The Other Side Of God

[Suppositionist]

Hi Cangamble,

Interesting stuff. However I must take exception to a few of the things you wrote in separate posts above and I will explain why, but first let me just say that I agree with this first quote of yours:

“”The earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. This is a fact.
The universe is over 13 billion years old. Again, this is a fact.
Evolution is a fact.””

>>>>The earth is likely at least that old and the star dust that makes up the earth dates back to the beginning of the universe as does all the material that makes up each and every one of us. The universe is at least 13 billion years and some think 15 or as many as 18 billion years old. Course time flew by much faster in a smaller universe so the first million years or so may have only taken a few hours by today’s reckoning. You’ll get no argument from me regarding evolution either. There can be only one truth and if a God created this reality then evolution is one of the mechanisms he used to do so. Evolution involves change and change requires movement or motion, a key element in all experience.


>>>>These next quotes are where I take exception:


“”There is no evidence that God has ever existed, so why consider God, Leprechauns, or an invisible man who might live under my bed?””

“”As for abiogenesis, there are many theories out there that are plausible. They don't include the need for a creator.””

I would agree that there is no physical evidence that a Supreme Being exists, how could their be? If a Supreme Being created the universe “ex-nilo” (from nothing) this Being would be beyond physical and hence beyond our abilities to investigate physically or scientifically. This however does not preclude us from investigating a Supreme Being's existence intellectually or rationally. This is often a stumbling block for empiricists but sound rational arguments do exist for the existence of a Supreme Being or Creator.

Science concerns it self with the “how” of phenomenon. Philosophy concerns itself with the why, with causation. And religion, a branch of philosophy, concerns itself with ultimate causation. A lot of skeptics have no use for these two disciplines. They argue if they can’t physically see, feel or touch it, if they can't measure or physically evaluate it then they are not interested in it. The funny thing is, they have just use the discipline they have no use for to discredit it. They have philosophized that philosophy is useless. It is also curious that while many skeptics pride themselves on their penchant for intellectual inquiry, they stop short of asking some of the more difficult questions. An example of that would be what caused the big bang, the universe in general? Does cause and effect break down at the point of universe creation? The law of causation says that causation always flows from superior cause to inferior effect. If the big bang was an effect, what could cause such a phenomenon, and cause it, ex-nilo, apparently? If our universe has a cause then it is "contingent", and the laws of causation say that anything that is contingent needs a cause for its existence at each and every moment of its existence. What kind of being (cause) could possibly create (cause) ex-nilo and then hold something like the universe in existence? To ignore these questions calls the skeptics inquiring nature into question and to claim the universe “just is” requires a faith that they often rail against. I realize it goes against their empiricist nature but when empiricism fails don't they have to use whatever they have left?

There is no doubt that the greatest being that can possibly exist, does, in fact, exist. The question then becomes; what is that being? Is it humans? Some giant star? The universe as a whole? The big bang suggests a cause and something that could cause a big bang from nothing. That suggest a Supreme Being. Of course this leads to the inevitable question of what caused this Supreme Being? Ultimately, something would have to be uncaused, something would have to have as its very nature, existence, being. We know the universe had a beginning so that couldn’t be it. What ever It is though, It would have to have all the power we can imagine. and it would have to have all the knowledge that we can imagine. These certainly are what many consider to be god like qualities. And only something with these qualities could account for the question of why there is something instead of nothing. Of course leprechauns and the invisible guy under your bed aren’t as far as I know, known for these qualities. I would only add that while I believe this to be a sound and rational argument for “a God”, it is not necessarily an argument for any particular God followed by any particular religion.

S

[hcap]

Box,
Do you actually think magnetism is better explained by God than physics 101?

If you glue a block of wood to the ceiling, is the glue performing work?
How 'bout nailing shingles? Even better all the rivets in a skyscraper?
Do you know anything about potential energy?

You are wrong. Stick to faith based arguments Box.
Fridge magnets were never mentioned in the Bible or any other scripture of any religion. Just like gravity, or the earth rotating around the sun. Back fitting the Bible, or faith based literal understandings of the world have an extremely poor record "going forward". I think your drilling down using minutia, much of which is inconsequential, into scripture is pretty much back fitting. If not tell me when the rapture will occur. Or any miracle for that matter.

