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cause-and-effect: "cause" require evidence too
- Thread starter gnostic
- Start date
Nope. I am using the fact that all causes are within the universe (substantiated by observation) to say that the universe can have no cause.
It is not an assumption: it is a conclusion based on a model that has extensive evidence for it, based on general relativity, which has even more evidence for it. In that model, the mathematics forces a beginning to time. That beginning is called the Big Bang singularity.
There is no 'before the Big Bang'. And that means there is no cause for the Big Bang.
That is based on the evidence in support of the model and the evidence in support of the overall framework of general relativity.
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TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
We being here is evidence of we being here. Not of how we got here.
Try again.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
They should update their knowledge. It's been known since 1931 that that is wrong.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
How so?
So would you consider a unicorn to be a plausible hypothesis? If not, why do you consider God to be plausible?
And how do you know a God is a possible hypothesis? From what I can see, it is an inconsistent hypothesis (by assuming a supernatural).
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Well, here we going again. You don't decide what that independent of the mind is by defining it to be X and not Y.
You explain how knowledge works and if it has any limits for the independent of the mind. Independent of the mind is philosophy, i.e. what is existence itself as independent of the mind. That is ontology and not science
Yes, we do. That is how language is used: by defining the terms and seeing how they apply.
Yes, but ontology as usually done is full of assumptions that may or may not be accurate. We need a new ontology and epistemology that isn't dependent on classical ideas.
Redemptionsong
Well-Known Member
Whatever your background, there appears to have been an absence of good teaching!
Below is an explanation of how Jesus does fulfil prophecy as the son of David. The mistake that many commentators make when looking at Matthew and Luke is to miss the connection between the two.
The Genealogies of Jesus
R.A.Torrey
1. The genealogy given in Matthew is the genealogy of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, his father in the eyes of the law. The genealogy given in Luke is the genealogy of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and is the human genealogy of Jesus Christ in actual fact. The Gospel of Matthew was written for Jews. All through it Joseph is prominent, Mary is scarcely mentioned. In Luke, on the other hand, Mary is the chief personage in the whole account of the Saviour’s conception and birth. Joseph is brought in only incidentally and because he was Mary’s husband. In all of this, of course, there is a deep significance.
2. In Matthew, Jesus appears as the Messiah. In Luke He appears as ‘the Son of Man’, our Brother and Redeemer, who belongs to the whole race and claims kindred with all kinds and conditions of men. So in Matthew, the genealogy descends from Abraham to Joseph and Jesus, because all the predictions and promises touching the Messiah are fulfilled in Him. But in Luke the genealogy ascends from Jesus to Adam, because the genealogy is being traced back to the head of the whole race, and shows the relation of the Second Adam to the First.
3. Joseph’s line is the strictly royal line from David to Joseph. In Luke, though the line of descent is from David, it is not the royal line. In this Jesus is descended from David through Nathan, David’s son indeed, but not in the royal line, and the list follows a line quite distinct from the royal line.
4. The Messiah, according to prediction, was to be the actual son of David according to the flesh (2 Samuel:12-19; Psalm 89:3, 4,3 4-37; 132:11; Acts 2:30; 13:22,23; Romans 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:8). These prophecies are fulfilled by Jesus being the Son of Mary, who was a lineal descendant of David, though not in the royal line. Joseph, who was of the royal line, was not his father according to the flesh, but was his father in the eyes of the law.
5. Mary was the descendant of David through her father, Heli. It is true that Luke 2:30 says that Joseph was the son of Heli. The simple explanation of this is that , Mary being a woman, her name according to Jewish usage could not come into the genealogy, males alone forming the line, so Joseph’s name is introduced in the place of Mary’s, he being Mary’s husband; Heli was his father-in-law and so Joseph is called the son of Heli, and the line thus completed. While Joseph was son-in-law of Heli, according to the flesh he was in actual fact the son of Jacob (Matt.1:16).
