That's what I was saying. What I said there was just explaining what Radiant was suggesting by saying "something can only come from something". If you read my other post as well, I even suggested that God was the actual universe (and eternal as well). Oh, and infinite and eternal are the same thing. Infinite has no start, because it cannot be quantified.
Wait...if nothing had to create a god because a god is eternal...why did something have to create the universe? Couldn't the universe be eternal?
Well, what I said before was that the universe is God... somehow. It's just some random thing I thought, but yeah. The universe could be eternal too.
Sure. As long as we can agree that the universe is completely objective and is governed by a set of unchanging universal laws, I don't care what you call it. (Although, your idea of God is not really correct as you are pretty much believing in the universe)
Universe is NOT Eternal The reason is because time, matter, and space are finite. Time is finite because something has occurred. If any occurrence was preceded by an infinite amount of time, it would never happen. Since I'm typing we know it could not be preceded by an infinite amount time, because it happened. So it was preceded by a finite amount of time meaning time had a beginning. Time is the measure of change. Matter has to change, solids, liquids, gasses, and plasmas all have to have molecular movement (change) in order to exist. Without changing, matter could not exist. So it cannot exist without time. So now we know time and matter have a beginning. Space is the measurement of distance between matter, if there is no matter, then...duh All of this is what we call, "The Universe," either all of it just popped up out of nowhere, or something always existed before time, matter and space and created it. This thing would never change, if you say anything that changed before time's beginning I would have to explain this whole thing to you again because you didn't get it. You might say, "but it's will changed, in order to create us all of the sudden," but it's will was always to create, and since there was no time and no change, we know that is fact. People, please listen to me for once. Geese...
About Evolution... About evolution, how does it explain the existence of God as a concept? Something non-existent (God (you say)) cannot start existing in someones mind, just all of the sudden. Like we can only see the light in the visible spectrum of electromagnetic waves, different frequencies come out as different colors. If we were to try to imagine a new color, we would be limited to combinations of light we have already seen, we can't imagine a new color, it's impossible. So how would the idea of God be "imagined" if it doesn't exist? Also, some of you say we evolved to religion, that means I'm evolved than you! IN YOUR FACE!
You're right about C14 being only able to extend to 50,000 years but you're off when you say its because of low levels of C14 in prehistoric time. That's not the reason. The reason it's ineffective is because all the C14 has broken down sufficiently and a good reading is impossible. Let's just assume for the sake of argument that potassium-argon dating can be off by +/- 10 million years. If we get a date of say 65 million that still puts us way out of the range of young earth creationism. In the case of old earth creationism you shouldn't even be arguing against potassium-argon dating because that would be an argument against yourself. I'm in tears right now. So you are saying that science will change a theory in order to better fit reality (i.e. support the facts) rather than find false facts that support the false theory? I had no idea science was like that. I think I'm going to throw in the towel right here, right now. Do you not see why it is reasonable to change as our knowledge increases? Should we have kept miasmas or switched over to germ theory with increased information? You decide. That's interesting considering fossils have ZERO C14 in them. Had he sent the bone in they would have replied, "We can't test this, it has no carbon in it." This would have been apparent when they discovered (probably just by looking at it) that it had undergone mineralization. At any rate, they would have mailed him a letter saying they can't date it but if someones willing to pay for a fictitious result they will test it to earn money. This of course happens after multiple warnings. 1). C14 dating isn't used on living creatures. It gives fictitious results. 2). It is a well documented fact that marine life (especially mollusks) give off extraneous results. This is due to C14 flow in the oceans as opposed the atmosphere. This is called the reservoir effect and is well documented. C14 dating is only used (today) on land. 3). Where they found a dead seal from 30 years ago is beyond me (who would keep one?), however, assuming its true this is a marine mammal and therefore not fit to carbon date. There are different methods for different types of datable materials. 