Using the Bible literally is what would Linguistics would call "confusing the map for the territory."

See Language in Thought and Action
S. I. Hayakawa
And http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Korzybski

Or in Zen Buddhism when the Roshi (teacher ) uses his walking stick to point vigorously to the moon, and the student fixates on only the stick, that same stick will come down hard on the students head.

The emotional sense-non quantifiable or testable-that we experience in pondering the phenomena all around us is not the realm of science. Stick to that and we will have fewer disagreements. The sense of wonder or awe we "feel" in looking around into the mysterious universe is not refuted in modern science. Reducing gravity or electromagnetic forces to ONLY faith based views is eliminating another way of understanding the mysterious, and another approach to what we may call God.

[Cangamble]

Suppositionist, I'm not sure that your explanation for time going faster in a smaller universe has been refuted or not. I know time is relative, but when we say the earth is 4.5 billion years old, I think they are talking from the perspective of someone on earth.

That really doesn't matter when it comes to the core of your post though.

And like I said before, I have no problem with anyone who adds to reality instead of denying reality as do the people who believe the earth is young or that evolution is crapola.

You are just adding God to the equation. But you are just really just giving a window for a God, not a proof of one. There are many theories out there that don't include a creator.

I'll add that we don't know for sure what happened the second before the Big Bang, so technically, a creator is possible, but it begs the question "who created the creator," especially if you are using the argument that causation flows from superior to inferior (an argument I think has been refuted as well; evolution has proved that new information happens in many cases as I've shown in a few videos I've linked).

You do agree that God hasn't shown up for the last 13 billion plus years, which is all that I am saying: "there is no evidence God has ever existed."

But many people will disagree with you that he has shown up and that he left physical evidence. Some will argue that he intervenes when people pray: ie curing cancer, but of course, he hasn't allowed an amputee to grow back a limb as of yet (that would be too much physical evidence)

Here is an argument against God being the first cause:
[YT=First Cause Argument]gqarf1QFxfs[/YT]

[Investorater]

The Rapture Pictured-Revelation 4:1-3,John R. Rice>Chapter 4 begins a new and important division of the book.Remember that Revelation 1:19 divides the things of the book of Revelation into things past,"the things which thou hast seen,"the things present,"and things which shall be hereafter."Of that division,chapter 4 begins the "things which shall be hereafter,"literally,"after these,"that is,after the church age.Compare verses 1-3 with 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51,52.The similarity could not be accidental.Notice the door opened in Heaven,the trumpet,the call "come up hither."Everything in the book of Revelation after the end of the third chapter is future and has not yet taken place and will not take place till after the rapture.This is important so remember it..John 14:1-3..Ephesians 2:6..Romans 11:25..Colossians 1:26:27.

[2 Timothy 1:8,9] [Romans 13:11] [1 Corinthians 1:18]-Robert Mounce>We may conclude without hesitancy that Scripture in its totality knows of no Past salvation which will someday issue in a Future salvation which does not pass through a continuing Present Tense Salvation.A comprehensive understanding of the doctrine includes what has happened,what is happening,and what will happen.A deliverance as all-embracing as this cannot be lost until it is fully realized.Since final Salvation is yet future the question of losing it is for the present premature..Revelation 1:8,"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God,"who is and who was and who is to come,the Almighty.......

[Investorater]

Booklet by Martin R. De Haan II,1986,Why did Christ have to die?-The result is that the person who trusts in Jesus Christ is changed in their relationship to God,changed in their relationship to their own sin.And their future is changed,both for this life and in the life to come.If we could merit our own salvation,Christ would never have died to provide it.Here is what is ours once we have accepted the sacrificial,substitutionary death of Christ..1-Reconciliation:We are at peace with God.When Jesus Christ died on the cross,He made it possible for us to be reconciled to God and restored to fellowship with Him by faith in His Blood.Enmity is turned to friendship,alienation to sonship,hostility to faith,and hatred to love because of Christ's sacrifice on the cross (Romans 5:1,10) (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) (Ephesians 2:16) (Colossians 1:20-22)..2-Justification:We are declared right before God.When Jesus died,He absorbed our punishment.Therefore,when we believe in Him,our sins are no longer held against us (Romans 3:24,4:5,5:1,9,8:30,31,Titus 3:4-7)..3-Redemption:We are ransomed from our sin and condemnation.The death of Christ also means we have been bought out of bondage to sin and Satan.The ransom price for our sin has been paid in full.4-Propitiation:We are free from God's wrath.This is possible because an acceptable offering has been made on our behalf.(1 John 2:2,Romans 3:25,Hebrews 2:17,1 John 4:10)

