4 Step Proof for God of the Bible

[Churchwork]

I had no idea it was an infraction to cite my sources in order to prove that I'm not lying to you

And no, those are not MY forums, I just post on them.

It is not an Infraction at all to cite sources to prove one is not lying, nor did I say this was the case. Do you see how you have falsely accused? Never be amazed by the endless accusations of the evil spirit in your spirit for they are without the love of the Lord. It is better to allow the Holy Spirit to come into your spirit and remove that evil spirit. You are not lying when you post a link to your own forums, for you truly believe in what you believe, just as Satan truly believes in what he believes. So do you see your sin of trying to promote self? This is not humble, but it centered on you as the center of the universe.

The reason it is wrong to always post links to your forums is because self-exaltation was the purpose of so doing and it is not even on topic of the 4 Step Proof of this thread. Surely you can see why it is wrong to promote self which is not at all dealing with the facts of the Proof.

You said "Also, I'm an admin/mod at [removed forum], feel free to stop by and talk to me some more if you feel like it". Whether you are the owner or not, you are the admin of the place you are advertising and most admins I know have part ownership in their own forum at the very least.

You are just trying to be couth and cunning and so you are easily exposed in your petty self which you need deliverance from.

Notice too how this has gotten so far off topic because that is what the evil spirit does with a spirit of dissension to deflect away from the evidence. You tried to deflect by differentiating between actually owning the forum and being the admin of the forum. Don't let your petty self get the better of you.

[Churchwork]

Juliet,

Recommendation: drop the continued unsupported verbiage of "bizarre" in your false claim that failed when you merely self-declared that the 4 Step Proof is cosmological only. Since it was shown this is not the case, then your continued belligerency along this line of reasoning is itself bizarre and ultimately why you got the Infraction. To continue to repeat yourself without responding to it is what Board Etiquette #6 prevents.

Repentance is in order. But since you probably can't repent you will seek to rationalize yourself somehow.

It is better to deal with the parts of the Proof instead of trying to make a false argument that it is the same thing as merely cosmological. Hope this helps you see.

[Juliet]

The reason it is wrong to always post links to your forums is because self-exaltation was the purpose of so doing and it is not even on topic of the 4 Step Proof of this thread. Surely you can see why it is wrong to promote self which is not at all dealing with the facts of the Proof.

You said "Also, I'm an admin/mod at [removed forum], feel free to stop by and talk to me some more if you feel like it". Whether you are the owner or not, you are the admin of the place you are advertising and most admins I know have part ownership in their own forum at the very least.

No, I dont own any forums, I dont own any part of them. Someone else does, and they gave me admin/mod status, simply because they liked my contributions on other forums along with 3 or 4 others... but I dont own those forums, and I'm not advertising them. I've told you three times already, but you insisted that they were my forums, even when they arent. I've even asked you to remove my infraction, because the basis for the infraction, that I was advertising my forums, turned out to be wrong, but you have yet to remove the infraction.

If I owned those forums, I'd change them completely... but I dont, so I cant.

After a little thought, something occurs to me... there is no way this can be real, this has to be some elaborate parody. I dont own any forums at all, but you are insisting that by posting links to them, I do own them. Well, I've posted a link at [removed forum] to this one here, so I own Biblocality.com forums, and if you dont stop your false satan-inspired accusations, I'm going to ban you from my forums.

Notice too how this has gotten so far off topic because that is what the evil spirit does with a spirit of dissension to deflect away from the evidence. You tried to deflect by differentiating between actually owning the forum and being the admin of the forum. Don't let your petty self get the better of you.

No, its just that, instead of getting an academic response, I get told several times that I'm just acting out because of some need to be a sinner, even when I'm not. You're not a mind reader, but yet you want to state exactly my motivations for my behaviors... and even when I object and tell you I'm motivated by other things, you try to correct me by saying I'm belligerent and hate god, essentially cramming words down my throat that I dont agree with. You should already know that what your saying is false, but you do it anyway... I wonder, is it because you are belligerent?

Theres no point in keeping this thread on topic, its a joke and I've been frustrated to no end by it, simply because of your attitude in this thread. Its one thing to have ones own little pet theories about god, but its another to have those pet theories and have a shallow character.

I've come to the conclusion that you are not a Christian, you're a mockery of your religion and a terrible witness, and you drive more people away from Christ by your own un-Christlike behavior than any atheists arguments against Christianity ever could. You have more arrogance and more pride than any Christian I've ever seen, and no humility at all, and I couldnt bring myself to believe that Heaven, being the most fantastic and wonderful place in the universe, is filled with smug individuals like yourself. Hell is full of smug people like you, thats for sure.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
So to start, I'll address your cosmological argument:
Step 1: The universe has a beginning.

My initial problem with your argument was that you havent connected the existence of humans to the age of the universe, because theres no contradiction in saying that human existence is finite but the universe is infinite. Your reply was bizarre, with two major problems:
How are humans intrinsically connected to the age of the universe?
How is moral progress intrinsically connected to the age of the universe?

First off, you got Step 1 wrong so you are arguing against something that is not the first step of the Proof. I have already said this, but you overlooked it. So now you want me to defend something that is not the 4 Step Proof. What sense is that? Secondly, it is not a cosmological argument as that mislabels it since it involves the matter of our exponential progression of conscience we observe these past 6000 years. This too was already said, but you keep mislabeling it and misunderstanding it by misreading or just being mindlessly belligerent. That won't do at all.