4). Living snails. Did you notice a common theme to all this? All of these are common creationists ploys (discredited years ago). It is part of their dishonest tactics to ensure religion and evolution are put into their "proper" place. C14 dating wasn't just invented and then used. It was tested against items of known age in dozens of double blind studies. Every time C14 dating was used to date proper materials it gave the correct result. It works... If you are wondering how I knew about all of your examples its because I know the Hovind lecture you got it from...you don't fool me. I know the preservative (shalaque mixed with other unknown preservatives) they used to cover the mineralized bones that were dated in the letter you cited. Guess what it contains, carbon. They told Miller there was no colligen in the bones and therefore impossible to date but Miller said do it anyway. He destroyed one of Carnegie Hall's bones in a pointless exercise of dishonesty. So instead of a date for the fossil he got a date for the preservative. Argon may be incorporated with potassium at time of formation. This is a real problem, but it is easily overcome either by careful selection of the material being dated or by using 40Ar/39Ar dating instead of K-Ar dating. In the case of the claim about recent lava yielding dates that are millions to billions of years old, H. M. Morris (1974) misstated the facts concerning these "anomalous" dates as published in Funkhouser and Naughton (1968). The main misstatements of fact by Morris are as follows: It was not the lava that was dated, but inclusions of olivine, called "xenoliths", present within the lava. These gave anomalously old age because they contained excess argon that the enclosing lava did not. Morris failed to mention that the lava matrix without the xenoliths was dated and found to be too young to date using potassium-argon. (Funkhouser and Naughton [1968, 4603], stated that the matrix rock "can be said to contain no measurable radiogenic argon within experimental error.") This is consistent with the recent age of lavas and the state of the art of K-Ar dating at that time. The presence of excess argon was only a problem for the xenoliths but not for the lava containing them. Morris cited other examples of anomalous dates produced by excess argon and falsely claimed that it is a universal problem for K-Ar dating. The problem is not universal, as the majority of minerals and rocks dated by K-Ar do not contain the excess argon. Where excess argon is a problem, accurate, reliable dates typically can be obtained using 40Ar/39Ar dating, as demonstrated by Dalrymple (1969) and Renne et al. (1997) and discussed by Dalyrmple (2000). Quantum mechanics, that stout pillar of modern physics, which has been verified in so many different ways that I couldn't begin to list them all even if I had them at hand, gives us no theoretical reason for believing that the C-14 rate of decay has changed or can be significantly affected by any reasonable process. We also have direct observation: That radiocarbon ages agree so closely with tree-ring counts over at least 8000 years, when the observed magnetic effect upon the production rate of C-14 is taken into account, suggests that the decay constant itself can be assumed to be reliable. You do realize that C12 is just carbon right? It's the default state of carbon, you don't need the twelve for me to understand, and, in it's natural state (C12) it is a solid. Everything you just purported is pure bollocks. Assuming that industry produces more "airborne" C12 (which it doesn't...that's CO2) it still would not throw off carbon dating for one simple reason: callibration. The reason we calibrate equipment is to ensure that we get the correct date. Callibration eliminates the variability aspect of atmospheric gasses. Paleoclimatology can provide us the amount of C14 in the atmosphere at one time. There is no evidence for a flood and there is evidence contrary to that thought. Sorry your theory holds "no water." Get it? Repeating the same discredited claim about mollusks. Plants incorporate C14 and C12 unambigously (they don't care). C14 is in there in steady ratios because of a little known math known as proportions. No? I can't say anything else because you just flat out claimed something with no specific case for me to address and the asserted the bible as true, which, by looking at Biblical archaeology, we can see how true it is... It is painfully obvious that you know next to nothing about carbon-14 dating! Changes in the sunspot cycle do have a noticeable, short-term effect on the rate of C-14 production inasmuch as sunspots are associated with solar flares, which produce magnetic storms on Earth, and the condition of the earth's magnetic field does affect the number of cosmic rays reaching the earth's upper atmosphere. (Carbon-14 is produced by energetic collisions between cosmic rays and molecules of nitrogen in the upper atmosphere.) Sunspots have absolutely nothing to do with the rate of C-14 decay, which defines the half-life of that radioactive element. You have confused two completely different concepts. You also neglect to mention that carbon dating has been used on samples of known origin and recieved accurate results up to 13,000 years. What does this mean? It means the 11 year solar cycle you cite has no impact on our ability to date to 13,000 years and through calibration to 60,000 years.
You can have .001 seconds, and keep moving the decimal over more (.0001, .00001, etc.). You can do that an infinite amount of times; therefore, time is infinite. Time is the measure of existence; not change. Time is therefore infinite because if God is eternal, then he existed and will exist for an infinite amount of time. (And if time is infinite, it has no beginning or end!!!) Also, the the Law of Conservation of Mass states that matter cannot be created or destroyed in a closed system. If that is so, then matter could be eternal because if it always existed (let's say with God), then it is, well, eternal. All of this could have existed before; the matter unformed into any sort of life or planet. Now, as you even said, matter changes. So, the matter that existed before was changed somehow (Big Bang, God, a combo, whatever) and turned into the universe. Now what you have outlined as impossible has been explained as being possible. yaayyy Your example is flawed. We have cars now, but we can imagine new ones, right? It's not hard to think that some superpower created everything, as is evident by all the early cultures with their many gods. And religion is a belief that a greater power exists somewhere; you're not more "evolved" than anyone. Ancient cultures could come up with religion; were they more evolved?
