"A 30 Second Argument for God"

Originally posted by twhitehead
So, given that several posters have pointed out obvious problems with it, have you now changed your mind?

I've read each post with interest and have been stimulated by the overall thought content as well as by the nimble play of mind, which in my view indicates healthy skepticism with an unspoken "what if" focus on the as yet unknown which I share.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]"1.I exist.
2.If I exist, something must have always existed because you don’t get something from nothing.
3.There are only two choices for an eternal ‘something’: (a) The universe; (b) God.
4.The universe is not eternal.
5.Therefore, God exists." (From the OP)[\b]

Something from Nothing?

Absolutely.

The first micro organisms on earth. How did they first appear?

God? - supposition. A specious argument to evangelicise Religion.

Random Chemical reaction? - far more likely, although, as yet, the science is in its infancy (DNA was only discovered 60 years ago). Theoreticists speculate the evolution of the first bacteria out of the massive heat environment on earth about 4 billion years ago.

You cannot prove God's existence by citing flawed arguments such as "nihil ex nihil fit". Our scientific knowledge is expanding apace and with discoveries such as the Higgs Boson we shall soon be explain the origins of self-replicating cells.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
My vote would be "matter before mind," but if I'm wrong then as far as the details of the situation go, most Believers are also wrong. Different religions posit different original minds (deities), and at best only one of the religions is correct. Any single religion comprises only a minority of the world's Believers.

More than 200 people were killed ye ...[text shortened]... it clear to everybody (or at least to all Believers of your type) precisely what His statement was?

It's beyond awesome that Omniscient and Omnipotent God respected the volition of the angelic creation; and, if possible, beyond mega awesome that He also respects the volition of the lesser creation of mankind ["made a little lower than the angels"]. There is considerable evil in today's world which reflects the depravity of mankind. Myopic details of this horrific crash neither magnify nor lessen the event; instantaneously hundreds of lives were over. Where fragments of bodies and luggage fell is inconsequential. What does matter is the expeditious identification and prosecution of the perpetrators. God's Omniscience knew the precise time, location and names of the pilots, crew and passengers in eternity past. He is patient. Next prophetic event is the Seven Year Tribulation; Christ's Millennial Reign of Perfect Environment on earth will follow.

Originally posted by RJHinds
We are apparently slower readers than Grampy Bobby.

For what it's worth, I read and re-read at variable speeds depending on the material. A professor once told me his secret to "Speed Reading": Scan any and all books cover to cover first. Then decide which to ignore [30-50%] and which to read.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I believe the best choice at this time is to believe in the Christian God. If science eventually proves that to be unreasonable or false, then we should consider another alternative.

Originally posted by RJHinds
I believe the best choice at this time is to believe in the Christian God. If science eventually proves that to be unreasonable or false, then we should consider another alternative.

Sounds like let's live together for a few years before we get married. God doesn't play house. He doesn't truck with feeble nonsense. Incontrovertible fact is that each of us must decide without pressure or coercion to choose for or against Christ.

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Something from Nothing?

Absolutely.

The first micro organisms on earth. How did they first appear?

God? - supposition. A specious argument to evangelicise Religion.

Random Chemical reaction? - far more likely, although, as yet, the science is in its infancy (DNA was only discovered 60 years ago). Theoreticists speculate the evolution of the fi ...[text shortened]... coveries such as the Higgs Boson we shall soon be explain the origins of self-replicating cells.

"The reason everything is here – including you and me – is because something has always been here. In the end, the believer in God and the atheist are really just arguing over what that ‘something’ is." (OP/ 1 of 2)

Greetings, Pianoman1. Nice to see you back on this forum. How would you assess the validity of the statement above?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]"A 30 Second Argument for God" by Robin Schumacher 12/8/13

"You’d likely agree with me that the co-discoverer of Calculus was a smart guy.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German mathematician, logician, and philosopher. Leibniz is well known for his mathematical discoveries, but he’s also recognized as the person who populari ...[text shortened]... of 2)

http://blogs.christianpost.com/confident-christian/a-30-second-argument-for-god-19111/[/b]

Mind erected the seemingly objective matter out of its own stuff. There is nothing inherently real about the properties of an object that we measure. Our measurement itself of its properties brings them into the specific existence we are aware of. All these differ appearances from indivisible particles to vast forms, are mind-only, the same way the persons, houses, fields and so on that we see in our dreams are merely mind-only projections of the mind even though they appear to us as if they were external objects. In the same way, whatever we see when we are awake are just projections of the mind. So it seems to me we cannot properly claim that the phenomena which they appear and resound are established and real in these ways since they keep up changing like appearances in illusions.
So, I just think of these objects as possibilities enveloped by a possibility wave; when the observer observes them, the possibilities collapse into the actualities I experience. Now, which way the real objects are constructed from unreal parts and constituents?
Well, since their origination is formed solely by means of infinite interdependent causes and conditions, they lack any kind of intrinsic nature. In other words, to claim that the objects exist out there on their own right seems to me untenable, for this idea is a false, instinctively projected by us superimposition on our experiences. Once we avoid this automatic, deeply built in the mechanism of our perception on which our mistaken superimposition is grounded, these objects are understood as lacking of inherent existence, and the sole possible matrix of every phenomenon that remains to be argued has a mind-only nature. Therefore, in my opinion the nature of everything is mind-only. Matter (forming objects) merely follows. That being said, to argue that this matrix “Is G-d”, you have to be firmly grounded on a certain hypothesis. For the time being, I cannot spot such a ground; and Descartes' Three Meditaions are surely not a firm ground
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Originally posted by DeepThought
...if Krauss is saying that nothing is defined as the quantum vacuum then his argument is flawed...