[Investorater]

John Rice,It is important to notice the effect of verses 1-3 in setting the order of events concerning the second coming of Christ. These verses evidently picture the rapture. If they do not,then there is not a single reference in the entire book of Revelation to the rapture of the saints,and that would be almost unthinkable in a book the theme of which is The Revelation of Jesus Christ at His second coming. This passage,then, clearly indicates that Christ will come into the air and receive His saints out of this world before the Great Tribulation. That fits with 2 Thessalonians 2:7,8,which indicates that Holy Spirit,as long as He abides in this world in the bodies of the host of Christians,will prevent the appearance of the Man of Sin,or Antichrist. Christians now in the world will be taken out at the time represented by Revelation 4:1-3,and the terrible plagues mentioned in Revelation after this passage will not be endured by present-day Christians. The servants of God who will be persecuted by the antichrist during the Great Tribulation will be other Christians,people converted after the Rapture

[Suppositionist]

Hi again Cangamble,

Sorry I couldn’t reply sooner.

I don’t know that I have added God to the equation. I have argued for the universe being caused by something else and that something else certainly would have to have God like qualities (have all the power and knowledge we are aware of, create from nothing, etc.)

I mentioned that the question of what causes God is answered by the fact that God, in order to qualify for being considered God, the greatest being that can possibly exist, would have to be a necessary being, and not a contingent being, not a being that is dependent on another for its existence. Necessary beings have as their very nature, existence, and or, being. We know the universe is contingent and not a necessary being because it is finite and it had a beginning.

I’d be interested in hearing the argument that refutes the notion that causation always flows from superior cause to inferior effect. That would lead to logical impossibilities along the lines of 2 plus 2 equaling five. Evolution may prove that new information is possible but that can only be because its cause endowed it with that potential.

Actually, I don’t agree that God hasn’t shown up for the last 13 billion years. Ever hear of a belief system called panentheism? (not pantheism) Panentheism would probably be the closest system to what I believe and it posits that God pervades everything as well as transcends it. So on the contrary, I think God has rather conspicuously made his presence known. Remember: why is there something instead of nothing? I suppose one could say that God has not shown himself apart from his creation, but God, being apparently immaterial apart from this cosmos, as we understand that term, would not be perceptible to human exterior senses. No contrast, no perceptible substance, so it seems an impossibility. Even if you wouldn’t allow for that, you’d have to agree that something sustains this universe since its beginning implies it is contingent. What do you believe holds the universe in existence? A kind of inertia? What holds the laws of inertia constant?

Finally we get to the clip you posted and the amputee argument (I have seen his clip about that also). For me, the problem with the amputee argument is two foal. First this guy assumes that every amputee has, or is, praying for their limb to be restored. I doubt that that is the case and would be surprised if the number of amputees who actually prayed for limb restoration was greater than 1 or 2 percent and that among mostly superstitious and not truly religious (spiritual) persons. Heck most folks over the years who have had a limb amputated have had it done so they could live, rid themselves of disease that would surely have kill them. Granted since the industrial age, plenty of people have lost limbs in accidents but I’d expect most were just grateful to be alive, and or, that it wasn’t worse. Second and probably more importantly, this guy acts like its some big revelation, or should be, that God doesn’t answer all prayers. HELLO! Ultimately God doesn’t answer a lot of prayers and we all ultimately die but that hardly is reason to believe God can't heal an amputee if God so desired or that because God doesn’t, it proves God doesn’t exist. To me that is only an indication that God limits his involvement for the sake of free will and that he intends for us to have this experience, come what may. That may seem very cruel in many instances and you may feel as this amputee writer does, that you know better than that, but I believe that if we were to know Gods reasoning, we would marvel at its perfection. On top of that I’ll bet every amputee that has attempted to do so, has reached greater levels of understanding and achieved certain satisfaction that never would be possible for a non-amputee so while the limb per se was not replaced, for those who were actually seeking, it was replace with something else if they were paying attention. My personal belief is that God mostly answers prayers on the spiritual level mainly. That is, God mainly confines his intervention in human affairs to inspiration and enlightenment.

