It does not ever mean bringing about impossible state of affairs. This renders the whole argument ridiculous and boring.
    Of course, all of this is on top of the initial issue I brought up regarding virtual particles. If we accept that the Schrodinger equation is true, then the origin of virtual particles becomes obvious: they are pertubations in the fabric of space, described by mathematics. The rules of mathemathics need no creator, and as the whole quantum universe is just a sea of mathematical equations, then the origin of the universe is unspectacular, its just math. The universe was no more "created" than the rules of math.
    The Schroding equation solves no question before us. Since any such kind of particles have their root cause just as mathematics must, since they are things of nature, then they need a creator. The universe therefore is no more uncaused than math. Oh bow to to the great math idol! Just like wood and stone! God said in the Bible they are not even gods, people only make them out to be to puff up themselves. Perhaps it is their vocation so they make it their idol.

    See how easy this is to explain. Simple as pie, just as easy as it is to be saved.

    If the Schroding equation is true, then the existence of the universe is necessary, not contingent, so the existence of the universe would obtain whether God exists or not.
    The reason the universe is necessary is because God wants to walk with man made in His image in the universe that is so incredibly vast, that you can see how profound His intentions are. And the universe is contingent on God's wanting it. If God did not want it, it would not be here. Pretty simple.
    So, this ends my rebuttal to the cosmological block of your proof. By no means is my reply comprehensive, but I simply dont have the time or endurance to write out 14 lengthy posts. I think it should be evident that your cosmological argument isnt persuasive because you're just a laymen, with an extremely limited math background and extremely limited scientific knowledge, and you make a seemingly endless number of presumptuous remarks that undermine the entire proof process; you need to seriously reconsider your argument from the ground up.
    All aspects of the 4 Step Proof for God remain solid.

    One lengthy post is the equivalent of many of my short posts. Do you see how you accuse by your petty self? It is so easy to spot. Anything to exalt self, but you have no idea you are going to hell. Perhaps you do, but you don't care. Either way all else being equal you will be in hell shortly. And that God for that to keep you eternally separated from His own people.

    Each of my posts are quite short compared to your long posts, very very long in fact. I think you have the endurance to write these long posts because you already did. However, you may not have the endurance to see all your errors and why the 4 Step Proof for God remains unchallenged. But at least these posts are up here for you to look at in the coming years. And may they help lead you to Christ, even to read the whole Bible quietly and patiently and prayerfully.

    Since I am not a scientist and to be a scientist is certainly not required, nor do you show any need to be a scientist to be of vital importance, we must conclude you are just confusing yourself and looking for things to puff up yourself for you need something to rationalize your being a bad person as good and make it seem like you are in reality even though you are not. It is enough for someone with a clear thinking mind to realize since nothing in nature happens all by itself, there for the supernatural must be the cause which is beyond the greatest scientific mind that ever lived.

    Still no reason is given for the idea of puff the magic dragon it happened all by itself, therefore Step 2 remains intact and as powerful as the day it was given. Praise the Lord!

    It looks like you are going to have to go into moderation which simply means you can post, but before it is displayed I will have to approve because you mindlessly accuse of presumptions but show none. Your presumption is to think that math happened all by itself. If you behave yourself, in time the moderation status wears off.

    You have to understand why you can't give your life to Christ. It is because you like being in sin. You like your obstinate and mindless reasoning. Perhaps you have found no one who can easily pull apart your thoughts like I have done. Well now that I have done so, give your life to Christ. Since you could find no problem with the 4 Step Proof it remains the Proof of God of the Bible.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    Of course, we both know that even if the cosmological argument is true, stating that the universe has a cause does not prove that Jesus walked on water, so a further reply about the veracity of Christianity is necessary on top of the rebuttal against the cosmological argument.
    We both know very well that since the universe was caused by the uncaused creator that none can compare to Christ. And as such, God intervening in His creation is no problem at all, like walking on water. This is would be surprisingly the easiest of things to do. Just like you can upload a program to your computer or if you are playing a computer game and cause the character in the game to perform a certain stunt, so would God be able to easily break into His creation.

    Since Jesus did not lie and the apostles certainly did not lie about Him, in all going to their deaths, we must conclude that this was an amazing time in history when Jesus in the fullness of the Godhead bodily walked in His creation. And if we are to live out in the universe billions of years, the one thing that will always be cherished is the 66 books of God's Word.

    Not only does Step 2 prove God of the Bible, but so does Step 1 which as you know is not strictly a cosmological proof. Since in the 4 Step Proof of God is embedded the various reasons why none can compare to Jesus being God, and you did not challenge any of them, it remains true Jesus is God, and the council of the Godhead before 13.7 billion years ago agreed Jesus would be erected as authority in creation to provide salvation in His humility to the Father for the atonement of sins and giver of eternal life by His death on the cross unto any that would receive Him. What love! What grace! What joy! What peace! What comfort! What truth-He is the way the truth and the life!

    No further rebuttal is needed from my part, but now you would need to respond to the proofs and address your blind assumptions.


    However, out of all that I've written above, I want you to specifically notice at least one sentence I've written:
    "the existence of the universe is necessary, not contingent, so the existence of the universe would obtain whether God exists or not."
    That statement does not rule out the existence of God. The universe can exist necessarily, but God can exist and Christianity can be true as well. For this reason, I've only disproved your cosmological argument (that is, if you accept my arguments as valid), but I've not disproved the rest of your proof that Christianity is true.
    The above statement is false because a part of it is false. Though it is true that the universe is necessary, it is not necessary for the reason you think. It is necessary first of all because it is and the reason why it is, is because it is necessary that the uncreated creator create because nothing in nature happens all by itself. Therefore the universe was always contingent on God's decision to create according to His good pleasure. So the statement is false when it says "not contingent". And because this point is false, so would be its finding that "the existence of the universe would obtain whether God exists or not".

    This statement is false because it does rule out the existence of God when it says the universe is not contingent and we have proven that it is contingent.

    So we have proven God created, but we also proved Jesus is God because none can compare to His work on the cross, prophecies fulfilled, miracles, documentation, teaching, martyrdom of the apostles, and Paul and James and Jude and Peter and John, as eyewitness accounts (who would not die for a lie they knew was a lie given what Jesus did for them), Jesus saying He is God in no uncertain terms (notice no religions go this far to say what Christianity says that God entered into creation and walked with us to die for us).

    You have provided nothing to challenge the 4 Step Proof of God in any of is parts, including any of its cosmological components.

    And you admit you could find no fault with Christianity and God of the Bible.
    For that reason, I will write an additional reply in my next post, and I will respond to your specific claims about the historical accuracy of the Bible. Please do not reply to this post until I have completed my second post. I will continue my rebuttal tomorrow.
    I don't think it is fair to place such a demand.
    (Oh, and by the way, I searched for Habermas's book that you've recommended, and I was unable to find it at my library. Instead I found a book called Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, which I looked through briefly, but it didnt look like it had any relevant information that you mentioned, so I didnt bother to pick it up. I will try another library tomorrow.)
    I still recommend you get Gary Habermas' The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (2004), because to the best of my knowledge of all that I have surveyed, it could very well be the best book ever written in such a comprehensive manner. It will help you considering your extremely lost condition.

