Did Jesus really have to die for our sins?

[filthy tugboat]

This far in the topic and you ask as you do?

Well, to be honest I didn't know what you meant by the question, I still don't. Perhaps you would like to repeat it with a bit more detail?

 

[Thief]

Well, to be honest I didn't know what you meant by the question, I still don't. Perhaps you would like to repeat it with a bit more detail?

700+ postings and the title question remains....

I say the Carpenter did not die for our sins....He died because of them.

Place an intelligent fellow in a crowd of fearful and superstitious people....
and the Voice of reason will die.

Did He die as a scapegoat?.....nay.
Are you still responsible for what you say or do?....yeah.

Your sins are your own.
Good luck.

 

[filthy tugboat]

700+ postings and the title question remains....

That is often the way of debate, people on opposite ends of an issue tend to disagree.

I say the Carpenter did not die for our sins....He died because of them.

Why? Why did our sins cause his death?

Place an intelligent fellow in a crowd of fearful and superstitious people....
and the Voice of reason will die.

Did He die as a scapegoat?.....nay.

Some think he did.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

Maybe his dad just wanted to kill the new competing god (his son)? Everyone hates competition.

No but seriously - if we maintain that god is omnipotent at least with regard to the capacity to forgive any sin then the answer must be no. On the other hand, if we suggest that Jesus DID have to die to forgive sin, then we have a situation where god's capacity to forgive sin would otherwise have been limited, this implies that there are restrictions on god's forgiveness.

Personally I like the idea that such forgiveness have limitations, otherwise it is license for those that believe in jesus to sin as much as they want then feel remorse and they are good to go - it is a recipe for creating people who routinely abridge what the vast majority of people would consider morality with little thought to the consequences.

 

[filthy tugboat]

I repeat, both the zygote and the human that it will later become both came from intelligence.

You can repeat it all you want, you still aren't adressing the point. The process was reduced to non-intelligence, how was that form of non-intelligence capable of producing intelligence if non-intelligence is incapable of producing intelligence? Answering this with, "because that non-intelligence was produced by intelligence," doesn't address the question, it just repeats the claim, it also suggests that everything non-intelligent produced by intelligent beings is capable of producing intelligence. In which case, why does poo not produce intelligence?

Ok, the first act of creation was temporal, I conceded the point.

How was the act of creation temporal if time was what was being created? Time has to exist before anything can occur, including any act of creation. Time is not something that can be created, it has to exist for the act of creation to occur.

Wait a minute, we agree that the act of creation was a temporal effect, so how then can you go on to say "God could never create anything as change cannot occur without time", um, the change occurred IN TIME. The first act of creation was IN TIME.

Yes but you said time was created. If the act of creation was temporal then time has to exist prior to creation or else no action can occur.

The movement occurred IN TIME. Once the movement occurred, he went from atemporal to temporal, and he will always be "potentionally infinite", there is no going back. Time didnt exist before he moved, he moved, time began. See?

Not really, how did time begin when he moved? Did it just start and that's why he moved? Or did his movement cause time to start? If the latter, how could his movement occur prior to time's existence?

The singularity did come in to existence, like I said, it is not something that was just sitting there for infinitude and all of a sudden expanded. Nobody knows how or why this happened, but we know that it did. Here is the problem, if we postulate that the singularity was sitting there for an infinite amount of time, and there is nothing outside, right? All of the matter and energy that will ever exist, exists in the singularity, right?? Why would it all of a sudden expand? Why didnt it expand sooner? Why not later?? Especially if it had an infinite amount of time to expand, what would be the reason why it expanded when it did, if there are no external factors beyond it?? Makes no sense whatsover. That is why no one is postulating the singularity sitting there for all these billion years. The singularity appeared and expanded from the moment it appeared, and has been expanding ever since.

As my quotes last page stated, prior to around 1 billionth of a second after expansion began, nobody knows anything about what happened or what existed. There is no information to be gained and all science breaks down at that point. Postulation that STEM came into existence within the singularity or during it's expansion or whether it always existed is not something that has any basis in facts. There are no facts supporting anything beyond the second after expansion. this is what I've been trying to say, there is nothing to support what you're saying about the singularity coming into existence. All of my random idea's about where everything came from are just as flawed. I see no reason to believe that the singularity popped into existence, as far as I'm aware, things don't pop into existence.

Good question. I dont think anyone could give a good answer as to how God could create out of nothing. BUT, it is more plausible to believe that God created out of nothing, than believe that the universe popped in to being uncaused out of nothing.

They seem about the same to me. But as I've maintained, I don't think the singularity popped into being out of nothing. Cause or no cause, nothing is not something that can be acted upon. By definition, nothing is not something.

When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least we can see and understand that the magician caused the rabbit to appear. But on naturalism, the rabbit just pops in to being uncaused out of nothing, with no magician in sight.

On naturalism, the magician pulls the rabbit from somewhere else and makes it look like he pulled it from an empty hat. The popping out of nothing thing has only been suggested by you. Caused or uncaused, nothing is not something that can be acted upon.

You have this habit of thinking that the singularity was infinite, and waiting to expand at some point. This is false thinking. It didn't exist before 13.7 billion years ago.