Your .001 and .001 and on example is kind of well, wrong... If something is infinite that means it has a beginning but no end, which Ameoba already stated. ETERNAL is what I think you meant (no beginning or end) so we'll go from there. You say time is eternal because these numbers can go on no end, YES they can. But will they ever reach infinity? Will you ever be able to say you have moved the decimal an infinite amount times? NO. You can count like that forward, but not backward it doesn't work that way. Because something occurred, as I already said. If an infinite of time was BEHIND it it, it never would have happened. if it is in front it doesn't hidner my point. My color example isn't flawed. By what I said I meant nothing is NEW. cars and everything else man made were ideas and existing things created using concepts and ideas God has already given us. For example, evil did not exist before satan rebelled. God knows all things and that includes what is not existent, so, evil. He passed that knowledge to us so we would be able to chose to love him instead of being mindless robots. We mixed the idea of actions, which God did and the concept of evil to make evil actions. Everything man has made works that way. All in the world. "There is nothing new under the sun."
You can "count" backwards (and forwards) an infinite amount of times; you learn that in math class. Also, if evil didn't exist before satan rebelled, why did Adam and Eve sin?
Prosper I already explained to you why your infinity argument was based on a false assumption. Stop using it. Your color example IS flawed because it blows up in your face. Take a square circle, it doesn't exist because we can't conceptualize it but we can label it. Likewise, after debating many Christians we fall into the default state of "We just can't know that about god" or "he is illogical so you can never know." According to your logic it must not exist because, all though we can label god arbitrarily by second-hand adjectives we can't actually know anything about god. You cannot provide a positive ontology for god, therefore it doesn't exist by your logic and mine. Game over.
Sped Teachers I pity. I swear I pity Sped teachers... Anyway, I JUST EXPLAINED THAT! Adam and Eve knew of sin now because Satan tempted them. Satan created by mixing two existing things, good actions (revealed to his mind through God) and the concept of evil (given to him for the purpose of free will which God knew of because he knows all things that are AND are not. We mixed two things to make a more developed existing thing, not a NEW thing.
A square circle...really? You can say "new color" too but it doesn't refute my example...Please this is a debate forum. Saying "I'm right your wrong" doesn't work.
No sir! I won't let you get away with that. "Genesis 2:9 (King James Version) 9And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Knowledge of good and evil. Sin is defined as an act of disobedience from god. God is further defined as the embodiment of good (or the source of). One must assume that sin is evil because disobedience to good ONLY leads us to evil. For Adam and Eve to know of sin they would have had to have the knowledge of good and evil and the prerequisite of that was to eat of the tree, so prior to eating of the tree of good and evil they couldn't have possibly had knowledge of sin. In which case it is through no fault of their own that they were spiritually killed by the serpent (important to note that it isn't Satan). The blame should not have rested on the shoulders of humanity. True justice should have been carried out on god for negligent (spiritual) homicide. Negligent Homicide is defined as criminal negligence. "Criminal negligence" means that a person acts with criminal negligence when the person ought to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the alleged victim will be killed. Furthermore I look to much older aramaic texts to confirm this: "9 وَاستَنْبَتَ الرَّبُّ الإِلَهُ مِنَ الأَرْضِ كُلَّ شَجَرَةٍ بَهِيَّةٍ لِلنَّظَرِ، وَلَذِيذَةٍ لِلأَكْلِ، وَغَرَسَ أَيْضاً شَجَرَةَ الْحَيَاةِ، وَشَجَرَةَ مَعْرِفَةِ الْخَيْرِ وَالشَّرِّ فِي وَسَطِ الْجَنَّةِ." This translates to: "9 Regerminate and the Lord God of the earth every tree Bahiyyah to consider, and delicious to eat, and also the implantation of a tree of life, tree of knowledge of good and evil in the middle of paradise." Good and evil and knowledge are still preserved but why stop there? Let's do the original Hebrew. "ט וַיַּצְמַח יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, כָּל-עֵץ נֶחְמָד לְמַרְאֶה, וְטוֹב לְמַאֲכָל--וְעֵץ הַחַיִּים, בְּתוֹךְ הַגָּן, וְעֵץ, הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע." This translates to: "And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." It seems the King James version held very true to the original. I have just obliterated original sin. You're welcome.