    With love, in Christ
    Churchwork

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    I think that is a record for me in helping Juliet because she posts the longest posts I have ever come across, but I must admit I enjoyed responding. However, this is her great weakness, so much repetition it dulls the mind. I have actually never seen someone go to such lengths to rationalize a lie, yet nothing said was new to me. Lots of words, no substance. But what I noticed was she basically just kept saying the same thing over and over in her long posts: the BIG ASSUMPTION the universe happened all by itself or MATH happened all by itself or these VIRTUAL PARTICLES happened all by themselves. So funny. Have you ever heard anything so silly? These become her (or his) idols. This is the best argument an atheist can come up with? I have known for quite awhile this is the best an atheist strives for. There is really nothing to the atheist mind. It is as dull as a board. It makes me chuckle how ridiculous people cling to the flesh and it also makes me sad for them for I know what must come next-the bad side of hades and resurrection to GWT for hell. Since nothing in nature is without a cause, only the uncaused caused and that uncaused cause is God Almighty (Step 1) since none can compare to the Trinity of the Godhead of God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit.

    The other 3 major problems are to try to argue against some god who is not God of the Bible (Step 3), overlook Step 4 which is dealing with cause and effects in the supernatural realm, and shutting down her mind to the reality of the exponential progression in our conscience such that if there had been an eternity of the past of cause and effects, we obviously would not still be sinning by now (Step 1).

    You really need to come into the new creation Juliet. It is way better to have the Holy Spirit indwelling. I've been where you are and I could not even go back if I wanted to (actually I can't even want to because I don't have it in me to deny my Creator) because at new birth it was forever! I love my new life every day and with eternal blessings I have an ability to commune with God which was not available to me before I was saved. No longer do I live, but Christ lives in me by the Holy Spirit. Resurrection is assured unto glory (1 Thess. 4.15-17). Now I seek after the prize of the hidden treasure which is the reward for those who overcometh in Christ to return with Him to reign on Earth for 1000 years (Rev. 20.2-7). It is so amazing. So incredible and fulfilling! I am content and at peace, and feel overwhelming love in receiving God's grace by continuing to bear my cross (deny sin, self and supernatural) and take it up in daily experience to separate myself from the world. My conscience strengthens daily through my intuition which also increases to be sensitive to God's will.

    And I know this is only the beginning. It is just a small foretaste of the amazing things God has planned for those who love Him. Imagine! Not just a few hundred years more or even a thousand years more, not even a million years or even a billion years more. Eternity is more than a trillion years, and more than that! After the 1000 year reign which could be a very long time, far longer than a 1000 years. It is the last time on Earth before it is burnt up. Rewards will be done away with after that in the New City and New Earth.

    I know that scientifically speaking scientists expect Earth to be burnt up in a couple billion years from now, so that could be the time frame to which the reigning will be completed. However, my intuition from the Word is telling me that that is not the case for various reasons based on the size of the New City. What I believe I am picking up from the Holy Spirit is the Great Tribulation will be this century probably and Christ returns at the end of the 7 year period in Daniel's prophecy. And something could happen to Earth that ends life on it, but not to worry because Christ will be reigning during the 1000 years and we will be safe before we are transferred livingly into the New City and New Earth.

    It is a bit frustrating because you don't know when Christ is going to return, but that is the discipline and it makes us stronger to keep the word of His patience (Rev. 3.10) in knowing he is coming, but we just don't know when. When the season arrives, then we will know. That season will be when the world is about to have its biggest and worse war ever. It will be the last one too. 1/3 of the people the Earth will die (Rev. 9.18) and an army of 200 million machines (v.16) will be fighting over likely oil in the middle east. There is a small battle at the end of the 1000 years, but its nothing like Great Tribulation.

    The Savings Ratio I feel is the vital clue to when Christ returns and will only increase in prominence as the decades go by as people try to refine the calculations.

    Juliet, you are a scientic-minded person. How about helping me out making better estimates for the Savings Ratio?

  6. #66
    Juliet Guest

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    Churchwork,

    This will be my shortest post yet, because I honestly dont think I can say anymore.

    Essentially, in all of your short little posts, you werent able to answer my questions. Instead, of answering my questions, you said I worshipped Satan, which is a non-answer.

    When I asked my questions specifically dealing with your calculation of sin, you didnt provide any maths at all, only asserted more boldly "its exponential progression", without understanding that exponential progression does not necessarily yield infinity. You objected that I was talking about math, but you were talking about causes and effects, which you then apparently tried to imply that I was changing the subject and not arguing about your step 1 at all... but I dont know why you say that, although I suspect you're disagreeing with me only for the sake of disagreeing with me, while being completely oblivious to the fact that your previous posts make remarks like "as calculus teaches ... approximation of infinity = infinity", you are actually talking about math! I explained that the mathematical concepts you thought supported your assertion werent what they seemed, because they dont always tend toward infinity; so I asked to see your math, but you wouldnt show it.

    The closest you came to showing your calculation was this exchange:
    Quote Originally Posted by Churchwork
    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet
    A very simple example, if we imagine the moral progress as the sum of all previous moral progression, and we can state that each year we progress morally by a factor of (1/3)^n (where n is the year), then we have something like this:
    Quote Originally Posted by Churchwork
    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet

    Code:
    Final term in series:
    Code:
     
    limit         (1/3)^n = 0
    n = infinity
     
     
    Moral progression:
     
    infinity
      __                   1
      \      (1/3)^n =  -------   =  1.5
      /_                1-(1/3)
     n = 0
    The example above should be self-explanatory if you actually have more than high school introduction to calculus, in that even having an eternity to perfect a being at an exponential rate doesnt imply being sinless. So, I'd just like to see whatever math you performed to arrive at your conclusion. Until then, you havent shown that morality actually drifts unward toward infinity rather than converging on some real number.
    The above formula does not represent the reality of what we see every day. Put a 1 in front of that 1/3, and that represents more of what I am talking about. What we see millennia after millennia is substantial change in conscience so that it has an exponential flavor to it and it is comparable to our scientific development somewhat to help you get a grasp.
    Thats it. You just suggested putting a one in front of 1/3, but you didnt explain why you prefer that number above mine, apart from the fact that it just happens to fit your claim; you didnt show your math or justify the numbers you chose, so your equation is arbitrary.

    [i]You tried to justify your numbers rhetorically, but not rigorously when you stated "In 1000 years from now, murder rates per capita will be even less than they are now. Now they are even less than what they were 1000 years prior. These are very quantifiable numbers, and you will be able to see the exponetialness of it all by collecting this data.". Alright, they are quantifiable numbers, I agree with that much, because I earn a living working with calculus and statistics everyday... but once again, you dont state the equation you used, you only stated the numbers were quantifiable.

    This amounts to nothing. I cant even grant you the benefit of the doubt of pullling your numbers out of thin air, because there arent any numbers at all, just a pathetic rhetoric.

    Seriously, let me just take one statement, "it trivial that the murder rate per capita is going down at an exponential rate even inspite of the major wars of the 20th century!". So its going down at an exponential rate... what rate precisely? I dont think you even know how to answer that question, because as I said from the very beginning, you just dont know math very well...

    ... but of course, theres something else you never even anticipated: an error function. Yes, you can determine precisely the exponential rate at which murder is decreasing, and you can extrapolate that to make predictions about the future, but all statistical models like that have an error that increases (exponentially in fact) with time. Taking data collected today and extrapolating it to infinity is hysterically amateurish, an error you wouldnt even expect from Statistics 101 students. Show me how you calculate your error from your exponential equation, using real numbers with real mathematics, not just rhetoric... wait, why would I bother asking that, I know for a fact that you either wont or cant do it. You'll instead dismiss my question by saying I worship the devil. You're guilty of what you accuse me of, "your scope is too small. You can't just pick pockets of time, for that is too small a sample".