Please show me the peer reviewed articles that support this hypothesis.

I gave you quotes based on the standard model, and at least two of those quotes did indeed say that there was no matter or time before the singularity.

"The universe began from a state of infinite density about one Hubble time ago. Space was created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe."

In that "event". he's not talking about the expansion, he's talking about the singularity. Perhaps you could link me to the peer reviewed article that supports this quote, then we will see what part is accepted science and what is perhaps this individual scientists view.

Whoa wait a minute wait a minute. First off, lowered it to that kind of degree? You cant get that kind of degree of entropy from unguided and blind processes.

This seems silly to say, with enough energy input, you can get any kind of degree. That's how entropy works.

Second, you are right, the entropy is increasing in our universe, which means that our universe was "wound up", and is now running out of energy, like a battery. "Whatever effected the singularity that caused it to expand".......yeah......God....only something with a intellectual mind can get entropy levels that low to that specified degree of tuning.

What? Why only something with an intellectual mind? The only thing keeping this world from failing to entropy is the sun and that is not an intellectual mind. Please don't digress into, "but yeah God set the sun up." We've been through circular logic once already, let's not do it again.

You cant get this kind of fine tuning from a blind, random, and natural process. This kind of improbability is only used by people who want to negate God from the equation so bad that they are willing to postulate anything to do this.

It's not difficult to no negate something that is not evident.

I repeat, 10(10123)...that is a 10 as the base, and a 1 as the exponent, followed by 123 zeros. That is the number you have to deal with.

Do I? What does it mean?

I base theism not because im looking to fill the gaps, but because the other alternative seems absurd to me.

I didn't say anything about you basing theism on gaps in knowledge, I was referring specifically to intelligent design advocates and arguments. Intelligent design may be true, I have nothing against it's truth, there is just nothing to support it either. No science at least, and most theists expect that, they always tell me that if God exists, he is well out of the realm of science and that is fine, that is no problem for me, but ID has no weight behind it scientifically speaking, without God belief, it's meaningless, it depends on the belief existing prior to agreeing that ID is true.

God is love, of course he loves himself. I love myself. Cmon now with these irrelevant questions.

So God is forced to love himself? He doesn't have the power to not love himself and everything he does? He has no choice in the matter of love?

And the definition presupposes the notion of "sane human beings don't disregard the rights of others and rules of society". The rules of society was made by people with a subjective standard of right and wrong. What came first, the rule, or the man?

Psychopathy and insanity are different. The man.

But hypothetically speaking, if they did...

I said, "probably". That is really abnormal for a lion and lions and hyena's do essentially have a social agreement. The hyena's often take the lion's scraps, the lions hunting abilities help to feed the hyena's so if they kill all of the hyena's then they have essentially broken a social law. Not in the same way we think of it but in a way, yes, I think it would be psychopathy.

Social agreement? Were you part of the social agreement? I dont remember agreeing with anything. I was born in a world where there were already rules set to follow. I never agreed to anything

Your act of abiding by the laws and living in the society is a form of agreement. You have decided to follow those social laws and while you live in that society you are agreeing to the social laws. You could leave and learn how to live in the wild at which point you would no longer be a part of that society but I'm not sure if you could ever really leave that social agreement... Hmmm, you have given me something to ponder, I will divulge more on this subject later.

 

[filthy tugboat]

So, if there are no objective morals even with God, still, that goes back to subjectivity. The man that murders your family is not objectively wrong, he is subjectively wrong only to those that disagree with him, but since it is not cool to "appeal to population", it doesnt matter who disagrees with him, right?

It's not about whether it is cool or not, it's about whether it really supports the argument. Logic =/= cool. Yep I think we're on the same page now about subjective morality. Most humans want similar things and that is usually because those things most humans want often benefit the humans in question. I suppose it is objective in a way. "things that benefit humans are moral". This is a combination of subjective and objective in a way because it is only moral to humans however it is an objective grounding for morality.

If they did this, and God created them, they would be "objectively" wrong. With God, his laws applies EVERYWHERE. So they couldnt get out of wrongdoing just by saying "It is right according to our moral code." God doesnt have restrictions on where his laws work and doesnt work. But on your view, there is no God, and they would be perfectly moral on their code by molesting you lol.

I don't know about "perfectly moral" but I can't imagine why it would be wrong according to anyone or any law but my own. Their laws allow it, as does their moral code. Is it that different to our treatment of other animals? What if they got us to run through mazes for food and never let us go? Would that be objectively wrong?

I dont know what kind of answer you are looking for. He is the source of goodness. It is not a standard that is "set", it is a standard that simply "is".

Explain please what this standard means and how it applies to me? I just don't see what you mean when you say God's moral commands are true, the standards he has given are right. Even if they're not "set", how are they right? What makes them objectively right always?

Um, when did the Israelites lie? What?

I think the Israelites lied about the countries they invaded. They told stories about how evil they were to inspire nationalism and patriotism among their subjects. I would go to war against the Nazi's just by virtue of knowing the things that they did, the Israelites told everyone that their enemies sacrificed children to their God's and all that jazz. What do you think that would have done to the people? It would enrage them, encourage the war effort, raise morale for their troops.

