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Vertigo's Waterfall RSS

This personal waterfall shows you all of Vertigo's arguments, looking across every debate.
3 points

William Wilberforce.

After his conversion to Christianity and motivated by his new faith, he fought for the abolition of the slave trade as a Member of Parliament in the British Empire starting in 1787 and continued until the Slavery Abolition Act was signed into law in 1833, three days before he died.

4 points

If you believe that the laws of logic are true, then you believe in something that you cannot see or touch.

If you believe that you have a mind, you believe in something you cannot see or touch.

If you believe in honesty, justice, tolerance...

If you believe in numbers and letters...

All of these things are immaterial,yet very real.

2 points

Looks good. Keep up the good work!

3 points

Mac OS X -- half a dozen known viruses.

Windows -- 15000 known viruses.

'nuff said.

1 point

Here is where I think we agree...

-the big bang happened, likely around 14 billion years ago.

-the Big Bang had something profound to do with the universe as we know and can measure it today.

-time, space and matter are properties of the universe

-the conditions prior to t=0 are not detectable through the scientific method or direct observation

Where we disagree...

-whether or not anything existed prior to the big bang

-whether or not the universe is or could be eternal

-whether or not we can induce logically what could or could not have happened prior to the big bang.

Is that a fair assessment so far? Would you add anything?

1 point

I'll agree to that! Cheers.

2 points

I really don't think that I am merely assuming that the universe is finite in time. A quick google search should confirm that for you.

You say that the Big Bang obviously had a cause, and I agree. That is the central tenet of my argument. When astronomers and astrophysicists speak of the big bang, they are speaking about the beginning of the universe. So you are right in saying that the Big Bang does not equal the universe. But you are assuming that something physical , the singularity, existed prior to the beginning of matter. That is simply absurd.

In cases like this, logic and the laws of logic are all we have to talk about the beginning of time, space and matter. Science is blind prior to t=0.

Again, I am not merely assuming God's timelessness, it is established by the arguments. The fact that the universe is finite in time is well established in scientific literature. Again, these are not assumptions. And you labeling them assumptions does nothing to reduce their truth value.

Supporting Evidence: UCLA (www.astro.ucla.edu)
1 point

God didn't begin to exist without cause. The premiss is that everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause for its existence.

God's begininglessness is not assumed by the argument, it is established by it.

Examples of things that begin to exist without cause, please...(not God as established by my arguments)...under your view, this should happen all the time.

The universe can't be infinite in the past because an infinite regress of cause and effect is an actually infinite set of events. Any mathemetician knows that an actually infinite set of anything is impossible. Therefore an eternal universe is impossible. This is not speculation.

Time and matter came into existence at the same moment. Consult Einstein.

I already told you about an impersonal set of mechanical causes. Are you seriously talking about a personal set of mechanical causes?? Read my arguments carefully.

You have done nothing to show that my premisses are faulty.

0 points

No, one God, three persons.

0 points

You seem to provide a pretty decent explanation of the Trinity here, xaeon.

I heard the Trinity described as being similar to Fluffy, the three-headed dog in Harry Potter. One being, or substance, with three loci of consciousness.

Your statement that the doctrine of the Trinity is inconsistent throughout the Bible doesn't hold water though. The idea is communicated quite consistently throughout the Bible.

-1 points

I explain why this is not the case in my response to xaeon above.

1 point

Those aren't logical flaws or assumptions my friend.

"Everything that begins to exist has a cause for its existence"

It is absurd to deny that something that begins to exist can do so without a cause. Please provide some examples of things that have begun to exist without cause. (Obviously you can't say the universe because that is exactly what is up for debate here.) Maybe you have a horse that began to exist without cause (no parents, no magician, no illusionists...it just appeared in your living room while you were trying to watch TV.) Maybe a car? Your only response to my premiss is to say "It could have existed forever", or "It couldhave been a previous universe." You posit fanciful imaginary scenarios to try and get around the fact that my premiss is plainly true.

"It must be immaterial because it existed in the absence of all matter."

How is this an assumption? We cannot talk about 'before the universe' because time and matter came into existence at the same moment. If the cause of the universe existed without the universe, as it must have because the universe could not cause itself, then the cause of the universe existed in the absolute absence of matter. Something that exists in the absence of matter is necessarily immaterial.

Same goes for the 'timelessness' of the cause.