Regarding the clip about first cause, I don’t know where to begin, lots of conjecture, lots of opinions stated as fact and lots of conclusions jumped to, especially about religion and its writers.

The few points I made in my first post, stem from the Cosmological Argument, specifically, The Cosmological Argument as propounded by Mortimer Adler in his book “How to Think About God”, not The First Cause argument. My thoughts were not THE cosmological argument, just some of the ideas from it. They are similar I suppose to the first cause argument and perhaps one led to the other, but Adler’s version avoids begging the question of assuming that, that it is trying to prove, and, the infinite regress of causes.

My biggest problem with this author and his clip, however, is all the things he mentions that are, by his own declaration, his area of expertise, yet he glosses over them not even attempting to explain why these things lead to the conclusions he arrives at. He freely admits we have plenty still to learn yet he’s certain from what he knows that the universe always existed. Even more curious is that he apparently is comfortable with the laws of cause and effect breaking down on the quantum level but yet has so much trouble, apparently, with folks who would profess a belief in God. Seems quite disingenuous to not mention the “faith” he places in the theories he holds near and dear. Basically what he’s saying is that we don’t know everything, we may not even know much at all, but what we do know supports his view of the cosmos and after all he knows more than you because A. He told you so and B. He made this video which proves he does.

Weak.

S

[Cangamble]

Suppositionist, as for your argument of superior to inferior, the FACT that evolution does add new information much of the time can't easily be spun that "maybe" the information was always out there.
You asked for an argument against it, and I gave you solid evidence against your argument.
That seems to be your only "evidence" for God. And in your words, "that is weak."

As for your claim that God is this and that as well as eternal, again, that is an easy way out, and it doesn't explain what caused or created God because if you say that the universe had to be created, in the same way, I'm saying that God had to be created.

The video was an excellent example of why God is not needed at the "beginning of time." You may call it weak, but it wasn't weak.

As for amputees, why not come clean? Do you honestly think if 1000 amputees on this planet today sincerely prayed every day for a year that their lost limb would grow back...that even one amputee's limb would grow back?????

The honest answer is no. The honest answer is that God only seems to answer prayers that need no supernatural explanation for some reason.

You see, that growing back a limb would be a supernatural event...and I've yet to see one. Especially with all the cameras everyone has these days...if supernatural miracles were to occur, we would be able to witness at least one by now.

We'll have a lot more answers very soon thanks to the experiment being conducted in Europe.....and I'd bet my house that they won't conclude or even consider the "God did it" angle.

[Cangamble]

Objections and counterarguments



[edit] Existence of a First Cause

One objection to the argument is that it leaves open the question of why the First Cause is unique in that it does not require a cause. Proponents argue that the First Cause is exempt from having a cause, while opponents argue that it is not.[12] The problem with arguing for the First Cause's exemption is that it begs the question of why the First Cause is indeed exempt.[13]

Secondly, the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and showed that causal relations were not true a priori (deductively). Even though causality applies to the known world, it does not necessarily apply to the Universe at large. In other words, it is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience.[12]

Additionally, it is argued that Occam's razor can be used against the argument, showing how the argument fails using both the efficient and conserving types of causality.[14]



[edit] Identity of a First Cause

Another objection is that even if one accepts the argument as a proof of a First Cause, it does not identify that First Cause with God. The argument does not ascribe to the First Cause some of the basic attributes commonly associated with, for instance, a theistic God, such as immanence or omnibenevolence.[13] Rather, it simply argues that a First Cause must exist. Despite this, there exist theistic arguments that attempt to extract such attributes.[15]

Furthermore, if one chooses to accept God as the First Cause, God's continued interaction with the Universe is not required. This is the foundation for beliefs such as deism that accept that a God created the Universe, but then ceased to have any further interaction with it.[16]



[edit] Scientific positions


"Gas molecules may bounce against the walls of a container without requiring anything or anyone to get them moving."