    Absent an equation for modeling sin, an error function for approximating future values, and where you have picked your non-existent numbers from apparently nowhere, you are still guilty of cherry picking your data to fit your needs; on the one hand, you point out that murder has decreased, yet you dismiss the fact that abortions are at an all time high, there are more homosexuals than ever, and there have been an increase in atheism in the US, UK, and Australia at a faster rate than theres ever been! Those things never existed in such numbers 100 years ago, they are a very recent phenomena, but you conveniently ignore them for some unspoken reason. I've never seen such a severe case of selection bias in my life.

    All you have are self-proclomations, but when asked to explain them, you just dont. I think its because you just dont know what you're talking about; you're just one of a dime-a-dozen people who have their own crackpot theories of mind / science / theology / whatever, but you dont understand them at all. I've seen this so many times its not even funny, it puts you in the same boat with people who say "quantum consciousness explains telepathy!!"; that is, a boat full of crackpots.

    Crackpots have a habit of contradicting themselves, especially when they dont understand what they talk about, for example "The cause (of free will actions) is the very fact that it is made in God's image! Just like in quantum mechanics we often can only speak of probabilities, so it is with man's free-will, still ultimately caused. Just because something has a probability does not mean it is without a cause of being afforded the free-choice and to employ its own processes and receive from God or not." To say that God causes us to freely do anything is incoherent because free will and determinism are incoherent. You dont know what you're talking about. "no free-choice is undetermined", you dont have a clue what you're saying.

    And now a numbers game again, "I only state that since the odds are against you by a margin at least less than 1 in a trillion, you would be the worse gambler that ever lived." At least this time I can see a statistic, but I also see you pulled the number out of thin air, simply because you dont understand that that there is no theory that has unified GR and QM. In addition, you state "Because on the electron level, we don't know how it works exactly and thus can not predicted with certainty, does not mean there isn't real deterministic things going on there." as if the uncertainty principle is just a verbal argument... you've probably never even seen the math behind it; you've heard of it in pop culture, but otherwise you dont know what you're talking about. If you could disprove uncertainty principle, I guarantee you'll win the next 10 Nobel prizes; but you'll only win those prizes when you can show the error in the math, math you've never seen and probably arent aware even exists.

    And again, "The energy that gives rise to any so-called virtual particles has itself a cause of some other energy and so on and so forth.", not an shred of proof, just rhetoric. All you have is rhetoric, but that means nothing in the face of math. These things are quirks math, but their existence is confirmed experimentally. Seriously, look at these equations, look at the diagrams (for the love of God, please dont say "but that links to an article on the casimir effect, not virtual particles, idiot"), stop being arrogant and actually take a look at what you're trying to argue against. Just for fun, look at the article titled The Casimir Effect: a force from nothing.

    Remember what I said about intuition? In the world your used to seeing everyday, cause-and-effect are commonplace, but a lot of those rules arent true in the quantum level. Rules like the inverse square law break down, rules defining quantum entanglement are a reality in the quantum world but do not exist in the macroworld, causality breaks down. To put it simply, the rules of quantum physics, while mathematically proven and empirically verified, look nothing like the rules in world you're used to seeing everyday. You just dont know what you're talking about, and dismissing my comments with your ignorant rhetoric does not amount to a defense of your proof, but a public display of ignorance.

    And finally, "The rules of math are necessarily true. Like all things in nature, math is itself a law of nature and has its cause. Since they can not be the ultimate cause, therefore, the uncreated creator caused them. Understand you have just self-declared mindlessly math is the creator. Math caused the first event. Don't you feel embarrassed by such a ridiculous comment? Can you feel all the scientists in the world laughing at you?" Math causes every event, the whole universe is a complicated interacting mesh of equations; nothing in the universe is unbounded by math. And no, I dont feel ridiculous, because your comments are a word game, essentially linking two unrelated ideas together because they have a word in common; unlike gods, math does not exist concretely, it doesnt "will" anything, it doesnt "think" about anything, it has no properties in common with any conception of God.

    The comment that its an "uncreated creator" is so misleading its hard to know whether you're being serious or not. Just for fun, we might say that the property "having a shape" is an intrinsic and necessary property of cubes, so that the rule "having a shape" actually creates cubes... but that doesnt make sense to say. The property "having a shape" is purely descriptive, it describes the nature of cubes. All of the rules of logic are necessary as well, but they dont "create" truths, they are a definition of the nature of truths.

    Of course, this isnt the first time you linked two unrelated ideas by a similar word: you stated that being created from star dust and the use of "dust" in Genesis actually confirms the truth of Genesis, when the concept of interstellar "dust" would have been completly alien to the authors of Genesis in the first place. The bible's use means that humans were literally molded from clay, then animated with life by God; and definitely that description of dust doesnt match any astronomers definition of dust.

    Quote Originally Posted by Churchwork
    Quote Originally Posted by article
    One sense of ‘omnipotence’ is, literally, that of having the power to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever, including necessary and impossible states of affairs. Descartes seems to have had such a notion (Meditations, Section 1). Yet, Aquinas and Maimonides held the view that this sense of ‘omnipotence’ is incoherent. Their view can be defended as follows. It is not possible for an agent to bring about an impossible state of affairs (e.g., that there is a shapeless cube), since if it were, it would be possible for an impossible state of affairs to obtain, which is a contradiction (see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, 25, 3; and Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Part I, Ch. 15). Nor is it possible for an agent to bring about a necessary state of affairs (e.g., that all cubes are shaped). It is possible for an agent, a, to bring about a necessary state of affairs, s, only if possibly, (1) a brings about s, and (2) if a had not acted, then s would have failed to obtain. Because a necessary state of affairs obtains whether or not anyone acts, (2) is false. As a consequence, it is impossible for an agent to bring about either a necessary or an impossible state of affairs.
    This is a logical fallacy. Let me explain. The sense described of omnipotence is false. Omnipotence is "Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful". It does not ever mean bringing about impossible state of affairs. This renders the whole argument ridiculous and boring.
    *sigh* You say that the argument is ridiculous and boring because you dont define omnipotence to include bringing about impossible states of affairs... wait for it... wait for it... THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE ARGUMENT IS PROVING! Its stated verbatim in the article itself:

    Quote Originally Posted by article
    One sense of ‘omnipotence’ is, literally, that of having the power to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever, including necessary and impossible states of affairs. Descartes seems to have had such a notion (Meditations, Section 1). Yet, Aquinas and Maimonides held the view that this sense of ‘omnipotence’ is incoherent. Their view can be defended as follows. It is not possible for an agent to bring about an impossible state of affairs (e.g., that there is a shapeless cube), since if it were, it would be possible for an impossible state of affairs to obtain, which is a contradiction (see Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, 25, 3; and Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed, Part I, Ch. 15). Nor is it possible for an agent to bring about a necessary state of affairs (e.g., that all cubes are shaped). It is possible for an agent, a, to bring about a necessary state of affairs, s, only if possibly, (1) a brings about s, and (2) if a had not acted, then s would have failed to obtain. Because a necessary state of affairs obtains whether or not anyone acts, (2) is false. As a consequence, it is impossible for an agent to bring about either a necessary or an impossible state of affairs. Obviously, an agent's having the power to bring about a state of affairs entails that, possibly, the agent brings about that state of affairs. Thus, the first sense of ‘omnipotence’ is incoherent. Henceforth, it will be assumed that it is not possible for an agent to have the power to bring about any state of affairs whatsoever.
    I said above that you're disagreeing with me simply for the sake of disagreement, and the above example proves it: you called an argument ridiculous and boring inspite of the fact that it agrees with you 100%, verbatim, down to the letter. You disagreed with the argument because I was the one who posted it, not because you actually understood what it said.