Please, elaborate.

Originally posted by C Hess
Please, elaborate.

Well, in the Standard Model the quantum vacuum has a non-zero vacuum expectation value for the Higgs field. If one of your fields is non-zero in the ground state then there is not "nothing there" in the vacuum.

Besides, even if that weren't the case there's still particle-anti-particle pairs popping into and out of existence, which isn't quite nothing. I don't agree with Krauss's argument, at least as it was presented in the OP, but I also don't see the problem with getting "something from nothing" - from a physics point of view what matters is that no conservation laws are broken. The conservation laws are due to symmetries - Noether's theorem states that if there is a symmetry there will be an associated conserved charge - in the case of invariance of the Hamiltonian under translations in time the conserved quantity is energy and it's not difficult to see that that symmetry is broken at t = 0. So there's no reason to suppose that energy is conserved at the start of time.

None of this should be construed as evidence either against or for the existence of a creator god.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Where fragments of bodies and luggage fell is inconsequential... God's Omniscience knew the precise time, location and names of the pilots, crew and passengers in eternity past.

Do you remember this news story weeks back?

http://articles.philly.com/2014-06-30/news/50949249_1_security-gate-3-year-old-girl-water-ice

A storefront security door fell on a three-year-old, killing her.

Suppose one of your fellow believers heard of this incident and said, "When and where that door fell is inconsequential. The important thing is that God knew it was going to fall, and He knew the child was going to be standing there at that time if He did not intervene, and He chose not to intervene, in His infinite wisdom."

Would you shout an "Amen!" to that line of thinking?

Originally posted by black beetle
Mind erected the seemingly objective matter out of its own stuff. There is nothing inherently real about the properties of an object that we measure. Our measurement itself of its properties brings them into the specific existence we are aware of. All these differ appearances from indivisible particles to vast forms, are mind-only, the same way the persons ...[text shortened]... being, I cannot spot such a ground; and Descartes' Three Meditaions are surely not a firm ground
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Sic transit gloria mundi, Mon frère. I'd like to request your comment on Leibniz' provocative question italicized below:

"Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German mathematician, logician, and philosopher. Leibniz is well known for his mathematical discoveries, but he’s also recognized as the person who popularized what many say is the single most important question ever asked: Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?" (OP/1 of 2)

Also, would you agree that your first sentence: "Mind erected the seemingly objective matter out of its own stuff."
agrees in principle with: "It truly is a question of either matter before mind or mind before matter." (OP/2 of 2)?

Originally posted by Paul Dirac II
Do you remember this news story weeks back?

http://articles.philly.com/2014-06-30/news/50949249_1_security-gate-3-year-old-girl-water-ice

A storefront security door fell on a three-year-old, killing her.

Suppose one of your fellow believers heard of this incident and said, "When and where that door fell is inconsequential. The important thing ...[text shortened]... t to intervene, in His infinite wisdom."

Would you shout an "Amen!" to that line of thinking?

Paul, you've asked two questions: the answers are yes and of course not; this accident which was responsible for the untimely death of a three year old girl represents a terrible tragedy. Here's a portion of the news report:

"Franchise owner Kenneth Jackson is a member of Omega Psi Phi, which decorated its side of the stand with balloons in the fraternity's trademark colors of purple and gold.

Fellow franchise owner Rebecca Cooper Jackson belongs to Alpha Kappa Alpha, which hung balloons in its colors, pink and green, on the other side.

The gate that fell was metal and attached over the opening of the store. The metal part that crushed the girl was the portion that stored the rolled-up security gate when the business was open. Police said the metal frame and security gate that came crashing down weighed 2,000 pounds.

Jackson did not respond to phone calls or text messages.

Alison Brady, who lives across the street and saw the gate fall, said that some stucco work had been performed on the property recently. She described Jackson as a good neighbor and a good businessman on a block that has been improving, with recent additions of an espresso bar and upscale sandwich shop..."

http://articles.philly.com/2014-06-30/news/50949249_1_security-gate-3-year-old-girl-water-ice

Any word on the Police investigation results? I wonder if the "stucco work [that] had been performed on the property recently" played a role. It appears that negligence on the part of franchise owner Rebecca Jackson wasn't the cause.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
I wonder if the "stucco work [that] had been performed on the property recently" played a role. It appears that negligence on the part of franchise owner Rebecca Jackson wasn't the cause.

If the father of the child had been standing near enough to pull the child to safety, and had enough forewarning of the collapse to do so without putting his own body in jeopardy... but didn't bother to do it-- What would you think of his morality?

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Paul, you've asked two questions: the answers are yes and of course not; this accident which was responsible for the untimely death of a three year old girl represents a terrible tragedy. Here's a portion of the news report:
[quote]"Franchise owner Kenneth Jackson is a member of Omega Psi Phi, which decorated its side of the stand with balloons in the ...[text shortened]... ole. It appears that negligence on the part of franchise owner Rebecca Jackson wasn't the cause.

I believe an investigation into that stucco work is necessary.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Sic transit gloria mundi, Mon frère. I'd like to request your comment on Leibniz' provocative question italicized below:

"Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German mathematician, logician, and philosopher. Leibniz is well known for his mathematical discoveries, but he’s also recognized as the person who popularized what many say is the sin ...[text shortened]... with: "It truly is a question of either matter before mind or mind before matter." (OP/2 of 2)?

Edit: "Why do we have something rather than nothing at all?"

Because of infinite interdependent causes and conditions;


Edit: "Also... matter."

I evaluate consciousness as fundamental, and matter as derivative from consciousness
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