6. Two genealogies are absolutely necessary to trace the lineage of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the one the royal and legal, the other the natural and literal, and these two genealogies we find, the legal and royal in Matthew’s Gospel, the Gospel of law and kingship; the natural and literal in Luke’s, the Gospel of humanity.
7. We are told in Jeremiah 22:30 any descendant of Jeconiah could not come to the throne of David, and Joseph was of this line, and while Joseph’s genealogy furnished the royal line for Jesus, his son before the law, nevertheless Jeremiah’s prediction is fulfilled to the very letter, for Jesus, strictly speaking, was not Joseph’s descendant and therefore was not of the seed of Jeconiah. If Jesus had been the son of Joseph in reality, He could not have come to the throne, but He is Mary’s son through Nathan, and can come to the throne legally by her marrying Joseph and so clearing His way legally to it.’
Now, let's look at the following:
You have written, Jesus Did Not Fulfill the Messianic Prophecies What is the Messiah supposed to accomplish? One of the central themes of biblical prophecy is the promise of a future age of perfection characterized by universal peace and recognition of God. (Isaiah 2:1-4, 32:15-18, 60:15-18; Zephaniah 3:9; Hosea 2:20-22; Amos 9:13-15; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:23, 14:9; Jeremiah 31:33-34) Specifically, the Bible says he will:
- Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
- Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
- Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
- Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world ― on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9)
If you read Isaiah 61:1,2, you will see that the first and second comings of the Messiah are conflated. In other words, the mercy and judgement of God run together in one continuous passage. However, when Jesus quoted this passage at the beginning of his ministry [Luke 4:18-20], he intentionally stopped his reading before 'the vengeance of our God'. This clearly demonstrates that Jesus knew his ministry was not going to bring about world peace or universal knowledge of God because these things can only occur after the destruction of the enemies of God at the return of Christ as King [See Zechariah 12:9,10].
If you study the life of David, you will see that he was anointed as God's chosen king (by Samuel) years before he was crowned as king over Judah and Israel. It's the same with Jesus. He was anointed as the Messiah (Lamb of God) by John the Baptist years before he ascended to heaven [Daniel 7:13,14] to receive dominion and a kingdom.
The question may be asked, Does it matter whether Israel (the Torah Jew) rejects Jesus if they await the same king Messiah? The issue here is whether Torah Jews accept the king Messiah with recognition and repentance, for Zechariah says, 'they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him'.
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A hypothesis needs to be based on facts, and neither God or unicorns are factual. Sorry. Learn science.
mikkel_the_dane
My own religion
Do you mean Popper?
I'd say that it's the other way around. You've learned biblical apologetics. I learned that as well as a believer. Eventually, once I had mastered the scriptures sufficiently, I could see that the apologetics were specious argumentation.
According to Christianity, Jesus had no human father.
Joseph's line doesn't matter. He isn't an ancestor of Jesus. Did you care to discuss why the two genealogies contradict one another? It's not relevant to this discussion except that even were we to be interested in Joseph or Mary's ancestry, the Bible wouldn't be a reliable source of that information if it contradicts itself in that area.
Same answer. Mary's lineage is irrelevant. You are likely aware that lineage to ancient Hebrews is all through males. Why doesn't that fact appear anywhere in your answers below? Why are they about Jospeh and Mary when only Jesus' father is relevant to his lineage.
You didn't rebut any of the claims that Jesus didn't do these things, which is the essence of the argument that He doesn't match the OT description of the Messiah sufficiently to say that he fulfills messianic prophecy. Did Jesus build the third temple? If not, he doesn't fulfill messianic prophecy. Did he gather the Jews back in Israel? No.
Have you ever convinced anybody with arguments like these? I doubt it. Other believers will like them, but they're already believers, and have an incentive to see that the OT and NT don't contradict one another in this area (or any other), one unbelievers lack. Believers wear a confirmation bias determined to make Jesus fit OT messianic prophecy. It's called motivated reasoning. If one reads the words dispassionately as an outsider or unbeliever would, he concludes what I have concluded. Do you think that you can find an outsider to agree with your analysis rather than mine? If you do, he should become an instant convert. If you can't, perhaps you should wonder why that is if you are correct. Why do unbelievers virtually uniformly agree with the skeptic rather than the believer if the believer has a compelling argument?