    Quote Originally Posted by Churchwork
    The Schroding equation solves no question before us. Since any such kind of particles have their root cause just as mathematics must, since they are things of nature, then they need a creator.
    Rhetoric without math again. Prove your statement and then claim your Nobel prize, then get back to me.

    Quote Originally Posted by Churchwork
    I've been where you are and I could not even go back if I wanted to (actually I can't even want to because I don't have it in me to deny my Creator) because at new birth it was forever!
    I know for a fact that is false. You've never been where I am, because I have a post-college education, I actually know calculus, I've read more philosophy and more on the historical Christ than you have (certainly more than a single fundamentalists' book of apologetics). In a nutshell, and this is going to sound incredibly arrogant and elitist, but I'm just a better informed person than you are, you've never been at my level.

    On the contrary, I used to be at your level. Many years ago when USENET was all the rage, I used to post on the religious newsgroups some very ignorant things, ignorant enough things that would be reposted on the website I dare not mention if they were ever discovered. I disagreed with people only if they were atheists, but a lot of times atheists would make arguments supporting my side, but I'd still disagree with them because they were atheists... basically, I was like you. I wasnt as rude and condescending as you, but I was stubbornly ignorant for the longest time, until I actually learned a little about math, science, and philosophy.

    However, even though this is going to be hard for you to accept, because you have a severe cognitive dissonance against anyone and anything that doesnt agree with you, I want you to understand that from an academic point of view, your proof is laughably awful. Usually, apologists of your caliber can only convince the already convinced that Christianity is true, but I dont even think a Christian would call your argument good. There are dozens of theists who I've seen who make better arguments for Christianity, a lot better than Habermas, CS Lewis, McDowell and Wilson, Griesler, and other dime-a-dozen apologists ever could; at least one, William Lane Craig, comes to mind as a very good theologian, but I doubt you've even heard of that name.

    Essentially, as you have demonstrated by your own replies, your entire defense of your 4-step proof is reduced down to name calling and belittling me. I've never been damned to hell, accused of following Satan, and told I was a sinner so many times in my life. The crux of all of your rebuttals have nothing to do with the logical veracity of your proof, but has everything to do with saying that you're better than me for being a Christian. You didnt answer any of my most important questions, like how you deduced your calculations; in fact, not a single math equation exists anywhere in your entire 4-Step proof at all. Math concepts like a limit exist, but you very obviously dont have a good understanding of it turn that or any other math concept into an argument for God. Wheres the exponential equation for moral progress? Wheres the error function? Nowhere to be found, because you dont understand those concepts on an academic level, so you cannot possibly provide them.

    I've repeatedly pointed out places where you need to explain your argument better, where you beg the question, where you use elementary logical errors... did you go back to fix or clarify even one thing? No, you didnt. However, every other rational person who looks at your proof is going to find the same mistakes I did, and you'll complain about having to hear the same thing over and over again. Believe me, nobody gets an argument right the first time, especially not an argument as long as yours, yet you stated in almost every post that your 4-step proof has remained the same from the beginning... thats right, it is the same from the beginning, and it retains all of the elementary errors that it had from the start.

    You leave too much unexplained, you justify too many things rhetorically but not rigorously, you, you beg too many questions, you talk about concepts that you very obviously dont understand, you disagree with your opponents no matter if they are actually arguing for or against your positin, you wont answer directly questions about your methodology, your rebuttals are composed of largely venomous attacks against your opponents character and not your opponents actual arguments, etc etc etc. The problems with your proof and your defense go on and on, and that is why your proof is the worst one I've ever read, and thats why it will never convince anyone to become a Christian.

    You are just a crackpot pretending to be a philosopher, not much different from Gene Ray or David Icke, and its painfully evident to every rational person on the planet. In the end, you proof is reduced down to something so anti-academic that it couldnt even be called an apologetic, simply because you dont know what you're talking about.

    I will admit, your amateurish style of argumentation irritates the life out of me, and I only hope I've reciprocated appropriately, but otherwise I've enjoyed this discussion, because I've never seen anyone else reply to all of my lengthy posts in full. I may or may not get to the historical accuracy of the Bible. I usually have a night off from work, but I was asked to come in and work an extra day, so I'll try to get back to you ASAP. That is, if you havent already banned me for belligrency. If you ban me, we can pick up on this discussion on some forum where I make the rules ;)

    (I had promised to keep this reply shorter than the others, and... well... I'll admit, I'm verbose ;) And my posts in this forum are childsplay compared to the posts I've written on other unmentionable forums.)

  7. #67
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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    This will be my shortest post yet, because I honestly dont think I can say anymore.

    Essentially, in all of your short little posts, you werent able to answer my questions. Instead, of answering my questions, you said I worshipped Satan, which is a non-answer.
    What you say or don't say is up to you. Whatever questions you asked were answered I am sure adequately enough. If it was not the case you could show otherwise. I do believe you worship Satan, since you certainly don't worship God and have no relationship with Jesus Christ.

    When I asked my questions specifically dealing with your calculation of sin, you didnt provide any maths at all, only asserted more boldly "its exponential progression", without understanding that exponential progression does not necessarily yield infinity. You objected that I was talking about math, but you were talking about causes and effects, which you then apparently tried to imply that I was changing the subject and not arguing about your step 1 at all... but I dont know why you say that, although I suspect you're disagreeing with me only for the sake of disagreeing with me, while being completely oblivious to the fact that your previous posts make remarks like "as calculus teaches ... approximation of infinity = infinity", you are actually talking about math! I explained that the mathematical concepts you thought supported your assertion werent what they seemed, because they dont always tend toward infinity; so I asked to see your math, but you wouldnt show it.
    Before my posts were lengthy, now they are little? An exponential progression in our conscience is a general statement of the increasing improvement of our conscience as cited by the various examples given. A mathematical formula is not necessary, nor could we make such a depiction so accurately through a math formula. We can only roughly estimate by citing various changes in human behavior to see there is a general trend that has an exponential improvement to it that is noticeable. Sounds reasonable. As all exponential progressions go, they lead to an ever increasing rapid rate if they continue on their course. They do approximate infinity as they continue on. As the rate of increase increases faster and faster, it becomes so rapid that it approximates infinity. This is necessarily the case. Hope that doesn't upset you too much.

    I didn't say I object to you talking about math, why say so? If you are going to accuse of something, perhaps try to show it instead of just self-declaring it. Of course I am talking about cause and effects, as that is the basis of the Proof. Forgive me if I don't respond to your accusations that you don't cite the source for, but you are free to cite that source, and I would be happy to respond. This is a correct statement, "as calculus teaches, approximation to infinity is taken as infinity". I have never known any exponential progression that doesn't approach infinity. If one does not, you could show it, couldn't you? We know there is an exponential progression in our conscience, for each millennial there is a substantial change in our behavior patterns reflecting our conscience so that we simply stop doing things we as a human race had done before. For example, there is no more throwing of children in the fiery mouth of Molech and the murder rate per capita is going down. Before men might have had several wives, but with each millennia the number of wives drops. This is an exponential progression. It's not hard to see.

    The closest you came to showing your calculation was this exchange:

    Thats it. You just suggested putting a one in front of 1/3, but you didnt explain why you prefer that number above mine, apart from the fact that it just happens to fit your claim; you didnt show your math or justify the numbers you chose, so your equation is arbitrary.
    No, you're not understanding. By putting no 1 in front, the number actually gets smaller and smaller. But the idea of an exponential progression in improvement is that of course there would be a 1 in front to see the exponential progression increase to approximate infinity on the side of increase. This is a very reasonable statement, not hard to understand at all.

