Conquer Club

Napoleon Ier wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:

muy_thaiguy wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:You know, third time is not a charm, at least not in this case. That has been debunked twice already.

So has Germany.

Which has exactly what to do with the topic at hand? And since you seem to care about nationalities, I'm a Finnish citizen, nice to meet you.

You're Finnish eh? Surely you're just a cheap rip-off of Norwegian people then?

Jenos Ridan wrote:1. The existence of something is intelligible only if it has an explanation (this is confirmed by the definition of the term intelligibility.).

2. The existence of the Universe is therefore either:
a. unintelligible, or
b. has an explanation

(logical deduction from #1)

3. No rational person should accept 2a. (Confirmed by the definition of rationality.)

4. Therefore, 2b is the rational conclusion and the Universe has an explanation.

5. But there are only three kinds of explanation:
a) Scientific: C + L = E (Independent physical, initial conditions, plus relevant laws, yield the Event explained.)
b) Essential: the essence of the thing to be explained requires it's existence.
c) Personal: this posits explanations that cite the intentions and powers of some personal Agent.

6. The existence of the Universe cannot be explained Scientifically; if the Universe is just natural conditions and laws, there can be no initial physical conditions or laws outside of it--independent of it--to explain it.

7. The explanation cannot be an Essential one; the Universe is a contingent one, and therefore is not necessary. It could just as well 'not exist' as exist. Its essence doesn't require it to existence.

8. So a rational person should believe that the Universe has a Personal explanation.

9. The only personal agent capable--having the power and wisdom--to create the entire universe out of nothing is 'God'.

10. Therefore, a rational person believes there exists a God.


So.

How now, brown cow?

MeDeFe wrote:1. intelligible - understandable, in the way that you can "get your mind around it", but where is the prerequisite of an explanation? Personally I'm quite happy to let, say, gravity go on and be something that comes with matter and just is. There are degrees of understanding as well, it's not a 1/0 issue.

And understandable in what way? In the way it works? That would in this case be the physical laws and whatnot. In 'where it all came from'? I'm not convinced knowing exactly down to the last detail how the universe started (or if it ever did) is necessary to understand the basic workings of the universe.

2. has just fallen flat on its face because there's a third option of partial understanding, but I'm not done yet, even if we allow for only his two options and disregard 3. that "We cannot ever fully understand the unvierse and where it came from" is not all that irrational and nicely allows a person to get on with other stuff than posting on an internet forum.

4. is correct under my previously stated premises, you need to disregard the problems with the first 3 points in order to accept this one.

5. Back in my first reply I accepted this one. No more...
There's really only one sort of explanation, which is really more accurately termed 'description': we see phenomenon A and can list the factors which caused the phenomenon, then we can list the factors that caused the factors causing A to come about and so on. At some point, though, we're forced to say that we observe entities with certain distinguishing features behave in a certain way under certain conditions, but can not (yet) say why they behave that way. This applies to all explanations, be they of scientific phenomena (why does this rubber ball bounce back if I throw it against a wall?) or human behaviour (why did you murder your wife?). I'll here postulate that there is no such thing as an "essential explanation", what does it even mean that something must exist? Do you have an example of such a thing, I can't think of one.

6. Why do there have to be initial physical conditions outside of the universe? In a thread some time ago someone pointed out that there is evidence that a physical constant (I think something to do with electrons) has changed over the last 15B years. That shouldn't be possible since it's supposedly a constant, but if it is possible I really see no reason why there can't be initial conditions inside this universe at one point that simply don't occur nowadays and which started off the universe we see. A proto-universe so to speak, we've had that discussion as well, with time not yet an established dimension and suchlike, remember?
In the old thread it was mentioned in reply to this that no closed system can be fully explained without referencing to whatever's outside the system. Well, but so what? If Godel's incompleteness theorem (says Colossus) is true it only means that we cannot fully explain the universe. (Which, unlike what Morris may think and say, is not a problem.) And anyway, what's "outside the universe" supposed to mean. The universe is not some ball which we're sitting inside where we can just walk up to the boundary, poke a hole in it and take a look at what's "outside".

7. The universe is dependent on something that is uncertain or will happen in the future? Pardon me, we, humanity, might be a little uncertain about whether and how the universe began, but that does in no way imply that the universe is uncertain about this, no matter what the explanation is. Even having questioned the validity of essential explanations already, what does this have to do with anything?

8. And where did this Person come from? We're back to the old question of who created the creator, and that's one you cannot get out of. A creator outside of the universe "must" exist only if you can prove that nothing else can have caused it. And Tom Morris has shown nothing of the sort so far. Even if you can show that the universe has to have been created, there's nothing to indicate that the creator is "essential" and must exist, you end up with an infinite regress.

9. And now we give it a name, hey, let's call it Bob. And we ascribe attributes to it, "power" and "wisdom". Now really, the origins of the universe we largely see today might have required some large-scale border conditions, but "wisdom"?
This step is completely unnecessary and serves no other end than to introduce the term 'God' into the line of reasoning.

10. the conclusion has been shown not to follow, because the premises are flawed on several levels, thank you for your time.

MeDeFe wrote:

muy_thaiguy wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:You know, third time is not a charm, at least not in this case. That has been debunked twice already.

So has Germany.

Which has exactly what to do with the topic at hand? And since you seem to care about nationalities, I'm a Finnish citizen, nice to meet you.

muy_thaiguy wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:

muy_thaiguy wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:You know, third time is not a charm, at least not in this case. That has been debunked twice already.

So has Germany.

Which has exactly what to do with the topic at hand? And since you seem to care about nationalities, I'm a Finnish citizen, nice to meet you.