Now let us review what Step 1 says: If there had been an eternity of the past of cause and effects, you would have had an eternity to be perfected, yet you still sin. This shows there was not an eternity of the past of cause and effects, so that it is true the universe was created. On your idea of the need to connect humans to the age of the universe, I already showed how this was done:

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

On your second question, this too was already answered which shows you are not listening. If man is in the universe, he of course is connected to its time in a causal relationship. It doesn't matter when man was created in this causal chain on that it did happen.

I'll explain what I mean in detail below:

While that might sound good to you, its not logically sound. Its a variant of an undistributed middle fallacy that logicians call a composition fallacy, meaning that you deduce facts about a whole object based on its constituent parts. "X is made of Y. Y has property P. Therefore X has property P."

It is not an undistributed middle fallacy or a composition fallacy. Let me show you why. In observing today the exponential progression of our conscience these past 6000 years, we know this is a fact. But we still sin. What we can then say is that the full time alloted to reaching our pinnacle and beyond has not been reached to be without sin. Even if we had an eternity to accomplish this result which we who are saved are certainly on course to do, it would still not be enough time, thus we know not only we were created, but so was the universe.

It doesn't matter when man was created in the causal chain, because man in that chain is still derived from its predecessor.

The challenge for you in your misapplication of the undistributed middle fallacy is to apply the variables effectively which you failed to do. You would think you would have at least tried to do this, but you didn't. Here are some variables.

A=universe
B=humans
C=sin
D=exponential progression of our conscience
E=eternity of the past
F=uniqueness of mankind from all other creatures known
G=God
H=when man was created
I=when the universe started

Now let's see if you can succeed.

If you arent sure why your argument is wrong, here are some logically equivalent arguments:

- You are made of atoms
- Atoms are unconscious
- Therefore you are unconscious

^^^ the argument above is demonstrably false, because you are indeed a conscious being. You have a different set of properties than your component parts.

Another simple example:
- You are made of cells
- Cells reproduce by folding their membranes into a cleavage until they divide into two identical cells.
- Therefore you reproduce by folding your membranes into a cleaveage until you divide into an identical copy of yourself.

^^^ another mindboggling argument that is demonstrably false, because your sexual reproduction is nothing like asexual cell reproduction, which shows that you do not necessarily possess the properties of your component parts.

This does not apply to Step 1 since the first step is not saying if you are a conscious being for example, but that we still sin even though there has been an exponential progression in our conscience which given the eternity of the past or even an approximation of it, based on that exponential progression, we would still not be sinning right now. So God created.

We are only dealing with causes and effects. We are not saying the universe has a conscience, for it non-sentient. We are not saying because man is sentient or that his conscience is increasing exponentially that the universe has a conscience to increase exponential. Your philosophical ideas don't apply to the 4 Step Perfect Proof of God as God designed.

Of course, theres something else to take into consideration, and its dives into a little more abstract* realm of philosophy related to being and essence, specifically talking about emergent properties. An emergent property is a property of an object that does not exist in any of its constituent parts, for example all of the pixels on your computer screen are just points of light, but when they are put together in a particular pattern they form a picture; the property "picture" is an emergent property of the pixels. Similarly, something that is musical (any song on the radio) is composed of notes, but the property "musical" isnt a property of any single note...

...with that in mind, you really have to wonder if humans composed of star dust are really "intrinsically connected to the universe". I dont think you could look at star dust and call it a human; the elements that stars create are just elements, and those elements have to be arranged in a certain pattern before it can be called a human. The property "human" emerges from that pattern, and the property "human" never existed in the universe before that time.

So by now, you should understand why that rebuttal is no good, you havent shown that sinfulness of humans is connected to the beginning of the universe, its only connected to the beginning of the human species.

* Emergence is "abstract" because its defined mostly in semantics, and that makes distinctions between emergent properties and their constituent parts very blurry sometimes. See the Sorites paradox for a little more detailed explanation.

Given that a single note is not the property of the whole musical, does not detract from Step 1 in examining if there was an eternity of the past of cause and effects. Just because humans are in the universe and we don't make up the whole universe, does not mean the exponential progression of our conscience is not in play or that cause and effect is violated.

Moreover, we are not trying to prove humans are the whole universe or even party of the universe, only that in the matter of cause and effect our body was formed from dust. And since we still sin you know there could not have been an eternity of the past of causes and effects because based on that exponential progression, we would be without sin by now.

Suffice it to say, humans have a body that came from the "dust" (Gen. 2.7) just like the Bible says. The mind of God in the Bible agrees more with science than you do, after all, science exists because of the Word of God.

So now you can see how your argument is wrong and why the progression of our conscience is connected with the whole universe from which our bodies were derived from the the past, except that it is a past that had to be created by the uncreated given the fact that we still sin and nothing in nature happens all by itself. All things have a cause and effect. No evidence shows otherwise.

We are not concerned with philosophical concepts such as emergence since we are not trying to prove that humans are the universe. We only need show that in the laws of cause and effect we would not exist if there was not a preceding cause so we abide in those laws and any theory that does not is a false theory.

Sorites paradox does not apply to the 4 Step Proof since we are dealing with causes and effects, that is all, not the paradox of a heap.