God is the author of life. Life is his first, and ours second. He judges how he sees fit.

As I said before, since when does "might make right"? How does his creation of life mean we have to listen to him? How does our inability to stop him make everything he does right?

God is perfect, by definition. His commandments and decisions are therefore perfect.

Is he? What does that mean? What does perfection in this sense mean? Take this seriously, I never understood what perfection meant to God? He is the best thing that ever could possibly be? At everything? I think something could be better at convincing people he is real.

Hahahahahah "i dont support the conclusions he drew or the commands he made" Ok dude. Keep giving me your presupposed subjective opinion.

I plan to. But as I was saying, I didn't show Moses's act of Genocide disingenuously, he did enter thousands of homes and kill men women and children. Non-combatants. Which brings me to a point I meant to raise a while back, God has no inherent problem with the killing of children or the act of genocide. Those two things are not objectively wrong. Under the right circumstances, like the Moses escapade, it is not only not wrong, it's even the righteous thing to do. Do you agree? I'm not saying it's right every time, I'm saying that the act of genocide and the killing of children is not inherently bad according to the Bible.

Its not that I was unaware of it, I wanted to read the SCRIPTURE in CONTEXT, as most nonbelievers that I encounter like to take things out of context. And as i read it, the scripture did exactly what I thought it was going to do, and that is show God being a disciplinarian and a judge, as he always does to evil people. As far as this appeal to emotion that you are exhibiting, tough luck. The Amorites went to war, the Amorite people could have escaped if they wanted to. Just like some of the Iraqis fled during the American invasion. Those that stayed wanted to stay, so, they got the results of staying.

"They were in a place that was in the way so we killed them." God would not have punished them if they'd left but because they stayed, with their family and their friends, they were subject to genocide.

Well, on the Christian view, when children die they go to heaven with God. So the children that were killed, you dont have to worry abou them, they are with the Creator. That only leaves men and women, and undoubtedly, all of them participated in acts of abomination, and God could not tolerate it, therefore, he had the Isralites carry out his act of judgment. So as I said, this crybaby stuff isn't going to work. God got rid of evil people to make way for his chosen nation.

Isn't that convenient, killing children is not bad because they go to heaven. Why! I'll just go out and start practicing me spear throw right now. Make a sport of it, all for the greater good yeah?

Well, them too. From the looks of things, someone in this conversation frequently attend brothels lol.

Is it you? I don't think anyone but you has brought up brothels?

And you accused me of appealing to population when i stated a fact also, that over a billion people think the bible is morally good, as opposed to you. The pot is calling the kettle black.

It just really looked like it, I don't know what you were trying to acheive when you brought it up.

Second, we dont need "modern" quotes from physicists stating that the universe began to exist, because as of right now it is a scientific fact. Nowadays they are working on attempting to explain how and why the universe did in fact begin to exist, which is why you have all of these crazy cosmological models out there floating around. So now it isnt a matter of "if", it is a matter of why and how.

I still take fault with what you propose "the universe began to exist" means. unless you have since amended that to only meaning the expansion and not the sudden appearance of the singularity.

It does mean the singularity came in to existence. For the seventh time, no one is suggesting that the singularity was out there sitting and waiting to expand. The singularity wasn't out there for this infinite amount of time that you seem to think it is. You are sadly mistaken if you believe this. All STEM began to exist.

THE SINGULARITY existed but it didnt exist independently of the expansion. You are thinking that the singularity was there for all of those years, stationary. Then for some reason, it expanded to what we call "universe". This is a false representation. The singularity "appeared" and from the very moment it appeared it expanded, simultaenously. That is why general relativity breaks down at the singularity, because there was no space, time, or matter to be dealt with. That is why John Barrow and Frank Tipler said in the quote, "literally nothing existed before the singularity." By "before", he means no STEM.[/quote]

Was there a before the singularity? Time breaks down with everything else, what does it mean to say "before" the singularity? So at least we now agree that STEM existed inside the singularity.

I dont know. But the bigger question is how can nothing create something?

Don't think that it can.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

It's not about whether it is cool or not, it's about whether it really supports the argument. Logic =/= cool. Yep I think we're on the same page now about subjective morality. Most humans want similar things and that is usually because those things most humans want often benefit the humans in question. I suppose it is objective in a way. "things that benefit humans are moral". This is a combination of subjective and objective in a way because it is only moral to humans however it is an objective grounding for morality.

Okey dokey

I don't know about "perfectly moral" but I can't imagine why it would be wrong according to anyone or any law but my own. Their laws allow it, as does their moral code. Is it that different to our treatment of other animals? What if they got us to run through mazes for food and never let us go? Would that be objectively wrong?

Ok...so you are saying that if a law was passed in Austrailia that allowed for men to have sex with girls ages 10-12, that would be ok, since it would be the law...gotcha.

Explain please what this standard means and how it applies to me? I just don't see what you mean when you say God's moral commands are true, the standards he has given are right. Even if they're not "set", how are they right? What makes them objectively right always?

All I can do is give the the same answer I have been giving you all alone. If that answer isn't good enough, I dont know what else to say.

