something from nothing

Well, that does not negate any points I have made and certainly not the one that I had to post twice.

 

Either God is eternal or God at some point came into existence. If the latter, then the problem hasn't been changed in the slightest. If the latter, then there's a way around the problem that's not necessarily unique to God. As in, the universe could ultimately be eternal also. This is likely what he means - God doesn't really change the problem.

 

I didn't say it was easy to understand, technically I said it was impossible to understand. (thats what "beyond human understanding" translates to)

I said it was no harder to understand than a pre existing universe. A pre existing universe had no dimensions (including time) as those appeared after the singularity event, the first moment of everything.

Science may eventually have a working theory of what existed back then (hard to find appropriate tenses) but for now most simply say it is beyond their imaginations.

Christians accept the fact that they will not understand until god reveals it all.

Personally I have more faith in science. But a debate intentionally framed to create more misunderstanding serves small mindedness only.

 

Eternal doesn't necessarily mean infinite. If time began with the universe at the Big Bang, then the universe will have existed "for all time", in other words it is eternal despite having a beginning.

 

I'm not sure the idea is to prove it inconsistent. I think the idea is to illustrate that a particular argument against the universe existing without god applies equally as an argument against the universe existing with god. And that therefore, the argument is of no value.

 

Einstein evidently thought otherwise, hence the term "spacetime".

Non sequitur, since creation as we perceive it is confined to the material universe, to which God is not subject.

 

God is without beginning, without end. The Alpha and Omega.
That is about the only answer that can be given. Can not explain it though.

 

Then there would be no value to philosophical discussions. Which I can agree with. Most of it is personal opinions.

 

Then please define what the "problem" is.

 

God is eternal, and I can't explain that, just as you can't explain where matter came from, what set off the Big Bang, or how the first non-life became life.

As I have said here before, you don't need an explanation for an explanation. For example, if you came upon a dirt mound with primitive tools and arrowheads buried in it, it would be reasonable to assume that men made and left them there, without knowing anything about the men.

 

Thats what i was talking about wkth thr inconsistency. Which is an order of events issue. Imagining an incorporeal deity creating a universe isn't that hard. Imagining a universe always having existed, a little different.

 

In Bold: Abiogenesis

[video=youtube;U6QYDdgP9eg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg[/video]

 

"The Watch-maker Argument"....been around for years. And flawed.

It takes the world as it is and says "How could such a complex thing NOT have been 'made' by 'someone'?" Which fails to recognize the bundling of hydrogen that became the Sun over millions of years.....the formation of solid matter which millions more took to make the Earth.....the endless cycle of meteor bombardment......the rise of an atmopshere and then water......the NUMEROUS extinctions, some up to 90% of all life on Earth millions of years later......the extinction of the dinosaurs due to pure random chance 65 Million years ago.....the rise of mammals over those millions.....and the rise of Man in the past million.....

all combined TODAY into "the watch we find laying on a rock out in an empty field, that we KNOW must have been MADE by SOMEONE"

 

Pure speculation, not science. As that event can't be recreated or observed, it can hardly be called science.

- - - Updated - - -

A 'simple' cell (simple to Darwin, anyway) is far more complex than any watch, having in it several times the information as the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. Where else do you see such information that wasn't programmed by someone?

 

Thanks for the laugh!

The ignorance from the religious right never ceases to amaze me.

 

But you cannot disprove the claim regarding speculation. Interesting.

 

Can you smell the color 9?

 

Well of course it's a little different, there would be no point comparing two things that are exactly identical. That's why I dislike the phrase "comparing apples and oranges". And no, it isn't hard to imagine an incorporeal deity creating a universe. There's plenty of other things that are easy to imagine too - from leprechauns to the illuminati - but being easy to imagine says nothing about a thing's veracity. And, whats more, it diverges from what I think is the point of this thread - the ineffectiveness of 'ex nihilo' complaints.

 

I like that answer. Can I assume, then, that you aren't one to use the 'something from nothing' as a complaint against atheism and/or the big bang theory?

 

The pattern of molecules in cellular DNA is data, not information. That may sound like a trivial distinction, but it's actually vitally important. Raw data has no meaning in and of itself. Only data that is useful can become information. How much of cellular DNA is useful? And how much is dormant, useless, or even detrimental?

 

^_- Well no, of course they're not identical. That wasn't my point, so why are you making it?

And here you continue the op's willful ignorance. W/e issues there are with the view of God, there are more profound logical issues with asserting that the universe was never created but has just always been. Which you're happy to skirt.

 

Can you smell the gray squid?

 

You said they were different. I was just pointing out what a trivial thing that was, as the only way they would not be different is if they were identical.

I'm not sure the OP has asserted that, and I most certainly have not. There is a difference between asserting something, and not ruling it out. And I don't think I skirt anything - it's a very interesting question, whether the universe came into existence or always existed. I've never seen any 'issues' with either of those two possibilities, though, that cannot also apply to whatever may have created the universe.

 

What is this gray squid you speak of and what does this have to do with smelling the color 9?

 

A better question would be:
What does smelling the color 9 have to do with "But you cannot disprove the claim regarding speculation. Interesting."?