Try to get back on topic of cause and effect. By bringing up all these other things that have no relevance shows you are just confusing yourself and that you are not willing to deal precisely with the Proof itself. When you are unspecific and vague, it will get you every time. Satan is the author of confusion.

[Churchwork]

Juliet,

We ought to agree there is an exponential progression in our conscience, and this is not disputed yet. Now compare this to the proposed idea there is an eternity of the past of cause and effects for the universe which always fail in its assessment.

If there is an eternity of the past of cause and effects, then there has been an eternity before today such that anything within that eternity approaches so close to eternity that it is deemed as having an eternity to develop.

Ergo, it does not matter when man was created in the causal chain to prove that there has not been an eternity of the past. All you need know is man's creation would have approached infinity from the past and as such man would now be without sin, yet we still sin, showing that man had to have been created and there could not have been an eternity of the past.

If the position for an approximation of the eternity of the past fails then it is so close to eternity itself of the past, there could not have been an eternity of the past. To suggest otherwise would be splitting hairs to the point of fallacy by the petty self.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
If I understand your argument correct, it should imply the following: given that humans are made from parts of the universe, then their moral characteristics are intrinsically connected to the universe. That means, when a human dies, decomposes, and their nutrients nourish other plants and animals, those plants and animals inherit all of the moral progress from the human, and animals would clearly exhibit the properties of a moral human...

No. That's not what it meant. Yes it is true that man's moral improvement does affect things around him more positively, but this is not the point. The point is that because man began in the past and if there was an eternity of the past, then man would have begun in the approximation of the eternity of the past. By comparing this big fat assumption of an eternity of the past to seeing man's exponential progression in conscience today these past 6000 years, we know that big fat assumption is a lie because man would have had an eternity to be perfected, so it is true that man was created 6000 years ago and the universe was created at some point too. If the approximation to eternity fails, so does the eternity itself since they are both essentially taken as eternity. Man was created in God's image about 6000 years ago. Before 13.7 billion years ago, the Godhead of the Father, Son and Spirit held council to create man in His image. Talk about patience!

... but, that is nonsense. The moral characteristics a human has are not etched into the fabric of the universe, at least not in an eternal sense; the moral characteristics of humans exist in the structures of their brains, and when their brains are destroyed, so are those moral characteristics, so those characteristics have no possible way of transferring to another being simply by recreating that being from a humans remains. This probably explains why a person cannot "become keen like the crow" just by eating crow, or other stereotypical native america beliefs.

It is not nonsense that man influences his surroundings. Eternally when man kills off a species it has eternal consequences into the very fabric of the universe. Your problem is you only see naturalistically. Since nothing in nature is without a cause then it is the uncreated that caused the universe and by definition that is supernaturally, beyond your naturalism, so it would be illogical to seek after a naturalistic explanation for all things all the time.

When man dies and his remains are put into the cosmos this only speaks of his body with not much significance as man goes back to dust. It pays no attention to his soul with its functions of mind, will and emotion; nor does it account for his spirit with its functions of intuition, communion and conscience.

The soul and spirit of man are to be resurrected as Jesus as resurrected in due time. There will be consequences for any who never felt those consequences while still in the body of flesh and blood.

When man and woman procreate a new living soul is born. Who can deny the genetic influences as well as the free-will choice afforded to that soul? This is how that moral form to form is transferred. Down to the fourth generation God said some sin would be transferred as we are all born into sin. It is not the exponential progression in dust, but the exponential progression in conscience that proves the case. Since you are made in God's image, you will never cease to exist. Just because your body goes back to the grave does nothing to your spirit and soul as you will await a newly resurrected body.

In this case, your whole proof rests on a very bizarre explanation of how we progress morally, it apparently states that the moral characteristics of people are preserved across forms just by recreating new forms from old ones, which we already know is false.

Not at all, this is just your usual misreading and perhaps you just can't understand because your spirit is dead to God and that just how you wish to remain.

The exponential increase in conscience is from the approximation to infinity of the past as though there was not even any dust prior to the creating of man, because it was deemed as infinitely in the past. This is a very special principle in approximating infinity.

Of course, there are three more related problems in Step 1:
How do you calculate moral progress?
How do you prove all progress is upward?
How do you prove all progress is really progressive rather than regressive

Make a distinction between moral progress and exponential improvement in conscience. The former exists because of the latter exponential approaching infinity. Moral progress comes from the inner man infused by the Holy Spirit and common grace. It is better to see the root which is the inward man as opposed to the outward only. In other words the outward does not happen all by itself.

You don't have to concern yourself with all progressions, but just observe the major overlying trend of things that really matter and are of substance.

Every person knows what is better by common grace. It is better today that we don't throw our children in the mouth of fiery god called Molech to literally burn children alive. It was not right then, but we don't allow it all today. Sure, women kill their children today in their wombs like throwing the child into the bosom of Molech, but it is an improvement. It is better to have only one spouse, not multiple spouses. It is better to prevent children under 10 years of age working in factories. It is better today that even if the state executes someone they don't do it by cutting their head off or in public hangings or burning them to death. That is just cruel and sick. I am sure you can thing of lots of other examples.

Another issue that you've never addressed is exactly how you deduced that human beings would progress to a sinless state given an infinite amount of time. You used the concept of a limit, however your comments that "humans would have been created approximates eternity itself (as calculus teaches)" tell me that you really dont have a good understanding of even high school level pre-calculus. Why? Because not all limits tend to infinity.