    You tried to justify your numbers rhetorically, but not rigorously when you stated "In 1000 years from now, murder rates per capita will be even less than they are now. Now they are even less than what they were 1000 years prior. These are very quantifiable numbers, and you will be able to see the exponetialness of it all by collecting this data.". Alright, they are quantifiable numbers, I agree with that much, because I earn a living working with calculus and statistics everyday... but once again, you dont state the equation you used, you only stated the numbers were quantifiable.

    This amounts to nothing. I cant even grant you the benefit of the doubt of pullling your numbers out of thin air, because there arent any numbers at all, just a pathetic rhetoric.
    There is no need to state an equation, for it is enough to observe the improvement generally speaking. If you want to do a deeper study of this, you are welcome to do so. I am sure someone has already done demographic studies like this which you can collect the data from that show the improvements. However, we can say based on various findings you see in the paper that the population sizes of cities are massive and the number of crimes to those populations is relatively small, showing a significant improvement from previous centuries. This is not as complicated to witness to.

    Seriously, let me just take one statement, "it trivial that the murder rate per capita is going down at an exponential rate even inspite of the major wars of the 20th century!". So its going down at an exponential rate... what rate precisely? I dont think you even know how to answer that question, because as I said from the very beginning, you just dont know math very well...

    ... but of course, theres something else you never even anticipated: an error function. Yes, you can determine precisely the exponential rate at which murder is decreasing, and you can extrapolate that to make predictions about the future, but all statistical models like that have an error that increases (exponentially in fact) with time. Taking data collected today and extrapolating it to infinity is hysterically amateurish, an error you wouldnt even expect from Statistics 101 students. Show me how you calculate your error from your exponential equation, using real numbers with real mathematics, not just rhetoric... wait, why would I bother asking that, I know for a fact that you either wont or cant do it. You'll instead dismiss my question by saying I worship the devil. You're guilty of what you accuse me of, "your scope is too small. You can't just pick pockets of time, for that is too small a sample".
    I have already said if you want to do a deeper analysis you are free to do so, but suffice it to say we know the population is over 6 billion and the number of people that die due to murder percentage wise is falling. I don't know the exact number, but I do know generally speaking it is a fact. Don't let your petty self get in the way that you need to know the exact number to avoid the truth of this observation. My math skills are fine, and I got honors in math, so really that is not the issue at all. The issue is your belligerency to not recognize such a basic principle that there has been an exponential improvement in less murders per capita. Don't try to exalt yourself regarding math, for it just makes you look like you are grabbing onto anything you can to try to self-exalt yourself. Let it go.

    Yes you do worship the devil because you call Jesus a liar. I don't think there is in any doubt at all about your going to hell. I am not guilty of your problem of picking too small a sample, since my idea would be to consider estimates of murders per capita ever sine the first Adamic man. The murder per capita was 50% with the two sons of Adam. Wars were profuse and they annihilated whole tribes which make up a significant portion of the population, more so back then compared to today.

    Whatever the margin of error is it could never be so large as to reverse the exponential progression to become an exponential digression.

    Absent an equation for modeling sin, an error function for approximating future values, and where you have picked your non-existent numbers from apparently nowhere, you are still guilty of cherry picking your data to fit your needs; on the one hand, you point out that murder has decreased, yet you dismiss the fact that abortions are at an all time high, there are more homosexuals than ever, and there have been an increase in atheism in the US, UK, and Australia at a faster rate than theres ever been! Those things never existed in such numbers 100 years ago, they are a very recent phenomena, but you conveniently ignore them for some unspoken reason. I've never seen such a severe case of selection bias in my life.
    Of course there is more abortions, more homosexuals, atheists, because there are more people, but percentage wise there are less of them. Homos are not a recent phenomenon. To show you how bad it was in the OT period they destroyed whole cities such as Sodom and Gomorrah and various surrounded cities for this perversion. Imagine today all of San Francisco being blown up because of all of the homos in that city. You get my point. This is hardly cherry picking, but tangible evidence. Don't just accuse mindlessly of some bias, but show it if it is true. Self-declarations don't have much value.

    All you have are self-proclomations, but when asked to explain them, you just dont. I think its because you just dont know what you're talking about; you're just one of a dime-a-dozen people who have their own crackpot theories of mind / science / theology / whatever, but you dont understand them at all. I've seen this so many times its not even funny, it puts you in the same boat with people who say "quantum consciousness explains telepathy!!"; that is, a boat full of crackpots.
    I do explain my position, so don't accuse mindlessly that I don't. That's just your self-proclamation without proof. Your comparisons are hardly worth consideration. Since the Proof for God is exceedingly simple as you would expect so that people don't have to be rocket scientists to figure it out, then even you should be able to understand it. There is an exponential progression in our conscience these past 6000 years, most people will agree since murder rates per capita are going down and people certainly don't do some of the things we use to do before like actually throw children in the fiery mouth of the god of Molech. However, we still sin, so this shows that there could not have been an eternity of the past of cause and effects, otherwise we would have been without sin by now. And since everything in nature has a cause, you know that the uncreated creator created who is God of the Bible given Christ. It is also interesting to note that in your puff the magic dragon theory that things happen all by themselves, if such a thing ever did occur, it would be divine intervention because nothing can happen all by itself.

    Just so you know you get an Infraction for name calling. Don't call people crackpots, for that is not loving.

    Crackpots have a habit of contradicting themselves, especially when they dont understand what they talk about, for example "The cause (of free will actions) is the very fact that it is made in God's image! Just like in quantum mechanics we often can only speak of probabilities, so it is with man's free-will, still ultimately caused. Just because something has a probability does not mean it is without a cause of being afforded the free-choice and to employ its own processes and receive from God or not." To say that God causes us to freely do anything is incoherent because free will and determinism are incoherent. You dont know what you're talking about. "no free-choice is undetermined", you dont have a clue what you're saying.
    Free-will and determinism (cause and effects) are coherent and agree perfectly. If they were in contradiction, you could show it and you don't. God of the Bible teaches determinism and free-will. I know what I am talking about and it agrees with the Holy Spirit. But you don't know what you are saying in your accusations, because you can't show it. All you can do is self-declare it, and this is the proof of your faulty logic. It is not logical to accuse by self-declaration which stems from the evil spirit in your spirit. You should repent.

    And now a numbers game again, "I only state that since the odds are against you by a margin at least less than 1 in a trillion, you would be the worse gambler that ever lived." At least this time I can see a statistic, but I also see you pulled the number out of thin air, simply because you dont understand that that there is no theory that has unified GR and QM. In addition, you state "Because on the electron level, we don't know how it works exactly and thus can not predicted with certainty, does not mean there isn't real deterministic things going on there." as if the uncertainty principle is just a verbal argument... you've probably never even seen the math behind it; you've heard of it in pop culture, but otherwise you dont know what you're talking about. If you could disprove uncertainty principle, I guarantee you'll win the next 10 Nobel prizes; but you'll only win those prizes when you can show the error in the math, math you've never seen and probably arent aware even exists.
    There is a theory that has unified GR and QM. It is called the UNIFIED THEORY and has 10 dimensions in string theory. I saw it on a PBS special on String Theory. Scientists say they have a potential Unified Theory. Who am I to argue with the greatest minds on the planet. You don't know what you are talking about, you really don't, because you are always trying argue for the idea in puff the magic dragon without reason, And even if your puff the magic dragon theory was true, it still would not have any validity in the way you perceive it because, since nothing in nature happens all by itself, therefore, it must have been divine intervention.

