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!Originally Posted by Juliet
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.... 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.
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.
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.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.
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.
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.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
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.
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.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.
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.
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.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?
So your argument is riff with the petty self. Spirituality is never so complicated as people thing, but never quite so simple either.
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 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.
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.
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.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:
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.Code: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
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.
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.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:
(The function above looks something like this, which to me looks like a stock chart.)Code:infinity __ f(x) = \ ( (a^n) * cos( (b^n) * (pi * x) ) ) /_ n = 0
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.)
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.
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