Don't say I have not addressed these issues, for they have all been addressed. I am basically just repeating what I said before, so again, you are accusing falsely and overlooking what was already said due to your own belligerency and shutting your mind down.

Anything which approximates infinity is deemed as infinity. Whatever other kinds of limits you want to introduce you are free to do so, but I will let you do so if you have anything. By the way, I received honors in calculus in high school, so again, your accusation as usual are false. You really should try to not be so presumptuous, for it shows your pride through and through. Humility does not generate such presumptuous.

The main problem with you argument that "we would have had an eternity to be perfected" is that you dont state how you calculated anything. Whats the equation for measuring moral progress?

We don't need to get into a grand investigative study. We can leave that for scholars to produces such research papers. It is enough for us to cite various examples throughout history to see a discernible improvement in conscience. If a child or an old man needed the research paper to be saved, how unrighteous that would be.

So your argument is riff with the petty self. Spirituality is never so complicated as people thing, but never quite so simple either.

As far as I'm concerned, you're stating that whatever calculation you're using tends toward infinity, but you havent shown you're work. For all I know, the calculation could be a convergent series, or it may not exist.

It is not hard to see that in all the causes and effects, if there was an eternity of the past, would lead to man being created in the eternity of the past, such that his creation approximates infinity too. No such calculation is needed other than to say this.

As far as you are concerned is indeed the problem, because you are letting your petty self get in the way of basic reasoning. Someone who is puffed up can't see the simplest things. He can't see the forest through the trees. You know how a small child can easily believe in God, but a grown man confuses himself to the ends of the earth. This is a perfect example of unsalvation.

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:

Final term in series:
 
  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.

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.

Another problem I've noticed is the fact that you havent shown that all moral progress is upward. Its not obvious that all progress is an upward direction, I'd heavily argue that most progress is random walk. Our progress could be completely aimless for eternity, always oscillating between varying degrees of righteousness and abomination. We might then imagine that moral progress is a different kind of exponential growth:

            infinity
               __
f(x) =         \    ( (a^n) * cos( (b^n) * (pi * x) ) )
               /_
             n = 0

(The function above looks something like this, which to me looks like a stock chart.)

The function above is defined at every point and continous, where -infinity < f(x) < infinity for each point on f(x), but it doesnt have a limit (it doesnt even have a first derivative ;) ). You havent really provided a reason why moral progress drifts in an upward direction toward infinity, and I dont think you've explained why it drifts upward at all, rather than drifting aimlessly (<--- note: the function above does not drift "aimless", but I'm using the term loosely.)

Taken as a whole, the progression is exponentially upward and can be quantified in sweeping variables such as the murder rate per capita which is probably the most powerful indicator of them all that I can think of. All morality seems to sum itself up in this number more or less. You said you can argue for morality being random, but if that is the case surely you could give some argument to make your case. Since the evidence cited so far shows your idea is wrong, take a deeper look at yourself, and realize you made a position but then stopped short there and left it as a self-declaration. This is the mindlessness of the evil spirit in your spirit that needs no reasons for its suppositions.

Be intellectually honest with yourself. If you don't have anything substantial for your claims then be willing to drop those ideas or at least put them to the side instead of committing yourself to them. That's like all your life wanting to be a great hockey player, but still could never even make it into the NHL. You have to finally learn to accept that if you have no evidence for your view, maybe it is because there is none. You will feel wonderful release when you finally let go of the lie.

That is a pretty chart, but that is all it is. It was based on an assumption you had, not actual reasoning as the various examples that I gave you show the exponential progression of conscience. If what we see is the exponential progression of conscience and that is our best evidence so far, then there is no reason to come up with another theory because any other theory has nothing backing it, but may make for a good movie.

So you can see what Christianity has that you don't have. We have actual evidence. All you have is self-proclamation. I find that most unfortunate that an atheist needs no reason for ideas, but relies just on blind faith. It's like someone always answering a question on math exam incorrectly by saying 2x3=5. They get it wrong every time, even though they are constantly corrected. There is no rime or reason for such mindlessness, it just is, and you have a free-will to be obtuse when you ought to know better.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
If I understand your argument correct, it should imply the following: given that humans are made from parts of the universe, then their moral characteristics are intrinsically connected to the universe. That means, when a human dies, decomposes, and their nutrients nourish other plants and animals, those plants and animals inherit all of the moral progress from the human, and animals would clearly exhibit the properties of a moral human...

No. That's not what it meant. Yes it is true that man's moral improvement does affect things around him more positively, but this is not the point. The point is that because man began in the past and if there was an eternity of the past, then man would have begun in the approximation of the eternity of the past. By comparing this big fat assumption of an eternity of the past to seeing man's exponential progression in conscience today these past 6000 years, we know that big fat assumption is a lie because man would have had an eternity to be perfected, so it is true that man was created 6000 years ago and the universe was created at some point too. If the approximation to eternity fails, so does the eternity itself since they are both essentially taken as eternity. Man was created in God's image about 6000 years ago. Before 13.7 billion years ago, the Godhead of the Father, Son and Spirit held council to create man in His image. Talk about patience!