    Credible scientists don't teach puff the magic dragon it happened all by itself. Rather, they simple say they just don't know what the cause is yet. That is the humble position to take. It is the non-overassuming position. Understand you don't need to know the most complex scientific equations to be saved. If you did then God would be violating His own law that He is no respecter of persons (Acts 10.34) and that we are all made in God's image (Gen. 1.26,27). Why would I need to show the error in the math of the uncertainty principle? You are really getting off topic. The uncertainty principle doesn't claim something happens from nothing. You are just misreading what the principle says.

    And again, "The energy that gives rise to any so-called virtual particles has itself a cause of some other energy and so on and so forth.", not an shred of proof, just rhetoric. All you have is rhetoric, but that means nothing in the face of math. These things are quirks math, but their existence is confirmed experimentally. Seriously, look at these equations, look at the diagrams (for the love of God, please dont say "but that links to an article on the casimir effect, not virtual particles, idiot"), stop being arrogant and actually take a look at what you're trying to argue against. Just for fun, look at the article titled The Casimir Effect: a force from nothing.
    Since nothing in nature has ever happened all by itself that we have been able to verify, and things we discovered to our surprise have a cause that we could not determine for the longest time, the humble position to take is when you don't know the cause, don't automatically assume it doesn't have a cause. That would be illogical. I don't know any scientist that thinks that way. They might as well stop investigating if that is their attitude. There is no experiment ever given that could prove something happens all by itself. That's your catch-22. You're not able to prove it because you don't have a device to be able to prove it. And no device is provided unless God gives it to you. Since the scientific method can't prove things happen all by themselves, it must mean the scientific method has its own limitations, after all, it can't even prove itself. I always find that funny. Either way, you lose, and your assumption is based on a pipe dream. Haha!

    Nothing in those links suggests something happens all by itself. Don't speak for me, for I did not say what you said I said, and then you accused of arrogance? You are getting warped, even more than before. Your anger is increasing. Why don't you try to relax, because you are getting all worked up. The virtual particles mentioned don't indicate they happened all by themselves. If it did you could show it. Stop pointing out various articles in such a vague fashion, but try to be specific and post it on the forums. We are not mind readers here. All those articles show is they don't know the exact cause of that interaction. Just because you are not smart enough to figure it out, doesn't mean there is not a cause. I love how God doesn't let you understand things. He lets you be arrogant to conclude just because you can't figure it out it must not be there. What a dull mind you have.

    There was no experiment conducted that proved there was no cause, only that they couldn't figure out the cause because it was too complicated for them to figure out.

    Remember what I said about intuition? In the world your used to seeing everyday, cause-and-effect are commonplace, but a lot of those rules arent true in the quantum level. Rules like the inverse square law break down, rules defining quantum entanglement are a reality in the quantum world but do not exist in the macroworld, causality breaks down. To put it simply, the rules of quantum physics, while mathematically proven and empirically verified, look nothing like the rules in world you're used to seeing everyday. You just dont know what you're talking about, and dismissing my comments with your ignorant rhetoric does not amount to a defense of your proof, but a public display of ignorance.
    Remember what I said about intuition? Don't rely on your intuition which is indwelt by the evil spirit that says just because you can't figure it out that means it must not have a cause. That is just your pride talking and is the mindset of a dullard. Scientists don't say the quantum level does not have its causes, only that they can't figure it out. They would not be good scientists if they just gave up and decided for no reason whatsoever it has no cause. It is common place to actually see things happen all the time, which you just can't figure out for the life of you what caused them, or for that matter why you did something you didn't want to do. The reason you do things you know you shouldn't do, and don't do things you know you ought to is because of a cause though it is not always easy to see. The cause is your flesh and your flesh is corrupted so much so that God knows its real condition to the point it must die and it cannot be refined or fixed. God's treatment of the flesh is to have you die on the cross with Christ to put to naught the deeds of the flesh. This is the only way in a perfect salvation.

    The causality one may be use does not seem to fit, but does not mean there is not a causality in play. It is because you are using your preconceived notions of things, that causes you to see things not as they really or you just don't have the skill set to understand the deeper underlying workings of the causes.

    My work as a child of God is to get you to see for yourself that it is your pride that causes you to think there is no legitimate cause just because you are not smart enough to figure it out. Since all things have a cause that we know of on all levels, and we can never prove something does not have a cause, it would stand to reason that in those areas we don't have the understanding yet, we should not jump to conclusions that there is no cause. Since the odds are trillions of causes to no incidents of proven causelessness, then the odds are stacked against you big time!

    Since you make a claim things happen all by themselves, but you can't prove it, this shows you don't know what you are talking about because you think something is true you have no evidence for. Why just blindly accept the evil spirit's leading in your spirit?

    You really should rethink your position, because it is quite embarrassing to see you make such a fool of yourself.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    And finally, "The rules of math are necessarily true. Like all things in nature, math is itself a law of nature and has its cause. Since they can not be the ultimate cause, therefore, the uncreated creator caused them. Understand you have just self-declared mindlessly math is the creator. Math caused the first event. Don't you feel embarrassed by such a ridiculous comment? Can you feel all the scientists in the world laughing at you?" Math causes every event, the whole universe is a complicated interacting mesh of equations; nothing in the universe is unbounded by math. And no, I dont feel ridiculous, because your comments are a word game, essentially linking two unrelated ideas together because they have a word in common; unlike gods, math does not exist concretely, it doesnt "will" anything, it doesnt "think" about anything, it has no properties in common with any conception of God.
    Math certainly has a great deal of importance, but we can't say it governs everything. For example, math does not govern our conscience. Conscience is that organ of our being that spontaneously judges through our intuition without regard to what one might think. Sometimes you think through a plan, but no matter how hard you try, you just can appease your conscience. So you should listen to that still small voice. It with either condone or admonish an action or thought. Math does not account for this working in one's conscience. When you feel love for someone, there is no math involved. You don't think beforehand, I love this person because 2+3=5. So to say unequivocally math controls everything would be way too presumptuous. Try to be more humble.

    Math is very concrete. 2+2=4 is very concrete and lifeless. But God is love, spirit, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, personal, holy, righteous, forgiving, immutable, living and so many more qualities in such a vast complex of traits that math really does not compare. God wraps math around his little thumb. These are no word games you accuse of, but real qualities of the Uncreated God. One property that math has similar to God is its immutability. It has laws that are always unchanging reflecting the Creator of the math. There is no such thing as gods, for the Bible says they are just wooden idols and ideas you exalt in your head above God; you make math your idol, for it is what you exalt above God so that you remain unsaved. Crazy stuff!

    The comment that its an "uncreated creator" is so misleading its hard to know whether you're being serious or not. Just for fun, we might say that the property "having a shape" is an intrinsic and necessary property of cubes, so that the rule "having a shape" actually creates cubes... but that doesnt make sense to say. The property "having a shape" is purely descriptive, it describes the nature of cubes. All of the rules of logic are necessary as well, but they dont "create" truths, they are a definition of the nature of truths.
    There is nothing misleading about the uncreated creator. Since nothing in nature is without a cause, then all things in nature have a cause so that the first cause must be created by something outside nature, and the only possibility would the the Uncreated God. To think this is not serious business is to underestimate what is being said, because if you don't get it, guess what? You are going to hell to be eternally separated from God forever with no free get out jail card.