What you'll need t convince is a rebuttal, which is a counterargument to an argument or claim of a very specific nature: if it is correct, the claim rebutted cannot be. Do you think that you have done that here? I don't. My claims all stand unrebutted. They are disagreed with, and you wrote words to indicate that you disagreed, but they didn't make my words wrong even if yours were correct. For example, I claimed that Jesus was not a descendant of David as the Hebrews determine that - patrilineally. And your reply? Was it an argument that He was a descendent of David through his father? No. It was words about Joseph and Mary's lineage, which is not a rebuttal to my claim, since we could both be right.
My argument was a rebuttal to the claim that Jesus fulfilled messianic prophecy. If I am right that the OT prophecy includes the qualities that I mentioned are required in a Messiah, and that Jesus doesn't fulfill them, then the claim that he does cannot be correct, and is refuted. If you cannot show why I am incorrect, and the words you wrote do not do that since as I explained, you and I both could be correct, and likely are.
Redemptionsong
Well-Known Member
I suggest you read the article by R.A.Torrey with greater care. He explains how the two genealogies allow for Jesus to be accepted legally as the royal heir, whilst not being the natural son of Joseph. The marriage to Mary, whose natural line to David is found in Luke, gives Jesus the right to be called the son of Joseph.
Jesus, from what is written in Matthew and Luke, becomes both the son of David and the Son of God. This is confirmed at his baptism, when the voice from heaven says, 'Thou art my beloved Son; in thee l am well pleased'. [Luke 3:22]
Jesus Christ is, as Christians profess, and as the scriptures teach, both fully God and fully man whilst on earth.
I also wonder if you have taken in the second part of my post. In it l gave evidence that Jesus never claimed to be fulfilling all the Messianic prophecies. He claimed to be fulfilling only those prophecies that relate to the salvation of God prior to his second coming as Judge and King of Kings.
So, why have you repeated the same accusation? Christians are fully aware that all the Messianic prophecies are not yet fulfilled. In Acts 1, when Jesus ascended to heaven, the two men in white apparel said, 'Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven'.
This tells us that Jesus is coming back, and when he returns he will return as the King of Kings [Revelation 19:16].
Torrey was not convincing. It doesn't matter what Joseph's lineage was, since according to scripture, he wasn't an ancestor of Jesus. Royal and legal are irrelevant in family trees. And his argument for Jesus being a literal descendant of David is through Mary, the only female name in either genealogy. One would need to show an unbroken chain from David to Jesus involving only various male ancestors to fulfill prophecy. If we are to allow women into the chain of succession, who isn't an ancestor of David?
Why would that matter except that Jesus is saying that if he can't fulfill prophecy, he can't be identified as the Messiah? How about if I claimed to be the Messiah? Sure, I meet none of the requirements except being a descendant of David like billions of others, but I'll be fulfilling the prophecies later. Don't listen to the thousands of other people making the same claim. They're religious crackpots and false prophets. I'm the real Messiah. How can you tell? I just told you that I was, and I'll prove it later. This is the strength of your argument that Jesus is Messiah without fulfilling prophecy.
Then they cannot call anybody Messiah until they are. You and other Christians have already done that, but you have done it by faith. The evidence doesn't support that claim.
You didn't answer, "Why do unbelievers virtually uniformly agree with the skeptic rather than the believer if the believer has a compelling argument?" so I'll answer for you. It's because the apologetics aren't compelling. Your argument and Torrey's argument convince nobody. Believer will agree with both of you, but you aren't convincing them of anything. They believe by faith BEFORE seeing the apologetics. And those that don't believe by faith and who evaluate the evidence dispassionately aren't convinced by these arguments. Thus, the apologetics convince virtually nobody including those who accept them.