... but, that is nonsense. The moral characteristics a human has are not etched into the fabric of the universe, at least not in an eternal sense; the moral characteristics of humans exist in the structures of their brains, and when their brains are destroyed, so are those moral characteristics, so those characteristics have no possible way of transferring to another being simply by recreating that being from a humans remains. This probably explains why a person cannot "become keen like the crow" just by eating crow, or other stereotypical native america beliefs.

It is not nonsense that man influences his surroundings. Eternally when man kills off a species it has eternal consequences into the very fabric of the universe. Your problem is you only see naturalistically. Since nothing in nature is without a cause then it is the uncreated that caused the universe and by definition that is supernaturally, beyond your naturalism, so it would be illogical to seek after a naturalistic explanation for all things all the time.

When man dies and his remains are put into the cosmos this only speaks of his body with not much significance as man goes back to dust. It pays no attention to his soul with its functions of mind, will and emotion; nor does it account for his spirit with its functions of intuition, communion and conscience.

The soul and spirit of man are to be resurrected as Jesus as resurrected in due time. There will be consequences for any who never felt those consequences while still in the body of flesh and blood.

When man and woman procreate a new living soul is born. Who can deny the genetic influences as well as the free-will choice afforded to that soul? This is how that moral form to form is transferred. Down to the fourth generation God said some sin would be transferred as we are all born into sin. It is not the exponential progression in dust, but the exponential progression in conscience that proves the case. Since you are made in God's image, you will never cease to exist. Just because your body goes back to the grave does nothing to your spirit and soul as you will await a newly resurrected body.

In this case, your whole proof rests on a very bizarre explanation of how we progress morally, it apparently states that the moral characteristics of people are preserved across forms just by recreating new forms from old ones, which we already know is false.

Not at all, this is just your usual misreading and perhaps you just can't understand because your spirit is dead to God and that just how you wish to remain.

The exponential increase in conscience is from the approximation to infinity of the past as though there was not even any dust prior to the creating of man, because it was deemed as infinitely in the past. This is a very special principle in approximating infinity.

Of course, there are three more related problems in Step 1:
How do you calculate moral progress?
How do you prove all progress is upward?
How do you prove all progress is really progressive rather than regressive

Make a distinction between moral progress and exponential improvement in conscience. The former exists because of the latter exponential approaching infinity. Moral progress comes from the inner man infused by the Holy Spirit and common grace. It is better to see the root which is the inward man as opposed to the outward only. In other words the outward does not happen all by itself.

You don't have to concern yourself with all progressions, but just observe the major overlying trend of things that really matter and are of substance.

Every person knows what is better by common grace. It is better today that we don't throw our children in the mouth of fiery god called Molech to literally burn children alive. It was not right then, but we don't allow it all today. Sure, women kill their children today in their wombs like throwing the child into the bosom of Molech, but it is an improvement. It is better to have only one spouse, not multiple spouses. It is better to prevent children under 10 years of age working in factories. It is better today that even if the state executes someone they don't do it by cutting their head off or in public hangings or burning them to death. That is just cruel and sick. I am sure you can thing of lots of other examples.

Another issue that you've never addressed is exactly how you deduced that human beings would progress to a sinless state given an infinite amount of time. You used the concept of a limit, however your comments that "humans would have been created approximates eternity itself (as calculus teaches)" tell me that you really dont have a good understanding of even high school level pre-calculus. Why? Because not all limits tend to infinity.

Don't say I have not addressed these issues, for they have all been addressed. I am basically just repeating what I said before, so again, you are accusing falsely and overlooking what was already said due to your own belligerency and shutting your mind down.

Anything which approximates infinity is deemed as infinity. Whatever other kinds of limits you want to introduce you are free to do so, but I will let you do so if you have anything. By the way, I received honors in calculus in high school, so again, your accusation as usual are false. You really should try to not be so presumptuous, for it shows your pride through and through. Humility does not generate such presumptuous.

The main problem with you argument that "we would have had an eternity to be perfected" is that you dont state how you calculated anything. Whats the equation for measuring moral progress?

We don't need to get into a grand investigative study. We can leave that for scholars to produces such research papers. It is enough for us to cite various examples throughout history to see a discernible improvement in conscience. If a child or an old man needed the research paper to be saved, how unrighteous that would be.

So your argument is riff with the petty self. Spirituality is never so complicated as people thing, but never quite so simple either.

As far as I'm concerned, you're stating that whatever calculation you're using tends toward infinity, but you havent shown you're work. For all I know, the calculation could be a convergent series, or it may not exist.

It is not hard to see that in all the causes and effects, if there was an eternity of the past, would lead to man being created in the eternity of the past, such that his creation approximates infinity too. No such calculation is needed other than to say this.

As far as you are concerned is indeed the problem, because you are letting your petty self get in the way of basic reasoning. Someone who is puffed up can't see the simplest things. He can't see the forest through the trees. You know how a small child can easily believe in God, but a grown man confuses himself to the ends of the earth. This is a perfect example of unsalvation.

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:

Final term in series:
 
  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.

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.

Another problem I've noticed is the fact that you havent shown that all moral progress is upward. Its not obvious that all progress is an upward direction, I'd heavily argue that most progress is random walk. Our progress could be completely aimless for eternity, always oscillating between varying degrees of righteousness and abomination. We might then imagine that moral progress is a different kind of exponential growth:

            infinity
               __
f(x) =         \    ( (a^n) * cos( (b^n) * (pi * x) ) )
               /_
             n = 0

(The function above looks something like this, which to me looks like a stock chart.)