I think the Israelites lied about the countries they invaded. They told stories about how evil they were to inspire nationalism and patriotism among their subjects. I would go to war against the Nazi's just by virtue of knowing the things that they did, the Israelites told everyone that their enemies sacrificed children to their God's and all that jazz. What do you think that would have done to the people? It would enrage them, encourage the war effort, raise morale for their troops.

What reasons do you have to conclude that they lied?

As I said before, since when does "might make right"? How does his creation of life mean we have to listen to him? How does our inability to stop him make everything he does right?

Do you think it is ok for children to listen and obey their parents? Did you listen to and obey your parents? Do you want your children to listen to and obey you?? Whether I believe in God or not, my answer to all three questions is YES, so now that I believe in God, I can understand why he wants us to listen to and obey him, and I understand now why we have to.

Is he? What does that mean? What does perfection in this sense mean? Take this seriously, I never understood what perfection meant to God? He is the best thing that ever could possibly be? At everything? I think something could be better at convincing people he is real.

Perfect in terms of quality, in his judgements, decision making. He cannot lie or make a mistake. Yes, he is the greatest conceivable being. You may be familiar with the "ontological argument". If you aren't, check it out. It is a mind boogling argument for the existence of God from a "greatest conceivable being" stand point lol. I think God has done an excellent job at convincing us that he is real. What more evidence do I need? A universe from nothing, the fine tuning of the universe to the tiniest degree, a ton of objective moral values, and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each one of those, when put in a argumentive form, carries a TON of weight in my eyes and it is at least believable on my part. What evidence do you need? According to Christianity, even some angels, who know that God exist, still chose to rebel against him and turn wicked. So even if God revealed himself to people, that still wouldnt garantee that people would turn to him.

I plan to. But as I was saying, I didn't show Moses's act of Genocide disingenuously, he did enter thousands of homes and kill men women and children. Non-combatants. Which brings me to a point I meant to raise a while back, God has no inherent problem with the killing of children or the act of genocide. Those two things are not objectively wrong. Under the right circumstances, like the Moses escapade, it is not only not wrong, it's even the righteous thing to do. Do you agree? I'm not saying it's right every time, I'm saying that the act of genocide and the killing of children is not inherently bad according to the Bible.

The act of genocide and killing of children is bad if it is not mandated by God. We agree.

"They were in a place that was in the way so we killed them." God would not have punished them if they'd left but because they stayed, with their family and their friends, they were subject to genocide.

If you stay, you are obviously subject to what is going to take place, right?

Isn't that convenient, killing children is not bad because they go to heaven. Why! I'll just go out and start practicing me spear throw right now. Make a sport of it, all for the greater good yeah?

As I said before, God is the author of life. When he takes a life, he is getting back what is his.

Is it you? I don't think anyone but you has brought up brothels?

lol

It just really looked like it, I don't know what you were trying to acheive when you brought it up.

I wasn't saying that they were RIGHT though. I was just saying that they disagree with you, thus, more subjectivity.

I still take fault with what you propose "the universe began to exist" means. unless you have since amended that to only meaning the expansion and not the sudden appearance of the singularity.

By "exist", I mean there was a point at which literally NOTHING existed. The singularity appeared, and expanded all in one instance, and that was the beginning of the universe.

Was there a before the singularity? Time breaks down with everything else, what does it mean to say "before" the singularity? So at least we now agree that STEM existed inside the singularity.

There was not a "temporal" before, no. But there was a "causal" before, meaning there was a causal agent in existence, this agent just didnt exist in time.

Don't think that it can.

Then you agree that a transcendent causal agent caused the singularity to appear.

 

[idav]

The rationalization of this topic is a bit harsh. Death is not justifiable I don't care who's kid it is. The son of God would not deserve to die nor would such a thing ever be necessary. It does happen and as scripture states Jesus died but that doesn't mean that was the best course and doesn't mean he had to die cause god had some greater purpose. Jesus had a greater purpose with or without having to die. Jesus being crucified is tragic and sad but definitely not necessary. Justifying the death of anyone saying it was the plan of god sounds pretty bad actually.

 

[jamesmorrow]

coward keeps ignoring my question.

 

[filthy tugboat]

Ok...so you are saying that if a law was passed in Austrailia that allowed for men to have sex with girls ages 10-12, that would be ok, since it would be the law...gotcha.

Why would that be OK? OK according to whom?

All I can do is give the the same answer I have been giving you all alone. If that answer isn't good enough, I dont know what else to say.

If your answer is, "It just is." Then no, sorry, it's not good enough to answer the question in my mind.

What reasons do you have to conclude that they lied?

I never said i was sure that they lied, i just argued that it was probable. They had motive to lie, that is the big reason. Also, there is no evidence to suggest they spoke the truth.

Do you think it is ok for children to listen and obey their parents? Did you listen to and obey your parents? Do you want your children to listen to and obey you?? Whether I believe in God or not, my answer to all three questions is YES, so now that I believe in God, I can understand why he wants us to listen to and obey him, and I understand now why we have to.

I suppose now I difference is our belief's concerning the value of listening to and obeying God. I certainly see the value in listening to and obeying our parents, not so much for this God fellow though.