It must be personal...

We know this because an impersonal set of mechanical causes could not exist without their resulting effect. If this were the case, then the universe would have always existed, which is mathematically impossible as it would constitute an infinite regress of cause and effect.

Enormously powerful...you seem to agree, although you don't want to.

Why am I comfortable with an eternal God but not an eternal universe? As I mentioned previously, the physical universe, if it existed eternally, would constitute an eternal regress of cause and effect. This is mathematically impossible as it lead to several contradictory conclusions, all of which must be true, but some of which are mutually exclusive. An eternal, immaterial, timeless being is certainly logically plausible as established by my arguments previously.

The plain science says that the universe had a beginning in the finite past. This fact is just not up for debate among serious scientists. Your oscillating universe idea was debunked long ago, you should drop that one from your list of rebuttals.

Sorry xaeon, but your comments do not demonstrate that my premisses are flawed. You seem to think that we can only know things that we can detect empirically. This is far from the truth. There are many things that we know that are impossible to detect empirically, things like the laws of logic ('A' cannot be 'Not A'). The things that we know about what could have existed without the universe are well established by the laws of logic.

1 point

We all know that the universe is expanding, which leads to the conclusion that at some point in the very distant past the universe (all of space, time and matter) were infinitely small. This is known as the singularity. Some physicists have attempted to dance around the conclusion that if the universe had a beginning it must have had a cause. Einstein had to fudge his numbers to try and get around the singularity, Hartle and Hawking do the same now.

The Big Bang was certainly the beginning of the universe. From there it is simple to induce that 'ex nihil nihil fit'...from nothing, nothing comes.

To break it down into a logical syllogism...

1. Everything that begins to exist must have a cause for its existence.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Therefore the universe has a cause for its existence.

The syllogism is logically sound and valid. Both premises are true and the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises.

So what can we induce about the cause of the Big Bang.

-it must be immaterial because it existed in the absence of all matter

-it must be timeless because it existed in the absence of time.

-it must be personal because it intended to create the universe.

-it must be enormously powerful because it had the power to create the entire universe

Folks, when we talk about something that is enormously powerful, timeless, immaterial and personal, we are talking about God.

Some have suggested that the God hypothesis is false because God must have been caused, but this is simply not true.

First of all, if God is timeless sans universe, then God is uncaused, eternally existent. Secondly, we do not need to know anything about the nature of the cause of the universe to know that the universe was caused. For example, if we land on Mars and discover a functioning Martian communication device, we do not need to know anything at all about the nature of the Martians to know that they exist.

Those who deny that God created the universe are left to explain how something came from absolutely nothing. That is worse than magic. At least a magician has a hat from which to pull the rabbit.

Supporting Evidence: Kalam Cosmological Argument (www.reasonablefaith.org)
3 points

It will change nothing of my drinking habits. Bud is barely tolerable and Bud Lite is a waste of perfectly good water.

I will continue with my local brews, Okanagan Spring, Big Rock, Granville Island and the occasional Sleemans and for a treat, some Chimay or Hoegaarden (another InBev brew...).

7 points

Those who have played both know that water polo is significantly more demanding.

1 point

Yup, we disagree...but isn't that the point of this site? Here we go.

You assert that religion began as neither spiritual nor divine. Since you provide no evidence for this assertion, and you could not possibly know one way or the other, we can discard your bald assertion.

You say that religion has changed over time. I agree. Our understanding of God has changed over time, however this says nothing about whether or not God actually exists. Too bad for you. You very clearly commit the genetic fallacy when you say that the history of religious thought has any bearing on the current status of religious thought. (See the link below to read up on the genetic fallacy before you deny it again.)

Good philosophers? Kai Nielsen (with whom I disagree), Antony Flew (former atheist, now theist, with whom I agree and disagree), JP Moreland (with whom I agree and disagree), Francis Beckwith (with whom I mostly agree), William Lane Craig (with whom I agree).

Here is a sampling of Dawkins' philosophy...

On pages 157-8 of his book, Dawkins summarizes what he calls "the central argument of my book." It goes as follows:

"1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.

2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.

3. The temptation is a false one because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.

4. The most ingenious and powerful explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.

5. We don't have an equivalent explanation for physics.

6. We should not give up the hope of a better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.

Therefore, God almost certainly does not exist"

Holy Smokes batman! The conclusion comes from absolutely nowhere! Even if every premiss were true, the conclusion does not follow. Worse for Dawkins is the fact that his 6 statements are not even premises!