The function above is defined at every point and continous, where -infinity < f(x) < infinity for each point on f(x), but it doesnt have a limit (it doesnt even have a first derivative). You havent really provided a reason why moral progress drifts in an upward direction toward infinity, and I dont think you've explained why it drifts upward at all, rather than drifting aimlessly (<--- note: the function above does not drift "aimless", but I'm using the term loosely.)

Taken as a whole, the progression is exponentially upward and can be quantified in sweeping variables such as the murder rate per capita which is probably the most powerful indicator of them all that I can think of. All morality seems to sum itself up in this number more or less. You said you can argue for morality being random, but if that is the case surely you could give some argument to make your case. Since the evidence cited so far shows your idea is wrong, take a deeper look at yourself, and realize you made a position but then stopped short there and left it as a self-declaration. This is the mindlessness of the evil spirit in your spirit that needs no reasons for its suppositions.

Be intellectually honest with yourself. If you don't have anything substantial for your claims then be willing to drop those ideas or at least put them to the side instead of committing yourself to them. That's like all your life wanting to be a great hockey player, but still could never even make it into the NHL. You have to finally learn to accept that if you have no evidence for your view, maybe it is because there is none. You will feel wonderful release when you finally let go of the lie.

That is a pretty chart, but that is all it is. It was based on an assumption you had, not actual reasoning as the various examples that I gave you show the exponential progression of conscience. If what we see is the exponential progression of conscience and that is our best evidence so far, then there is no reason to come up with another theory because any other theory has nothing backing it, but may make for a good movie.

So you can see what Christianity has that you don't have. We have actual evidence. All you have is self-proclamation. I find that most unfortunate that an atheist needs no reason for ideas, but relies just on blind faith. It's like someone always answering a question on math exam incorrectly by saying 2x3=5. They get it wrong every time, even though they are constantly corrected. There is no rime or reason for such mindlessness, it just is, and you have a free-will to be obtuse when you ought to know better.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
You havent provided an explanation for why we are being perfected, rather than just modified in trivial and apparently random ways.

Not modified nor trivial. Is 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! Exponential progression is a perfecting. It is visible, knowable and fully documented by scholars who study such things. Don't just shut your mind down. And stop with the mindless self-proclamations, for that is the character of the evil spirit in your spirit. After something has been shown to you over and over and you keep denying it for no reason, this is your obstinacy and ignorance like Satan himself. The difference between you and Satan is rendered in one vital fact: Satan can never be saved as an angelic being, but you can yet be saved. Trust a Christian when they tell you that you have not blasphemed the Holy Spirit, thus allowing you to be saved if you give your life to Christ.

While you say that there are definite strides in moral progress, I dont think you've actually questioned that they really are progressive. For example, in 1850, women and non-whites had a diminished perceived value, and certainly there are a number of people from 1850 who would argue that women in the workplace and equality between the races is actually indicative of moral decline where you would call it progress. Similarly, we can take the acceptance of homosexuality in the mainstream as both moral progress or moral decline, depending on who we ask (if you ask me, its progress, but if you ask James Dobson then its decline).

Your scope is too small. You can't just pick pockets of time, for that is too small a sample. Women have not been able vote for 5900 years. Now women can vote. This is deemed as an exponential achievement.

Since man was made for woman and woman was made for man, homosexuality is an obvious sin of lustful perversion and so is bestiality, and so is S&M. The calculation of significance is as usual on a per capita basis. The rate of homosexuality is going down. Again, look at your proclamation that you think it is an improvement that more men stick their genitals up other men's anus's or that more women share dildos. I am glad your future is not reality. It is unhealthy and damages your spirit. Think of the children raised in such environments. Such sin could manifest itself to compel a person to do these things to the fourth generation perhaps. Sin has far reaching consequences.

I am not arguing for subjectivism, however its just not clear to me how you define progress. Theres no real indication that our society is more progressive than any previous generation.

It should be clear for it has already been stated many times. You're just being belligerent following in the footsteps of your father Satan. The several indicators are amply supplied as significant measures.

Of course, theres something else you've overlooked: when you say that we'll become morally perfected over the course of eternity, how is that even possible? In principle, it sounds ok, but in practice is limited by quirks in psychology:
Human minds cannot store an infinite amount of data.
The limit of moral progress to infinity is measurably less than infinity.

Since I did not overlook something yet, doesn't sound like you are about to introduce something for the first time that I overlooked. You are always misreading. I am not saying we will be perfected over the course of eternity, but that IF we had an eternity to perfected we would have been perfected. Obviously we don't need an eternity, but if we had it is more than ample. The human mind does not need to store an infinite amount of data to be perfected in God's eyes. No one can say the length of time it takes to reach perfection. That would make them God, for only God has this ability. All we can say is there is an exponential progress going on. However close it approximates eternity is irrelevant. What is significant is that if there had been an eternity of the past of cause and effects, wherever our creation did begin, it would be deemed approximating eternity since it falls into backdrop of eternity itself if eternity of the past existed. It does not. Ergo, God created both man and the universe. He even took at least 13.7 billion years to create the body from dust.