Yes, he is the greatest conceivable being. You may be familiar with the "ontological argument". If you aren't, check it out. It is a mind boogling argument for the existence of God from a "greatest conceivable being" stand point lol.

It's a shame BibleGod isn't the greatest conceivable being, or at least not for me.

I think God has done an excellent job at convincing us that he is real. What more evidence do I need? A universe from nothing, the fine tuning of the universe to the tiniest degree, a ton of objective moral values, and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Each one of those, when put in a argumentive form, carries a TON of weight in my eyes and it is at least believable on my part. What evidence do you need? According to Christianity, even some angels, who know that God exist, still chose to rebel against him and turn wicked. So even if God revealed himself to people, that still wouldnt garantee that people would turn to him.

God is omnipotent, he can accomplish anything. If he wanted everyone to know his existence (not force them to love him, just know that he exists) he should be able to accomplish it.

The act of genocide and killing of children is bad if it is not mandated by God. We agree.

Not entirely, I can't see it as anything but bad, no matter who mandates it.

If you stay, you are obviously subject to what is going to take place, right?

Indeed but the point was that it didn't matter who was there, they were going to kill everyone regardless. People could have left and migrated elsewhere and lived, the Israelites didn't go off hunting them to extinction. How is this an act of judgement if people were being punished not for what they had done but for where they were?

As I said before, God is the author of life. When he takes a life, he is getting back what is his.

I do not recognize his ownership. How does he own life? Because he created it? Are we his slaves to do his bidding? Could you justify the answers for these or do they all fall back to, "he created us, he is too powerful to be stopped?" If so, i ask again, how since when does "might make right"? I don't care if he's too powerful for me to stop him, that doesn't make his claim to ownership right or true. I don't care that he created me, that doesn't make his claim to ownership right or true.

By "exist", I mean there was a point at which literally NOTHING existed. The singularity appeared, and expanded all in one instance, and that was the beginning of the universe.

How could you know this when there is no data available before the expansion of the singularity?

There was not a "temporal" before, no. But there was a "causal" before, meaning there was a causal agent in existence, this agent just didnt exist in time.

How could you know this when there is no data available before the expansion of the singularity?

Then you agree that a transcendent causal agent caused the singularity to appear.

Nope.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You can repeat it all you want, you still aren't adressing the point. The process was reduced to non-intelligence, how was that form of non-intelligence capable of producing intelligence if non-intelligence is incapable of producing intelligence? Answering this with, "because that non-intelligence was produced by intelligence," doesn't address the question, it just repeats the claim, it also suggests that everything non-intelligent produced by intelligent beings is capable of producing intelligence. In which case, why does poo not produce intelligence?

What???? "The process was reduced to non-intelligence". The origin of the process was STILL intelligently designed. What it is reduced to is irrlevant. Both the male and female have exactly what is needed within their own reproductive system to make jump start the process, and allow for that process to carry own by itself and produce intellectual offspring. But as I keep stressing, trace the process back, all the way back, and you will have no intelligence, no zygote, and no living material. My point is, how can you take non-living, non-intellectual, non-thinking material, and create living, intellectual, and thinking material. Based on the fact that scientists STILL havent been able to find out how and why life began at ALL should help you understand the problem.

How was the act of creation temporal if time was what was being created? Time has to exist before anything can occur, including any act of creation. Time is not something that can be created, it has to exist for the act of creation to occur.

Because it happened simultaenously. The first causal act occurred at the same instant that time was created. If you are sitting perfectly still in a chair for eternity, and then you "begin" to stand, from the moment you moved you have just stepped in to time. Time began from the very moment that you moved, and it will go on in to the potential future forever.

Yes but you said time was created. If the act of creation was temporal then time has to exist prior to creation or else no action can occur.

If you were sitting perfectly still in a chair for eternity, there were no moments leading up to you sitting, and no moments proceeding you sitting. See?? There are no two points to distinguish, there is no starting point, no change being made. It isn't until you move, or "begin" to move, that a change occurs. You get it? So if you were sitting perfectly still for eternity, there is no time. You begin to move, and then you can count moments/seconds, 1,2,3,4,5......And then you stop moving, you have two points to distinguish, from the first moment, to whatever moment you stopped (even though you stopped, time didnt stop, time continued, we are distinguishing the two distinguishing points of change). So God was existing in a timeless and changeless states, he began to create the universe, and from that moment of creation, thats where time began. There were no moments leading up to creation, just creation.

Not really, how did time begin when he moved? Did it just start and that's why he moved? Or did his movement cause time to start? If the latter, how could his movement occur prior to time's existence?

His movement caused time to start. There were no moments leading up to his movement, but there have been moments proceeding his movements, and will be forever.

As my quotes last page stated, prior to around 1 billionth of a second after expansion began, nobody knows anything about what happened or what existed.

Science cannot deal with things that are not material or of naturalistic nature. That is why "nobody knows". Prior to planck time, there was nothing there. That is the limitations of science. Metaphysics have to step in at this point.

There is no information to be gained and all science breaks down at that point. Postulation that STEM came into existence within the singularity or during it's expansion or whether it always existed is not something that has any basis in facts.

Well, tell that to contemporary cosmology, and big bang theorists.