Just felt like saying it, that's all. No offence meant.

muy_thaiguy wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:You know, third time is not a charm, at least not in this case. That has been debunked twice already.

So has Germany.

jonesthecurl wrote:

muy_thaiguy wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:You know, third time is not a charm, at least not in this case. That has been debunked twice already.

So has Germany.

No, I think that was "debunkered"

muy_thaiguy wrote:

MeDeFe wrote:You know, third time is not a charm, at least not in this case. That has been debunked twice already.

So has Germany.

Jenos Ridan wrote:1. The existence of something is intelligible only if it has an explanation (this is confirmed by the definition of the term intelligibility.).

2. The existence of the Universe is therefore either:
a. unintelligible, or
b. has an explanation

(logical deduction from #1)

3. No rational person should accept 2a. (Confirmed by the definition of rationality.)

4. Therefore, 2b is the rational conclusion and the Universe has an explanation.

5. But there are only three kinds of explanation:
a) Scientific: C + L = E (Independent physical, initial conditions, plus relevant laws, yield the Event explained.)
b) Essential: the essence of the thing to be explained requires it's existence.
c) Personal: this posits explanations that cite the intentions and powers of some personal Agent.

6. The existence of the Universe cannot be explained Scientifically; if the Universe is just natural conditions and laws, there can be no initial physical conditions or laws outside of it--independent of it--to explain it.

7. The explanation cannot be an Essential one; the Universe is a contingent one, and therefore is not necessary. It could just as well 'not exist' as exist. Its essence doesn't require it to existence.

8. So a rational person should believe that the Universe has a Personal explanation.

9. The only personal agent capable--having the power and wisdom--to create the entire universe out of nothing is 'God'.

10. Therefore, a rational person believes there exists a God.

magneticgoop wrote:

CoffeeCream wrote:4. From what I'm reading on here it sounds like that someone can live the absolute worst life but then 'accept' Jesus (whatever that means) and still go to heaven (wherever that is). On the flip side, someone can live the absolute best life but not 'accept' Jesus and still go to hell. Huh!!! Oh yeah, and how can a loving God send someone to hell in the first place?

God wants everyone to go to heaven and all it takes is a genuine faith to enter. Jesus sacrificed himself so everyone could go th heaven and all he asks for is faith, if you can not give that small token of recognition, you can not enter. Also God is not unjust for sending people to hell as he gave them a whole life time to have faith in him.

Paulus wrote:

magneticgoop wrote:

CoffeeCream wrote:4. From what I'm reading on here it sounds like that someone can live the absolute worst life but then 'accept' Jesus (whatever that means) and still go to heaven (wherever that is). On the flip side, someone can live the absolute best life but not 'accept' Jesus and still go to hell. Huh!!! Oh yeah, and how can a loving God send someone to hell in the first place?

God wants everyone to go to heaven and all it takes is a genuine faith to enter. Jesus sacrificed himself so everyone could go th heaven and all he asks for is faith, if you can not give that small token of recognition, you can not enter. Also God is not unjust for sending people to hell as he gave them a whole life time to have faith in him.

I agree that faith is extremely important and a necessary part of salvation, but we must not forget that we are also judged according to our deeds and must do all we can to make the right choices using our faith as a way of connecting with the Holy Spirit so that we may receive guidance in our decision-making.

Paulus wrote:

muy_thaiguy wrote:Sadly, Magneticgoop left sometime ago, so I'm not sure if he'll be able to get to you on that.

I was not aware of that, but thanks for letting me know. I'm not looking to join the overall discussion by the way. I just thought I'd address that one point.
I am a Roman Catholic and believe in faith AND good deeds/works are necessary for salvation. Anyway, I'll stop there and allow others in this thread to carry on with their discussion. Cheerio!

Mr_Adams wrote:dang, your good at mathematical proofs aren't you...

Paulus wrote:Sadly, Magneticgoop left sometime ago, so I'm not sure if he'll be able to get to you on that.

Mr_Adams wrote:

Paulus wrote:Sadly, Magneticgoop left sometime ago, so I'm not sure if he'll be able to get to you on that.

I was not aware of that, but thanks for letting me know. I'm not looking to join the overall discussion by the way. I just thought I'd address that one point.
I am a Roman Catholic and believe in faith AND good deeds/works are necessary for salvation. Anyway, I'll stop there and allow others in this thread to carry on with their discussion. Cheerio!

Paulus wrote:I was not aware of that, but thanks for letting me know. I'm not looking to join the overall discussion by the way. I just thought I'd address that one point.
I am a Roman Catholic and believe in faith AND good deeds/works are necessary for salvation. Anyway, I'll stop there and allow others in this thread to carry on with their discussion. Cheerio!

Mr_Adams wrote:most quoted verse EVER:
John 3:16
I think that this verse disagrees with your stance. But this isn't a theological discussion, so let's get back to the conversation, shall we?

Mr_Adams wrote:WOW, this thread is STILL going?!?

Backglass wrote:

Mr_Adams wrote:WOW, this thread is STILL going?!?

Yup...and it will go on forever as long as people can't face the fact the death is permanent.

Mr_Adams wrote:most quoted verse EVER:
John 3:16
I think that this verse disagrees with your stance. But this isn't a theological discussion, so let's get back to the conversation, shall we?

Mr_Adams wrote:ummm.... poor arguments and completely worthless, unprogressive crap comming from both sides of the isle... WHAT IS THIS, WASHINGTON D.C.?????

Mr_Adams wrote:ummm.... poor arguments and completely worthless, unprogressive crap comming from both sides of the isle... WHAT IS THIS, WASHINGTON D.C.?????