#1 is an introductory observation and therefore irrelevant.

#s 2&3;are meant to cancel each other out and are therefore irrelevant.

Skip #4 for now as it is it's own mini argument.

#5 is an admission of a problem

#6 is wishful thinking

Neither 5 nor 6 are relevant to the argument and need to be discarded.

So we are left with #4 and the 'conclusion'.

Even if we grant #4 (a highly dubious statement), the 'conclusion' is totally unrelated and unsupported.

Dawkins calls this the central argument in his book. You would hope he has something better than this drivel. If Dawkins wants to gain credibility outside the unthinking masses who buy his books, he has a heck of a lot of work to do. He is a very poor philosopher.

And now you return to the genetic fallacy. To repeat myself yet again...the history of religious thought has nothing to do with the truth of current religious thought.

Current religious thought must be evaluated on its own merits today.

Supporting Evidence: The Genetic Fallacy (www.logicalfallacies.info)
5 points

Hunting is far more ethical when you consider the expense and waste of modern factory farming (growing your own meat on a small scale excepted).

Using corn to grow cattle is a horrendous waste when there are corn shortages worldwide.

1 point

Wrong about what?

Please provide some examples of how "tracing the origin and evolution of religion shows quite clearly what a backwards way of thinking it is."

You have clearly committed the genetic fallacy. Tracing the origins of our concept of God, while interesting, leads to nothing in regards to determining the existence of God. Yet everywhere I turn it seems, someone, including you, is spouting off about the history of religion and how our understanding of God has changed and coming to the conclusion that therefore God is not necessary. This conclusion is not even close to being supported by the premise.

Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Dennett may be good scientists and communicators but they are absolutely lousy philosophers, and if you get your philosophy wrong, your science will lead you nowhere.

The only thing that you can conclude from tracing the origins of religious thought is that religious thought has evolved. If that cranks your tractor, then have at 'er, but don't be duped into thinking that the fact that religious thought has evolved has anything to do with proving or disproving the existence of God.

1 point

xaeon,

You seem to think that providing a 'scientific' explanation for our concept of God somehow shows that God does not exist; a classic example of the genetic fallacy. The origin of a belief says nothing about the truth of a belief.

2 points

Sure the climate is changing, but it is caused by the sun.

Yes, CO2 levels are increasing, but they do so AFTER the temperature rises, not before, and therefore cannot be the cause of the warming.

A warm, wet earth is preferable to a cold, dry earth.

CO2 is not a pollutant and it contributes very little to the Greenhouse effect. Water vapour is by far the most significant greenhouse gas.

The Kyoto Protocol is a political solution to a non-existent problem.

Supporting Evidence: Friends of Science (www.friendsofscience.org)
1 point

God is an unembodied mind; both rational and personal.

1 point

All knowledge begins with propositions that are self-evident. Self-evident truths are immediately and directly knowable and resist 'proof'.

For example, I know which body it is that I inhabit. But if you were to ask for proof of that knowledge, I would be at a loss.

I know that the Law of Non-Contradiction ('A' is not 'Not A') must be true. If I were to try and prove the Law, I would first have to assume the law, same goes for the reverse.

All those who say that we cannot know anything contradict themselves by stating a (supposedly) true proposition.

If we could not know these things with apodictic certainty, then we could not know anything.

Regarding our ability to apprehend reality: some have mentioned that our apprehension of reality is subjective and limited. While this is true, this does not mean that there is no objective reality.

0 points

The debate over the historicity of Jesus seems to me to be the only debate where primary source documents written by eyewitnesses only a few years after the events are discarded.

We have multiple accounts of the life of Christ. The authors are known as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They wrote their accounts very soon after the events on question and used at least one source (Q) which must have been written earlier.

The gospel accounts enjoy far greater textual support in the form of thousands of pieces, fragments and full codices that allow historians to show that the text that we read today is approximately 99% true to th original documents. The remaining 1% could be discarded without changing anything of significance.

The common assumption behind many posters who deny the historicity of Jesus is that we need extra-biblical sources confirming the Gospels. This is simply not true. The Gospels themselves are the kind of first-person accounts that historians seek.

Supporting Evidence: Gary Habermas (www.garyhabermas.com)


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