You weren't paying attention. The reason that new color doesn't exist isn't because we can't label it a new color its because we can't conceptualize it. Likewise we can label god but you, nor anyone else, can provide positive ontology for him. If you are going to debate, do it responsibly and pay attention. Stay with me Prosper this will be super simple. Whether time in finite or infinite is of no consequence to this argument. Before time something has to exist, correct? Infinity at some level does exist. What I want you to understand is, what comes before time is not necessarily god. It is whatever we can provide a positive ontology for. If god can't have an ontology then he is out and it has to be something else. Provide an ontology and I will humor the idea that god created us but you will still need to show that god is needed to create the universe.
I can conceptualize him. He is the source of all good things that are, and that are not. (This means he has all good characteristics that exist, and all good that does not, eternally good) He is love, he is a father, a brother and a counselor, he is the judge of all things he has made. He is Holy and perfect. He is my father, as well as brother and counselor. And that of many others. There you have it.
That's not a positive ontology. In the Catechism of the catholic church (239), god is identified as transcending gender. What the Catechism fails to do is provide us with what god is. It tells us god is one, god is unique, god is the alpha and the omega, god is holy, god is just, etc., etc. At some level of existence god has a metaphysical structure, if he exists, though, this is unknown to us. Augustine of Hippo once said, "If you understood him, he wouldn't be god." Christian and Jewish scripture provide similar troubling statements of hypocrisy and contradiction. But if god is unknowable what's the point of arguing? If you walk up to two people arguing furiously and ask them what they are arguing about, if they respond with snarf but cannot tell you what snarf is you would be perfectly justified in walking away or saying "tell me what snarf is and then you may convince me to one side or the other." If you believers don't know what you're talking about then what are you claiming the rest of us don't believe in? Provide me with something that is not secondary and relational description of god. In conclusion, these debates and discussions are about god. What is god? No one knows. If the subject cannot be defined that's the end of it.
Perfection is an arbitrary measurement measured to something higher than yourself and since nothing measures higher than god he has nothing to compare himself to double check his perfection so whether he is or is not perfect is unknowable. That aside perfection entails that you are complete. To have a want or a need to create would make you imperfect, unless the creation was part of your overall innate or uncontrollable actions, in which case, all imperfections in the universe link causally to god meaning he could not be perfect. Of course there is a third argument that objective perfection does not exist.
If you want... say a better place to live in, it is not you who is imperfect, but your environment. Your surroundings are not your fault. When an artist feels a need to create, does that lessen his... "perfection"? EDIT: Just adding on, if perfection entails "completeness", then God is still perfect regardless of if his surroundings suck or not. He is complete, but his environment is not.
Bill Cosby once said, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." And it is certain that if there is a God, then not everyone is pleased. If God was perfect, he would therefore be able to please everyone without failure. And if your so-called God is not perfect, then he therefore cannot exist. Think about it this way. Lets say I'm describing a triangle. I say that sides a and b lengths are 5 units, and angle A is 30 Degrees. And then I tell you that the other two angles are 75 Degrees each, something you would have already figured out. But now, I tell you that the last side length is 20 units. With that last piece of information the triangle is not possible, and cannot exist. The mathematical fact can be used anywhere, including with disproving God. The Church has made things up before, things like tithe and manipulating the Bible for their own selfishness, simply because the general public did not have the ability to read. If there is dispute between two things, then it can be assumed that one is right. But when its dispute over something that nobody could ever possibly possess the true knowledge of, its something a matter of personal preference, it has nothing to do with fact on who's right. There only reason religion is still debated today is because there is no evidence to truly prove either one. The same goes with Politics, Gay Marriage, Global Warming, and many others. This is all simply because there isn't any hard, concrete evidence supporting either one. However, science has made more of an effort to prove God's nonexistence than The Church has to prove God's existence. The Church, actually really doesn't try at all, they just say, "have faith." I'm rambling by now. Take what I said any way you wish, but I know the Christians will take the analogies and manipulate them to sound like they are in their favor. While what they should be doing is attempting to disprove the things I said with legitimate facts. Oh wait I'm sorry, they can't.