There are no facts supporting anything beyond the second after expansion. this is what I've been trying to say, there is nothing to support what you're saying about the singularity coming into existence. All of my random idea's about where everything came from are just as flawed. I see no reason to believe that the singularity popped into existence, as far as I'm aware, things don't pop into existence.

You are not dealing with my points. If the singularity was there sitting for all eternity, why did it expand only 13.7 bilion years ago?? There was no pre-deterministic causes for this, so why did it expand at that time? Why not sooner? Why not later?? Me personally, I am not asking science to explain something that it is incapable of explaining. Science cannot be used to account for the origin of its own domain. We need metaphysics for that. To continue to look for scientific explanations is the blind leading the blind.

They seem about the same to me. But as I've maintained, I don't think the singularity popped into being out of nothing. Cause or no cause, nothing is not something that can be acted upon. By definition, nothing is not something.

Well, at least we agree on that part.

On naturalism, the magician pulls the rabbit from somewhere else and makes it look like he pulled it from an empty hat. The popping out of nothing thing has only been suggested by you. Caused or uncaused, nothing is not something that can be acted upon.

Actually, that would be on theism. But anywayz, you have two problems. One, you cant account for how, if the singularity existed for this infinite amount of time as you seem to think, why did it expand only 13.7 billion years ago if there was nothing there that previously existed to give rise to this expansion. The second problem you have is, time cannot be past eternal. So even if you were to postulate a pre-existing naturalistic cause to the singularity, none of this could be past eternal. In other words, time cannot be extended in to past infinity. Now on theism, this isn't a problem, because we dont believe time is infinite, we believe that time is finite, and the cause of time was not itself in time. You, on the other hand, believe in past infinity, which is absurd from a logical standpoint.

Please show me the peer reviewed articles that support this hypothesis.

Um, peer reviewd articles? Why do you need this? The evidence for the beginning of STEM has been so overwhelming, that for the past 75 years, cosmologists have been trying to find an explanation for this. Why do you think there is this history of all these naturalistic models....the steady state theory....the oscillating theory....vaccum fluctations.......quantum gravity...and the list goes on...Lawrence Krauss "A universe from nothing"......the list goes on and on...because they recognize that the evidence points to a cosmic beginning.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

"The universe began from a state of infinite density about one Hubble time ago. Space was created in that event and so was all the matter in the universe."
In that "event". he's not talking about the expansion, he's talking about the singularity. Perhaps you could link me to the peer reviewed article that supports this quote, then we will see what part is accepted science and what is perhaps this individual scientists view.

He is talking about both. He clearly realizes that the singularity and expansion happened at the same time. "The universe began from a state of infinite density"...that is the singularity....."space was created and all matter"....that was the expansion...you are asking for peer reviewed articles, just look up the big bang theory on wikipedia...I am telling you, all of these naturalistic models like the steady state theory and such, were all created because scientist didnt like the evidence pointing to a finite universe, because they thought all along that the universe was eternal. Just look at the history of cosmology and you will see where the evidence points.

This seems silly to say, with enough energy input, you can get any kind of degree. That's how entropy works.

So if you are at a pool table, and you have a basket of billiard balls, and you put the balls in the basket, and constantly pour the balls on the pool table, do you ever think the balls will assemble themsevles in a way to form a perfect "rack". This is how entropy works, the amount of disorder is more probable than the amount of order. And what that Penrose number implies is, the odds are so against our universe being fined tuned for human life, that to think that these things occurred by random chance is completely absurd.

What? Why only something with an intellectual mind? The only thing keeping this world from failing to entropy is the sun and that is not an intellectual mind. Please don't digress into, "but yeah God set the sun up." We've been through circular logic once already, let's not do it again.

Yeah, and the sun is also burning out its energy as we speak, and the universe will eventually suffer a heat death. The low entropy had to be an initial condition from the moment the singularity appeared. It takes faith to believe that our universe could be the incredible odds against it.

It's not difficult to no negate something that is not evident.

"Evident" is a subjective term. It isn't evident to you. It is very much evident to me and the billions of others that accept theism. Back to that alleged fallacy, right?

Do I? What does it mean?

That number represents the odds of our universe being life permitting, odds caculated by the prominent physicist Roger Penrose.

I didn't say anything about you basing theism on gaps in knowledge, I was referring specifically to intelligent design advocates and arguments. Intelligent design may be true, I have nothing against it's truth, there is just nothing to support it either. No science at least, and most theists expect that, they always tell me that if God exists, he is well out of the realm of science and that is fine, that is no problem for me, but ID has no weight behind it scientifically speaking, without God belief, it's meaningless, it depends on the belief existing prior to agreeing that ID is true.

Well hey, I dont believe that we can get that must precision from a blind, unguided, and non-intellectual process. Whenever "we" see this kind of precision, this kind of organization, this kind of complexity, we assume intelligent design. The cells in our DNA is more complex than a space shuttle (another point i keep stressing), but we are to believe the space shuttle is designed and the DNA not designed? This is highly absurd to me. But I understand that people will continue to be in denial no matter. I dont think the problem is lack of evidence. The problem is, people just dont like the idea of God.

So God is forced to love himself? He doesn't have the power to not love himself and everything he does? He has no choice in the matter of love?