    Your example is a fallacy, but you fail to apply this particular fallacy to anything of significance in this discussion. So logically, don't waste time like that.

    Of course, this isnt the first time you linked two unrelated ideas by a similar word: you stated that being created from star dust and the use of "dust" in Genesis actually confirms the truth of Genesis, when the concept of interstellar "dust" would have been completly alien to the authors of Genesis in the first place. The bible's use means that humans were literally molded from clay, then animated with life by God; and definitely that description of dust doesnt match any astronomers definition of dust.
    The dust is referring to the dust of the ground which of course I had not said otherwise. That should be obvious. The earth is a planet of dust. So are all the other planets in other solar systems sharing many of the same properties, so when the Bible says our bodies are from dust it is most accurate. The Holy Spirit chose the word "dust" for a very important reason, because we would know that the universe is at least 13.7 billion years (see Gen. 1.1), and realize the body came from the big bang.

    "And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Gen. 2.7).

    You are missing such a simple point that the dust of the ground is the dust of this planet and this planet comes from the stars. These properties all agree. All the cosmic dust and planetary dust actually have common origins.

    *sigh* You say that the argument is ridiculous and boring because you dont define omnipotence to include bringing about impossible states of affairs... wait for it... wait for it... THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE ARGUMENT IS PROVING! Its stated verbatim in the article itself:

    I said above that you're disagreeing with me simply for the sake of disagreement, and the above example proves it: you called an argument ridiculous and boring inspite of the fact that it agrees with you 100%, verbatim, down to the letter. You disagreed with the argument because I was the one who posted it, not because you actually understood what it said.
    I disagree with you because you are wrong, not for the sake of disagreeing. What would be the point in that? I said I disagree with the definition by Descartes, because the definition was wrong. That's a fact.

    This is a false statement: "Nor is it possible for an agent to bring about a necessary state of affairs". The agent is God, and He brings about the necessary state of affairs because it is His will to do so and according to His good pleasure. We see the state of affairs today exist because they were necessary. But they were necessary because God decided it was so. So God brought it about it that which is necessary. Otherwise, your should not brought up the point at all, because it would not apply to our discussion.

    You really should get back on topic to the 4 Step Proof. Still you can find no problem with it, so is that why you deflect?

    Rhetoric without math again. Prove your statement and then claim your Nobel prize, then get back to me.
    I can't prove things happen all by themselves. All I know is more than a trillion things have been seen with their causes and nobody has ever been able to prove even once that something happens all by itself. So the odds are against you big time! I would not want to be in your shoes with your overassuming. Pride begets the fall.

    I know for a fact that is false. You've never been where I am, because I have a post-college education, I actually know calculus, I've read more philosophy and more on the historical Christ than you have (certainly more than a single fundamentalists' book of apologetics). In a nutshell, and this is going to sound incredibly arrogant and elitist, but I'm just a better informed person than you are, you've never been at my level.
    I was unsaved like you are unsaved now. I was in the old creation just as you are in the old creation at this very moment. Now I am in the new creation, and you have no idea what I am talking about because your spirit is dead to God and has not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit. You can't sense the reality of eternal life. I took calculus in university too, but calculus did not give me eternal life. God's grace did because I fulfilled the condition according to John 3.16 which is what He needs from you to save you. But you can't do this because you are too selfish and egotistical. You just can't give up control of you. You will have to lose your soul first in order to find it.

    You may or may not have read more than me. What distinguishes us is that I have evidence for Christ, you have no evidence for calling Him a liar. I am glad to hear you have read more than one single fundamentalist's book on apologetics, but how about dealing with some specifics, since still you have no reason for your hostility other than you are a bad person who doesn't care and wants to go to hell.

    People self-declare they are better informed people all the time, but does not make it so. The question is what are you informed with? Is it of truly being saved or is it in your own self-centeredness and following the evil spirit? We both know the answer to that question because you too are made in God's image with a spirit of God-consciousness, so you are without excuse. You're just a bad person like those who killed Him because they were jealous of Him and like so many reject the free gift of salvation, they prefer to go their own independent way as though they are gods unto themselves. If you are better informed than me, then you have no excuse for rejecting Christ, since the evidence for Jesus being God and entering creation is fully proven. A lawyer who won 245 cases in a row is in the Guinness Book of Records. He said the case for the death, deity and resurrection of Christ is the best case he has ever seen. I can see where he is coming from because the proof is in my heart which you are blind to despite your self-proclamations of being so informed. A darkened mind no matter how much he gathers in information will reject the honest to good truth.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    On the contrary, I used to be at your level. Many years ago when USENET was all the rage, I used to post on the religious newsgroups some very ignorant things, ignorant enough things that would be reposted on the website I dare not mention if they were ever discovered. I disagreed with people only if they were atheists, but a lot of times atheists would make arguments supporting my side, but I'd still disagree with them because they were atheists... basically, I was like you. I wasnt as rude and condescending as you, but I was stubbornly ignorant for the longest time, until I actually learned a little about math, science, and philosophy.
    You were never at my level, because it is not dependent on USENET. It is dependent on:

    "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3.16,18).

    So you see you are condemned already. In other words you have made up your mind Jesus was a liar, so He will make a liar out of you.

    If I have been condescending or rude, please show it, don't just mindlessly accuse for that is rude and stop trying to exalt yourself, for that is condescending. Just accept the fact if the Bible is true, then you are going to hell. Can you at least do that? Math, science and philosophy should help lead you to Christ for correct math, science and philosophy are part of God's creation and draw back to Him. Praise the Lord! So the only reason you are still not saved is because you like remaining in sin, and whatever those sins are for you, they are between you and God and He will deal with you accordingly. But first and foremost you need to be born-again.

    However, even though this is going to be hard for you to accept, because you have a severe cognitive dissonance against anyone and anything that doesnt agree with you, I want you to understand that from an academic point of view, your proof is laughably awful. Usually, apologists of your caliber can only convince the already convinced that Christianity is true, but I dont even think a Christian would call your argument good. There are dozens of theists who I've seen who make better arguments for Christianity, a lot better than Habermas, CS Lewis, McDowell and Wilson, Griesler, and other dime-a-dozen apologists ever could; at least one, William Lane Craig, comes to mind as a very good theologian, but I doubt you've even heard of that name.
    You are just falsely accusing again mindlessly. Why do you think it is not incumbent upon you try to prove anything you say? Don't just stand there on your pedestal and self-declare things. It makes you very dull. Now since you still can not find any problem with the Proof, then your laughter is just obstinacy. That's all it is. The 4 Step Proof of God of the Bible is the best proof I have ever seen, and you have shown no better proof of God of the Bible, so it stands as the best proof out there to date. I have read several of those authors and I like Habermas' proofs the best using the minimal facts approach for the resurrection. I believe that is the key to everything, because proving God is not the issue. Once you know God created, there is a little more work in proving Christ and Habermas does the best job at it. But those other authors are certainly good too.

    Notice your overassuming. Since I know of all those names, you have been mistaken in your accusations again like Satan that great accuser who accuses day and night. Understand what you are doing right now. You are just yelling you are better, you are better. But no you are not, since you are going to hell because you reject Christ and you have no reason for doing so. Don't live in your vagaries, but God is specific in His dealings.

    One can't lead you to Christ as long as you believe in puff the magic dragon it happened all by itself. Even someone on some remote island somewhere who never even heard of Christ could be saved. If he looked up at the stars and the sky and said how miraculous, that he certainly can't fathom it, but he knows God did it, then if he was introduced to the Word of God surely he would accept it and the salvation given by Christ.