That's the difference between critical thought and belief by faith. The former starts with the evidence and arrives at sound conclusions via valid reasoning, which leads to rejection of the claim that the OT prophecy points to Jesus, whereas the latter begin with a faith-based belief and then go out to find whatever they think supports that belief while ignoring or reinterpreting whatever contradicts it. The "conclusions" of people who think that way are of no value to those who use reason and evidence, and the reverse is true as well. The output of reason is of no value to those who believe by faith when reason contradicts the faith-based belief.
This means that neither of us can convince the other. We process information differently. We decide what is true about the world in radically different ways.
And all this is due to the advantage that religions have: no need to demonstrate dogma and claims are true in reality. This claim you cite is irrelevant outside of Christianity. It isn't considered a fact or true. So the claims and arguments WITHIN religions are typically inadequate and irrelevant to those seeking truth how things are. So it amazes me that believers do not admit or acknowledge this when engaging with those outside of their religions. The religious assumptions and faith are not accepted and believers have more work to do to establish any sort of factual basis for their beliefs. As we observe, theists can't.
This is fine as a theological argument and debate WITHIN Christianity, but outside of it? No. You need to establish many facts first, and theists don't, or can't. So this bit above is trying to jump way ahead in an open debate.
With some 44,000 sects untder the umbrella of Christianity we can see Christians disagree on a lot. We do see Christians disagree and we outsiders just watch the confusion. Yet this is the Truth?
It's a good thing that Revelations made it into the Bible by one vote, and that one vote was a trade. So imagine how Christianity would be different today if different books were selected. Let's also not forget haw many End Times Christians have predicted, and were dead wrong. Jesus is coming back? You bet. The waiting is a good way to invest more meaning because it is something to look forward to, and life in the mean time is just waiting.
leroy
Well-Known Member
I understand the argument, and even grant that it is good argument,
The only point that I am making is that you are assuming “a causeless big bang” without and prior evidence or prior examples of anything being causeless. ………. if this is not a big of deal (which I would agree) then analogous objections again theism shouldn’t be a big of deal ether
leroy
Well-Known Member
I said that a “Unicorn” is a better hypothesis than something logically incoherent (like married bachelor)
So even if I grant that God is as unlikely as a unicorn, it is still better than any incoherent alternative.
this is not suppose to be controversial,
leroy
Well-Known Member
Something cannot be unstable for an infinite amount of time and then collapse 13B years ago (it would have collapsed and infinite amount of time ago.
Redemptionsong
Well-Known Member
You've side-stepped the issue, lMO. The question that needs to be answered, according to Jewish law and tradition, is whether or not an adopted son has the right to kingship. It is beyond dispute that Joseph adopted Mary's son, and became his father. It is also beyond question that Joseph was of the royal line (based on Matthew's genealogy), just as it is beyond doubt (based on Luke's genealogy) that Mary was a descendant of David, through Nathan.
You also argue that one cannot call someone a Messiah before they are a Messiah. But, since one can be an 'anointed one' without being crowned king, we can conclude that Jesus fulfilled the criteria of anointing as required by God. Once again, we see this in the story of David. David was anointed to be king years before his coronation. Does this mean that God was wrong to have him anointed as king before his coronation? Quite the reverse, l would say. In the years between his anointing and his coronation, David was tested and proved worthy of the position he was to assume. The same is true of Jesus. He was tested and proved faithful throughout, demonstrating his credentials as the Christ.
So, we can see, by studying the scriptures, that the claims made by Christians are entirely reasonable and consistent.
The argument that you end with, that somehow people of faith are incapable of reasoning, is also without foundation. Thousands of highly educated and gifted scientists, philosophers and mathematicians have also expressed belief in God. What is much harder to understand, in my opinion, is how people can make disparaging remarks about faith when it forms the very foundation stone of healthy human relationships.
Faith and love, which cannot be entirely separated, allow people to enjoy their freedom without fear. Where would family relationships be if a spouse could not trust their partner? What kind of friendship exists when you cannot trust a person to offer help in time of trouble?
Faith is a human response to love, and is the only response that allows a relationship to mature and develop.