The argument for a Prime Mover is based on the scientific foundation of Newtonian physics and its earlier predecessors — the idea that a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. However, while Newton's ideas survive in physics today, since they conveniently and easily describe the movement of objects at the human (that is, not cosmic or atomic) level, they no longer represent the most accurate and truthful representations of the physical Universe. Some scientists feel that the development of the laws of thermodynamics in the 19th century and quantum physics in the 20th century have weakened a purely scientific expression of the cosmological argument.[17]

Modern physics has many examples of bodies being moved without any known moving body, apparently undermining the first premise of the Prime Mover argument: every object in motion must be moved by another object in motion. Physicist Michio Kaku directly addresses the cosmological argument in his book Hyperspace, saying that it is easily dismissed by the law of conservation of energy and the laws governing molecular physics. He quotes one of many examples — "gas molecules may bounce against the walls of a container without requiring anything or anyone to get them moving." According to Kaku, these particles could move forever, without beginning or end. So, there is no need for a First Mover to explain the origins of motion.[18] It does not provide an explanation for the reason those molecules exist in the first place, though.

Moreover, it is argued that a challenge to the cosmological argument is the nature of time. The Big Bang theory states that it is the point in which all dimensions came into existence, the start of both space and time. Then, the question "What was there before the Universe?" makes no sense; the concept of "before" becomes meaningless when considering a situation without time, and thus the concepts of cause and effect so necessary to the cosmological argument no longer apply. This has been put forward by Stephen Hawking, who said that asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole.[19] However, some cosmologists and physicists do attempt to investigate what could have occurred before the Big Bang, using such scenarios as the collision of branes to give a cause for the Big Bang.[20]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument

[fast4522]

Early on differing people would war because religion, SSDD now. I think evolution has a place with god, that sometimes some evil dies with the man. That for some folks god is the love in man that lives on, and is part of plan, and maybe the evil is strictly a learned thing.

[botster]

Originally Posted by Investorater

There are of course numerous other specific examples that we could take from the accounts of the children of Israel conquering the promised land.The Psalms tell us that it was God who was in charge of that entire anniliation program..Psalm 44..When the nation of Israel was separated into two parts,Israel in the north and Judah in the south we see God taking the side of the nation of Judah and killing 500,000 men..2 Chronicles 13:13-18..There are numerous instances in the bible in which God kills directly,by hail,plagues,swarms of insects or the earth swallowing people.


Psalm 18:34,35..In this passage in Psalms,we see that God trained David's hands for battle..Later in Psalms,David came back to this same thought..Psalm 144..In the days of the New Testament,most of the water was contaminated and many people only drank wine.Without refrigeration grape juice could not be kept without it turning into vinegar unless they converted it into wine.Apparently,it was common "knowledge" that Christ Jesus drank wine(oinos).Yet, we know that Christ was without sin(Hebrews 4:15)So evidently drinking wine(in moderation)is not a sin..The Blood of Christ Jesus has Power..La Sangre de Christo Jesus tiene Poder..(2 Thessalonians 2:1-10,2 Corinthians 4:4,Acts 17:26,Ephesians 2:13..Most of the above was copyrighted in the book by Dr.James McKeever in 1988,self published.A man in whose shoes I am not worthy to walk in and I believe he left us much too soon.We disagreed,for I have faith in a pre-tribulation rapture and he believed Christians would go through the tribulation or at least 3 and 1/2 years of it..(2 Timothy 3:12-17,Philippians 1:6,Hebrews 9:11-28

Getting back to the original post.

All these accounts of gods wrath you describe here, are historic events that took place to show us god is a righteous judge in destroying the unbeliever.God takes the side of the predestined, and seperates himself from the remainder in his judgement.

According to the word, God is not the author of evil, but man holds that burden.God showes us his righteous indignation in these matters, not unlike when jesus entered the synagogue and turned over the money tables.Here the greedy tax collectors were making a mockery of the holy meeting place of god.