Human beings are very diverse, not a homogenous whole. Some people are just very ignorant or just very uncaring, and their moral choices will reflect their ignorant and uncaring minds. Theres no obvious argument that, given an infinite amount of time, because quite simply, people are born as blank slates, and it is impossible to accumulate the total sum of all the moral values stretching back to eternity. There is and will always be room for ignorance, and we can never purge that out of society, it may not even be possible to achieve moral perfection by your definition in the first place, even if we make the presumption that moral progress tends upwards. We may be constrained by a ceiling, where over time we get closer and closer to perfection, where we are 99% perfect, then 99.99% perfect, then 99.999999% perfect and so on.

It is a false assumption there will always be ignorance. Since the exponential progression in conscience is our witness, you can therefore see it in approaching a state of sinlessness. There will always be room for ignorance for you in ultimately being separated into hell, because of your own uncaring mind and choice to shut your mind down in disobedience to God. But that is your choice. But once you are in hell you will truly know you belong there. You may be deluding yourself now, but all in good time.

Since the exponential progression in conscience is proven, it is not an assumption. For all in tense and purposes a 99.9999% approximation is close enough, and you should not rule your petty self over some minuscule incompletion. I swear your petty self is going to eat you alive in retardation as will your self-declarations and mindless proclamations after the evidence was already given to you. This warrants an Infraction, because you can't keep saying something is assumed after the evidence is given. That is not tolerated. It is like a baby having a tantrum not having his way. He is in his feelings only.

At the very least, you might be thinking that you show that 99.999(repeating)% = 100% using a simple geometric series, but that would make the presumption that ignorance can be partitioned into infinitely tiny parts, but that would also make the dubious presumption that minds can hold an infinite amount of data. But more importantly, some forms of ignorance, such as the mind of a newborn child who has no moral knowledge at all, cannot be partitioned at all; their ignorance is discrete, and the most morally perfect society can only achieve (100 - ignorance of one child)% perfection.

There is no need to hold an infinite amount of data to be perfected. How silly. Whatever God ordains to be sinlessness is the point that will be reached given the exponential progression in conscience we observe.

To be a child born no longer without sin, but does not know anything, does not mean he is ignorant. He is developing accordingly and appropriate according to God's design, but in a state of sinlessness when it is reached in the saved. Because there is no sin, there will be no death in the new earth.

I see what your problem is, for you are stuck in your head and you don't realize you have a spirit also. Read this first chapter of The Spiritual Man to know you also have a spirit in addition to a rationalizing soul. This will help you wake up from your deep slumber. You will begin to realize that your outer man is faulty even though it may think it is reasonable. Once you are regenerated you will be amazed at all the revelation you receive from the Holy Spirit of how utterly corrupted you were. Even before salvation, you know you are sinner to come to the cross, and if done according to God's standards, He will give you the gift of eternal life.

The aforementioned reasons provide a good explanation of why your principle that people will tend toward perfection given an infinite amount of time are, at best, an idealistic fantasy, but not obtainable in the real world due to some practical limitations of mind and psychology. It would only be achievable in a hypothetical world where all beings are born with an infinite amount of data already in their heads, which I hope you would agree is impossible.

Given the explanation to your misreasoning and approach in thinking about these things, we can render your idea false and of no account as was shown. You actually don't need an eternity to be perfected, but if you did, and yet you still sin, given the exponential progression in conscience, you know that there was not an eternity of the past of cause and effects. You would know for certainty both man and the universe were created. The real world and Word depicts this, not your fantasy and movie-like idea of an eternity of the past of cause and effects, called puff the magic dragon, now you see it, now you don't. How silly. Since nothing in nature causes itself, therefore the uncreated did create! The limitations you mentioned are not applicable since the conditions you mentioned to define those limitations are not real, rendering the limitations as faulty conclusions. You don't need to have infinite knowledge to be perfected. It does not stand to reason just because a child is born, and still growing, that that child is not perfected in a state of sinlessness when that point is reached in mankind. Jesus for example was born in the womb of a woman who was a sinner, but Jesus nonetheless himself was without sin showing that it is our portion as firstfruits who are saved today to be with God in eternity.

I feel somewhat sad for you because someone who has not gone through all the efforts of reviling God, would have been saved much sooner, yet you still are not saved. This indicates how bad a person you really are as you say you have been at this for years. This makes it virtually impossible for you to be born-again, but there is still perhaps a 0.1% chance. God can move mountains.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
At the very least, your method of proving that the universe has a beginning, based on the methods you outlined, need serious reconsideration. I was generous enough in my last post to provide an explanation of how the universe is finite, based on the fact that heat death is inevitable, but you replied that its not known whether the universe is a closed system. I admit that we really cant know with a great amount of certainty, because there are other models of the universe, such as multiverse and string theories, that do not imply a heat death, but at the moment we dont have a lot of evidence for those theories, we dont know if they are true or not. The best model of the universe, General Relativity, is observed directly, so at the very least its justified to be more partial to GR than the other theories, and justified to be more partial to the implications of GR such as the eventual heat death. However, if you reject GR and other sciences as a method for proving its finititude, and substituting your own "limit of moral progress to eternity" method, then you cant prove that the universe is finite for the reasons I've already explained above.

Don't just self-proclaim something you have no evidence for in your accusation. Don't you know you do this by the evil spirit in your spirit for he has the same accusatory tone and needs no evidence in his vague proclamations.