Once again, i refuse to get suckered in to this irrlevance.

I said, "probably". That is really abnormal for a lion and lions and hyena's do essentially have a social agreement. The hyena's often take the lion's scraps, the lions hunting abilities help to feed the hyena's so if they kill all of the hyena's then they have essentially broken a social law. Not in the same way we think of it but in a way, yes, I think it would be psychopathy.

So, when a hyena takes the lion's scraps, is it stealing??

Your act of abiding by the laws and living in the society is a form of agreement. You have decided to follow those social laws and while you live in that society you are agreeing to the social laws. You could leave and learn how to live in the wild at which point you would no longer be a part of that society but I'm not sure if you could ever really leave that social agreement... Hmmm, you have given me something to ponder, I will divulge more on this subject later.

Good deal. On the Christian view, we believe that God has placed good morality on everyones heart, that is why practically everywhere earth, we all agree that murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, rape is wrong, etc. My point is, without God, if a law was passed in the United States that it was cool to have sexual relations with children under 12, it would be the right thing to do. This has subjectivity written all over it.

 

[templetest]

God is all powerful, why make a man just to die to save everyone when he could just do it by thinking it happening?

Yes, I know I will get a lot of comments saying "Jesus is no man! He is God!" Well, technically isn't he a demigod? Half man half God? And even if you don't consider him to be, it just made people suffer from sadness, especially Mary the mother of Jesus.

Because that's the best the peopel who made up the stories could do. In reality there's no other real good reason for any god, who can do anything, to be so tethered to human constructs.

 

[Thief]

The rationalization of this topic is a bit harsh. Death is not justifiable I don't care who's kid it is. The son of God would not deserve to die nor would such a thing ever be necessary. It does happen and as scripture states Jesus died but that doesn't mean that was the best course and doesn't mean he had to die cause god had some greater purpose. Jesus had a greater purpose with or without having to die. Jesus being crucified is tragic and sad but definitely not necessary. Justifying the death of anyone saying it was the plan of god sounds pretty bad actually.

Frubals for this.

 

[jamesmorrow]

He is talking about both. He clearly realizes that the singularity and expansion happened at the same time. "The universe began from a state of infinite density"...that is the singularity....."space was created and all matter"....that was the expansion...you are asking for peer reviewed articles, just look up the big bang theory on wikipedia...I am telling you, all of these naturalistic models like the steady state theory and such, were all created because scientist didnt like the evidence pointing to a finite universe, because they thought all along that the universe was eternal. Just look at the history of cosmology and you will see where the evidence points.


So if you are at a pool table, and you have a basket of billiard balls, and you put the balls in the basket, and constantly pour the balls on the pool table, do you ever think the balls will assemble themsevles in a way to form a perfect "rack". This is how entropy works, the amount of disorder is more probable than the amount of order. And what that Penrose number implies is, the odds are so against our universe being fined tuned for human life, that to think that these things occurred by random chance is completely absurd.



Yeah, and the sun is also burning out its energy as we speak, and the universe will eventually suffer a heat death. The low entropy had to be an initial condition from the moment the singularity appeared. It takes faith to believe that our universe could be the incredible odds against it.



"Evident" is a subjective term. It isn't evident to you. It is very much evident to me and the billions of others that accept theism. Back to that alleged fallacy, right?



That number represents the odds of our universe being life permitting, odds caculated by the prominent physicist Roger Penrose.


Well hey, I dont believe that we can get that must precision from a blind, unguided, and non-intellectual process. Whenever "we" see this kind of precision, this kind of organization, this kind of complexity, we assume intelligent design. The cells in our DNA is more complex than a space shuttle (another point i keep stressing), but we are to believe the space shuttle is designed and the DNA not designed? This is highly absurd to me. But I understand that people will continue to be in denial no matter. I dont think the problem is lack of evidence. The problem is, people just dont like the idea of God.



Once again, i refuse to get suckered in to this irrlevance.



So, when a hyena takes the lion's scraps, is it stealing??



Good deal. On the Christian view, we believe that God has placed good morality on everyones heart, that is why practically everywhere earth, we all agree that murder is wrong, stealing is wrong, rape is wrong, etc. My point is, without God, if a law was passed in the United States that it was cool to have sexual relations with children under 12, it would be the right thing to do. This has subjectivity written all over it.

you are arguing against LOGIC. you are violating occams razor/the law of parsimony in specific....you define your god to be the most powerful most complex thing in the history of existence, yet you claim that your god was not a product of intelligent design, while simultaneously arguing how all of the LESS COMPLEX things in existence are just too complex not to be a product of intelligent design.......keep ignoring reality buddy it suits you.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

The rationalization of this topic is a bit harsh. Death is not justifiable I don't care who's kid it is. The son of God would not deserve to die nor would such a thing ever be necessary. It does happen and as scripture states Jesus died but that doesn't mean that was the best course and doesn't mean he had to die cause god had some greater purpose. Jesus had a greater purpose with or without having to die. Jesus being crucified is tragic and sad but definitely not necessary. Justifying the death of anyone saying it was the plan of god sounds pretty bad actually.