[MONEY]

Originally Posted by hcap

Or any miracle for that matter.

Miracles happen all around us every day.
Science is an example of many miracles. Think about it. People have taken stuff that they dug out of the ground, or scraped out of rocks and even hacked out of plants and used that stuff to build space ships, computers, submarines and to make medicine.
Had technology been left up to me, 5000 years ago. Today we would still be beating our food to death with a piece of a tree limb and then dragging it to a cave and eating it raw. And the same applies to 5000 years from now.

money

[Suppositionist]

“Suppositionist, as for your argument of superior to inferior, the FACT that evolution does add new information much of the time can't easily be spun that "maybe" the information was always out there.
You asked for an argument against it, and I gave you solid evidence against your argument.”



>>>>Of course the question is; is your evidence actually “solid”? I would be of the opinion that it is not or at least no more solid that the opposing view. That is actually the same problem I have with the clip author.



“As for your claim that God is this and that as well as eternal, again, that is an easy way out, and it doesn't explain what caused or created God because if you say that the universe had to be created, in the same way, I'm saying that God had to be created.”



>>>>I was pointing out one possible way where an infinite regress of causes was unnecessary. Something would have to be a necessary being to avoid such a regress. You are free to name that necessary being whatever you like, I just pointed out that that being would have what many consider God like qualities.



“The video was an excellent example of why God is not needed at the "beginning of time." You may call it weak, but it wasn't weak.”



>>>>It is a “possible way” where a God is unnecessary but by his own admission we don’t know everything and that obviously implies we don’t know enough to state indisputedly that a God does not exist or is unnecessary. It is “weak” because it is philosophically unsound and he tries to imply what he has no business implying, that there is no God. I know, you can argue that that is not the case because I can’t prove that that is what he is trying to do but that would make you just as disingenuous as him if you were to claim that.



“The honest answer is no. The honest answer is that God only seems to answer prayers that need no supernatural explanation for some reason.”



>>>>Or the true answer could be as I alluded, that God does not do anything that interferes with freewill, the freedom to believe, to act in a manner consistent with being free. Prayers obviously being answered would be pretty strong evidence that God existed and would pretty much compel most folks to believe and act in a way that impinged on that freedom.



“You see, that growing back a limb would be a supernatural event...and I've yet to see one. Especially with all the cameras everyone has these days...if supernatural miracles were to occur, we would be able to witness at least one by now.”



>>>>Like I said, the point is moot with me as I don’t believe God works that way, not that he couldn’t if he so desired, but that he doesn’t for whatever reason, freewill being the most likely reason, in my opinion. My point still stands though, just because God doesn’t grow back limbs doesn’t in any way speak to whether God exists. Kind of silly to even argue this point because even if someone came along whose limb had grown back, you would never believe that it was the result of prayer or God anyway, would you? So what’s the point?



“We'll have a lot more answers very soon thanks to the experiment being conducted in Europe.....and I'd bet my house that they won't conclude or even consider the "God did it" angle.”



>>>>I’d think twice about making that wager if I were you, after all, they do intend on investigating the God particle, don’t they?



>>>>Regarding your post, which, supposedly, refutes the Cosmological argument, I specifically noted that when I referred to the Cosmological Argument, I was referring to Adler’s version of the argument in the book I mentioned. In it he addresses all those objections and his version is square with all of them. I don’t have time to go into all of the details here but you can obviously read the book for yourself if you are really interested. Of course Adler himself never thought of the argument was proof but only that through this argument God’s existence can be established “beyond a reasonable doubt”.Adler’s Wikipedia entry states, in referring to the argument: “in a recent re-review of the argument, John Cramer concluded that recent developments in cosmology appear to converge with and support Adler's argument, and that in light of such theories as the multiverse, the argument is no worse for the wear and may, indeed, now be judged somewhat more probable than it was originally[10].” For whatever that may be worth to you.



>>>>Perhaps you would be interested in what Adler has to say about Hawking.



From an essay by Adler called “Natural Theology, Chance and God”



“”… A few Christian apologists in the twentieth-century, such as Polkinghorne, are knowledgeable in the field of twentieth-century theoretical physics. But, with the possible exception of Heisenberg, few if any twentieth-century theoretical physicists manifest any competence in philosophy and appear to be totally ignorant of philosophical theology.