In the matter of heat death, you nor I know if the universe is closed or open, so we can render no definitive conclusions. But the evidence thus far indicates a never ending expansion, because we know scientifically speaking the dark energy is pushing out the gravity of dark matter and matter at an ever increasing rate. This is a fact agreed to by scientists as they measure the increasing expansion of the universe. There is no reason this can't go on forever. Even so, if there was heat death this would not prevent resurrection out of heat death. And perhaps by the time that happens we the resurrected saved would know how to subsist in another model having gained great knowledge with God and the Lamb at the center of the new city.

By mentioning heat death, you were not being generous, but actually quite evil, for think about it. Your reasoning for this supposition was to conclude annihilation. You may think annihilation is a way out for you, but I assure you whether you like it or not, you will be resurrected. The only question is, will it be for the new city or hell.

It should be noted string theory and multiverses don't violate Scripture either as best as we can tell, because all a multiverse happens to be is the same natural phenomenon in different loafs of bread and strings are just the building blocks of nature. One scientist on a PBS program said that string theory suggests that if you push long enough on an object you could actually go right through it. This is grounds for resurrection. As gravity is being lost in our universe and we are unsure of where it is going, we think it is actually such a weak force in our universe it is escaping the universe, also showing another possible mode of resurrection.

String theory is the cutting edge and combines G (General relativity) and EM (Electro Magnetism), which scientist combine to call GEM. And so heat death as you admit is not likely since GR can not stand on its own, but today GEM combines the weak force of gravity with the strong force of EM into a workable theory of a multiverse. There would be 10 universes altogether according to the theory. 3 for our space and 1 for time, then 6 others universes, so the theory goes.

Even so, to rely on a conclusive solution on things so complicated is not a reasonable thing to do. We should be able to solve such mysteries of whether there is an eternity of the past or not by simple observations, because if God exists, He would have provided a relatively easy proof and that is the 4 Step Proof of God of the Bible.

Science can neither confirm nor deny the open or closed system, or a final model on all creation, but it does look like GEM is the solution so far. In fact science itself may be limited because it can't even prove itself.

Whether the universe is closed or open is not mutually exclusive with the exponential progression of our conscience. Moreover, this exponential progression of our conscience is not a limit as you say, but it is exponential. This is what we see these past 6000 years. This is the very thing you can't disprove and my evidence far outweighs your no evidence.

I tend to side with the strength of the facts and evidence. You should try it.

[Churchwork]

Churchwork,
So, I have to reiterate: your Step 1, that attempts to show that universe has a beginning, is not wrong per se, but just your way of showing that the universe has a beginning doesnt work. There are too many unaddressed issues in Step 1, such as how you calculate moral progress, how you define moral progress, how you determine that progress is an an upward direction, how you determine that the upward direction tends towards infinity, how you respond to the people who believe that we are actually on a moral decline, and finally you need to explain how moral characteristics are transferred and conserved between forms rather than recreated anew. You have only proven that humans have sinned for a finite amount of time, and nothing more.

You contradict yourself. Don't say it is not wrong per se then say it doesn't work. Be "not doubletongued" (1 Tim. 3.8). It either works or doesn't work. Since there is no issue you attempt that was not dealt with and answered adequately, then Step 1 stands. Moral progress is not what we are after so much as the exponential progression of our conscience. This was shown by various examples. You do not need to cross every i and dot ever t to render a conclusion. You only need look at the sweeping major changes these past 6000 years.

The exponential progression in conscience is less sin. This has already been defined, so that your overlooking this shows your obstinacy. By observing various examples, you can see the upward progression is exponential. You don't even have to calculate the exact exponential rate, but simply observe the general trend. All exponential progressions tend toward infinity when they have no end in site as they get steeper and steeper. It is like investing $10,000 in a stock of Warren Buffet 40 years ago and discovering it is worth $400 million or whatever the latest figures are. Since the evidence is for an exponential progression in conscience such as seeing less murders per capita, to think we are on a moral decline is irrational. Don't just rely on assumed feelings, for feelings are oscillating and undependable. Look at the facts. Satan will use feelings to deceive, so be weary. Since a man and a woman procreate this is generating a new life and the genetics are transferred from the parental form to the form of a child which recreating anew each time it happens. What we have shown is that humans have sinned for a finite amount of time that we are aware of since Adam in the backdrop of an exponential progression in our conscience. Therefore, what we can say as a result is that if we had an eternity to be perfected without sin, we would have certainly done so by now considering the exponential progression we see in our conscience. Since we still sin, you know that both we were created and so was the universe because our existence in the backdrop of a supposed eternity of the past would render an approximation to eternity in the past for humankind. Ergo, Step 1 teaches us from God's Word that God did create! After 4000 years we see the Holy Spirit indwell men and women for the first time ever when Jesus died on the cross, was resurrected and raised for the Holy Spirit to indwell us. Praise the Lord! We are no longer under the law but live by the Spirit of the law as Jesus came to fill up the law.

Step 1 stands. I must reiterate so there is perfect clarity. Step 1 says considering the exponential progression in our conscience seen these past 6000 years, it would not take an eternity to be perfected without sin, yet we still sin, showing that obviously we did not have an eternity to be perfected, because if we did, we certainly would be without sin by now. Therefore, God created. Any approximation to infinity is close enough of when man was created who's body was created out of the dust and so becomes an intricate part of creation.