    And so remains your problem, you can't accept such the simple faith in the perfect sacrifice, because you can't give up the selfish you. You like your selfishness too much. The cosmos and calculus won't save you. Perhaps your job keeps you in that place of separation from God. Perhaps it is the people you associate with that help you stay away from God. Perhaps it is just you alone that reviles God because you are jaded by earlier experiences of having thought you were a Christian when in fact you were really not saved at all. There is nothing worse than trying worship God by your own strength. It just does not work at all. You really have to give up you. I would be jaded too if I was pretending to be something that I was not, but I have the fruit of the Spirit of love, peace, joy and patience. My sympathies go out to you.

    Essentially, as you have demonstrated by your own replies, your entire defense of your 4-step proof is reduced down to name calling and belittling me. I've never been damned to hell, accused of following Satan, and told I was a sinner so many times in my life. The crux of all of your rebuttals have nothing to do with the logical veracity of your proof, but has everything to do with saying that you're better than me for being a Christian. You didnt answer any of my most important questions, like how you deduced your calculations; in fact, not a single math equation exists anywhere in your entire 4-Step proof at all. Math concepts like a limit exist, but you very obviously dont have a good understanding of it turn that or any other math concept into an argument for God. Wheres the exponential equation for moral progress? Wheres the error function? Nowhere to be found, because you dont understand those concepts on an academic level, so you cannot possibly provide them.
    Where did I name call or belittle you? You really should stop mindlessly accusing. The Proof stands on its own, you can read anytime you like. It covers all things you brought up so much so I did not need to add even one tittle to it.

    You are presently unsaved, condemned to hell because that is the choice you have made for yourself, so don't blame me or God for your choice. That is just the kind of person you want to be in life. Take back the blame and take control of yourself by taking on His yoke, for it is an easy yoke to bear. All my responses deal accordingly to match whatever is that is your issue you are bringing up at the time. I am better than you because I am a Christian, because I have eternal life and you don't. You are not a good person, because you reject Christ and thus God does not forgive you. All you have then is a foretaste of hell to live out. How truly sad for you. Today we put people into jail for their crimes, you will be put into hell for your crime which is the worse crime of all-calling God a liar.

    The deducing of calculations was already given by establishing some common knowledge that the murder rate per capita has been decreasing at an exponential rate and we simply don't do some horrible things the human race we once did in the past. You keep repeating yourself, but this answer is more than adequate to substantiate Step 1. The exponential progression of our conscience these past 6000 years shows us that if we had an eternity to be perfected without sin, we would still not be sinning. You don't need some complicated formula for this since all exponential progressions in perpetuity approach infinity. This is a good math proof in general terms that we witness for why Step 1 is so good. For more specific evidence of these facts, you can search out research papers which have done the work already. The margin of error in the exponential improvement of conscience would never be so large as to cause this progression to go the other way. How silly.

    I have taken statistical courses, but it is not my calling to produce research reports to give more evidence to this case. I am busy with other matters for God such as convincing souls of Biblical locality. I don't consider spending lots of time with people like yourself because the probability of you ever getting saved is so small, the Lord leads me to more productive work. It would have been better for you if you never heard of Christ at all than for you to have pretended to be a Christian as long as you did and turn away from the faith.

    It is enough to know that the exponential progression is real by citing a couple of obvious examples we can all easily recognize. I am more interested in saving souls than getting people to jump into a heady research paper, but be my guest. I am sure you will find it quite stimulating.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Juliet View Post
    Churchwork,
    I've repeatedly pointed out places where you need to explain your argument better, where you beg the question, where you use elementary logical errors... did you go back to fix or clarify even one thing? No, you didnt. However, every other rational person who looks at your proof is going to find the same mistakes I did, and you'll complain about having to hear the same thing over and over again. Believe me, nobody gets an argument right the first time, especially not an argument as long as yours, yet you stated in almost every post that your 4-step proof has remained the same from the beginning... thats right, it is the same from the beginning, and it retains all of the elementary errors that it had from the start.
    Self-declarations are of no account. If you can't prove it, then you are just pontificating. If you found a mistake, how come you can't show it? Since you show no errors, then your are just a clanging bell. I don't complain, I just think it is better for you to respond to my responses instead of avoiding them and returning to your same old statements. This causes me to just repeat the same thing I said in response. We would make better progress if you would move forward instead of spinning your wheels. The Proof is simple, it is not long at all. But I have already shown that, so you keep repeating yourself that the Proof is so long, but its not. Here again is the simple proof:
    1. Considering the exponential progression in our conscience these past 6000 years, we know there has not been an eternity of the past of cause and effects because if there was we would have had an eternity to be perfected without sin.
    2. Since not a thing in nature is proven to be without a cause and we have more than a trillion examples of things with a cause, it is reasonable to conclude that the uncreated God created.
    3. Don't argue against some god, because this proof is about God of the Bible.
    4. If there is supernatural* cause and effects such as gods creating gods in the eternity of the past, we would not still be sinning by now because we would have had an eternity to be perfected. Therefore, we know God created Whom is God the Son (along with God the Father and God the Spirit) since none can compare to Him.
    * While Step 1 addresses the natural cause and effects, Step 4 covers anything in the supernatural domain. All 4 steps of the 4 Step Perfect Proof for God of the Bible are needed, objectively and experimentally.

    You leave too much unexplained, you justify too many things rhetorically but not rigorously, you, you beg too many questions, you talk about concepts that you very obviously dont understand, you disagree with your opponents no matter if they are actually arguing for or against your positin, you wont answer directly questions about your methodology, your rebuttals are composed of largely venomous attacks against your opponents character and not your opponents actual arguments, etc etc etc. The problems with your proof and your defense go on and on, and that is why your proof is the worst one I've ever read, and thats why it will never convince anyone to become a Christian.
    These are false accusations like the great accuser that Satan uses, which you provide no evidence for. Like you the evil spirit needs no evidence in his false accusations; that is why he is called the great accuser. You should feel guilty for behaving that way.

    You are just a crackpot pretending to be a philosopher, not much different from Gene Ray or David Icke, and its painfully evident to every rational person on the planet. In the end, you proof is reduced down to something so anti-academic that it couldnt even be called an apologetic, simply because you dont know what you're talking about.
    You shouldn't name call and shut your mind down with false accusations as though they have any value. Every rational person on the planet is born-again and they would agree with the Proof for it is the proof given in God's Word. Since I know what I am talking about, the Proof has remained constant and strengthened by the actions of those such as yourself because you can't find anything specifically wrong with it. All you got are wild accusations. I love that!

    I will admit, your amateurish style of argumentation irritates the life out of me, and I only hope I've reciprocated appropriately, but otherwise I've enjoyed this discussion, because I've never seen anyone else reply to all of my lengthy posts in full. I may or may not get to the historical accuracy of the Bible. I usually have a night off from work, but I was asked to come in and work an extra day, so I'll try to get back to you ASAP. That is, if you havent already banned me for belligrency. If you ban me, we can pick up on this discussion on some forum where I make the rules

    (I had promised to keep this reply shorter than the others, and... well... I'll admit, I'm verbose And my posts in this forum are childsplay compared to the posts I've written on other unmentionable forums.)
    What you are irritated by is the truth. It is not that the truth is unreasonable, but it is unloved, and since you don't have the love of the Lord in your life, naturally you are hostile and reviling and jealous.

    You are not banned quite yet. I will give you that Infraction for name calling, and do note, continued mindless accusations without anything backing them is a violation of Board Etiquette #1.

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