One would not expect them to be persons of Christian faith or apologists for Christianity, but one would expect them to be silent about matters beyond their ken. They should at least be aware of the limitations of theoretical physics and not make unfounded remarks on the basis of their knowledge of that limited subject. Einstein was a great theoretical physicist and great human being, but not a wise man. The possession of wisdom depends to some extent on clear philosophical thought. Einstein once said that what was not measurable by physicists was of no interest to them, or had no meaning for them; he also said (in his attack on quantum indeterminacy) that God, a being not measurable by physicists, does not throw dice. He said that he did not believe in a "personal" God, using the word personal as if it meant the same thing as anthropomorphic. Man is a person because he is in the image of God, not the reverse. In theology, the word person signifies a being with intellect and free will.

Hawking is a great theoretical physicist, both in quantum mechanics and in cosmology. But his philos-ophical naiveté and his ignorance of philosophical theology fills his A Brief History of Time with unfounded assertions, verging on impudence. Where Einstein had said that what is not measurable by physicists is of no interest to them, Hawking flatly asserts that what is not measurable by physicists does not exist -- has no reality whatsoever.

With respect to time, that amounts to the denial of psychological time which is not measurable by physicists, and also to everlasting time -- time before the Big Bang -- which physics cannot measure. Hawking does not know that both Aquinas and Kant had shown that we cannot rationally establish that time is either finite or infinite. When he treats the Big Bang as if it were the beginning of time, not just the beginning of measurable time, he shows his ignorance of God as cause of being and of creation as an act of exnihilation, which the Big Bang is not.

Furthermore, Hawking's book is filled with references to God and to the mind of God, both not measurable by physicists, and so nonexistent by Hawking's own assertion about what has and what lacks reality. To discourse seriously about a nonexistent being without explicitly confessing that one is being fanciful or poetical is, in my judgment, impudence on the author's part.

Most theoretical physicists are guilty of the same fault when, in quantum theory, they fail to distinguish between a measurable indeterminacy and the epistemic indeterminability of what is in reality determinate. The indeterminacy discovered by physical measurements of subatomic phenomena simply tells us that we cannot know the definite position and velocity of an electron at one instant of time. It does not tell us that the electron, at any instant of time, does not have a definite position and velocity. They, too, convert what is not measurable by them into, the unreal and the nonexistent. The definite position and velocity of the electron at any moment of time is not measurable because of the intrusive effect of the measurements themselves, though this effect may not itself be discernible.

In view of the ever-increasing specialization in all fields of learning and therefore in higher education, we probably cannot look forward to a future in which theoretical physicists will also be persons who have sufficient grounding in philosophy and in philosophical theology, in order to avoid their making unfounded assertions about matters beyond their field of specialization. But they should at least be aware of their limited knowledge and be silent about matters beyond it. On the other hand, we should also expect Christian apologists in the twentieth century to be aware of what has been discovered in this century about the physical cosmos and about biological evolution. Only thus will they avoid the errors of their predecessors in modern times who lived in a universe that was described by Newtonian classical mechanics, which we now realize is insufficient to describe the universe we have since been able to discern.””

While I’m sure none of this has changed your mind, even a little bit, I hope that I have at least established for other readers that there are other differing reasonable opinions regarding the existence of God.



S

[Cangamble]

Suppositionist, of course there is an argument for God. Dr. Ken Miller doesn't deny any of the known scientific facts and theories out there, but still has faith in God.

And even Stephen Hawking left room for God, though he says the gap shrunk a lot over the last 150 years.

He admits that science doesn't know exactly what the universe was like prior to the Big Bang. All we have is speculation, though many of the scientific hypothesises do make sense, we don't know for sure which one is the truth. Therefore there is a "chance" that a superior being was involved.

But to me, that opens up way more problems....like where has he been for over 13 billion years.

[Suppositionist]

Like I said in the other post, perhaps if we knew God’s rational for handling things the way God apparently does in this world, we could appreciate the perfection of it. I take it on faith that that rational exists. I guess I’m just lucky that it strikes me that way.



S