Ah, but you see that (most) Christians believe that it was in effect God Himself in human flesh being nailed to the cross. The "Son of God" IS God Himself. It was the plan of God to sacrifice HIMSELF on the cross, in order to make the ultimate and final atonement for our sins. Now it wasn't necessary in the sense that God HAD to do it, but He chose to in order to reconcile us to Him and win us eternal salvation. And I agree that Jesus never deserved to die, it was a choice that He took to save His beloved creation.

God is all powerful, why make a man just to die to save everyone when he could just do it by thinking it happening?

Of course He could, but that wouldn't be just. With every sin there is a price. If someone commits a crime, the price they pay in our society is a jail sentence. There are the fundamental laws of justice set down by God, often embedded within our own sense of morality. Now of course God could have made these laws whatever He wanted, but He knows there is only one right set of laws and morals by which we live by, and of these is the fact that every wrongdoing that we do must be paid for. Now He would not disobey His own laws, for that would show that He is not a just God. And thus, in order to abide by His fundamental laws of justice, He paid the ultimate sacrifice in order to atone for all of humanity, and to reconcile all of humanity to Him.

 

[ER.Robin Zoe]

God is all powerful, why make a man just to die to save everyone when he could just do it by thinking it happening?

Yes, I know I will get a lot of comments saying "Jesus is no man! He is God!" Well, technically isn't he a demigod? Half man half God? And even if you don't consider him to be, it just made people suffer from sadness, especially Mary the mother of Jesus.

Friend,
This is exactly one of the various questions that drove me away from christianity!I mean ,the concept of God taking human form and dying for the sins of humankind dosen't go down my throat.I had discussions with many priests regarding the doubts I had about christianity (like trinity,crucifiction,scientific & mathematical errors in the bible,etc) but none could give me satisfactory answers nor could I logically explain them.I am a kind of person who does not believe in blind belief or immitating our forefathers.I like to research and seek the truth on my own rather than having someone throwing his beliefs on my face!
I personally do not believe Jesus to be God.I ve read the bible and cannot find even a single unequivocal statement where he claims divinity.I mean, you see, there are several instances where his disciples find him praying.Iwonder to whom would God pray and why?
Moreover,i believe that God and a human being represent two extreme ends.The moment God takes a human form,he ceases to be God.So the concept of God incarnating seems illogical to me.

I also do not believe that Jesus was the son of God.The attributes of bearing children is an ungodly characteristic.Why would God have a son?

Lastly,I do not believe that Jesus died for the sins of mankind because why would an innocent person have to pay the price of the crime he never ever commited?Imagine God punishing himself for the sins of his creation.That is unacceptable to me.If a person were to believe that God has already paid
the price for his sins,he would the commit more and more sins without fearing the punishment from God.Thus, whatever wrong a person does,he is not to blame for that because God has already paid the price on his behalf.Does that make sense?

 

[sojourner]

Ah, but you see that (most) Christians believe that it was in effect God Himself in human flesh being nailed to the cross. The "Son of God" IS God Himself. It was the plan of God to sacrifice HIMSELF on the cross, in order to make the ultimate and final atonement for our sins. Now it wasn't necessary in the sense that God HAD to do it, but He chose to in order to reconcile us to Him and win us eternal salvation. And I agree that Jesus never deserved to die, it was a choice that He took to save His beloved creation.

Substitutionary atonement is not the only valid theological construct for salvation. It presents us with problems such as idav pointed out. God's love doesn't have to be bought.

He paid the ultimate sacrifice in order to atone for all of humanity, and to reconcile all of humanity to Him.

Human creditors are more forbearing than that. Why should God be less?

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

Substitutionary atonement is not the only valid theological construct for salvation. It presents us with problems such as idav pointed out. God's love doesn't have to be bought.

Human creditors are more forbearing than that. Why should God be less?

What do you propose then? I am curious as to your own views on the matter.

And indeed God's love doesn't have to be bought. He made the ultimate sacrifice because He loves us. And assuming the fundamental laws laid out by God require substitutionary atonement, then He can not simply dismiss them for that would make Him unjust for not abiding by His own laws, even though He is more than capable of simply forgiving us without a price.

 

[ER.Robin Zoe]

Friend,
This is exactly one of the various questions that drove me away from christianity!I mean ,the concept of God taking human form and dying for the sins of humankind dosen't go down my throat.I had discussions with many priests regarding the doubts I had about christianity (like trinity,crucifiction,scientific & mathematical errors in the bible,etc) but none could give me satisfactory answers nor could I logically explain them.I am a kind of person who does not believe in blind belief or immitating our forefathers.I like to research and seek the truth on my own rather than having someone throwing his beliefs on my face!
I personally do not believe Jesus to be God.I ve read the bible and cannot find even a single unequivocal statement where he claims divinity.I mean, you see, there are several instances where his disciples find him praying.Jesus did not tell his
followers to worship him but to worship God,Nor did Jesus worship himself when he worshipped, but rather he worshipped God. And Jesus
was reported in the Gospels to have said,
“It is written: 'Worship the Lord your God and serve Him
only.’” [Luke 4:8]Iwonder to whom would God pray and why?
Moreover,i believe that God and a human being represent two extreme ends.The moment God takes a human form,he ceases to be God.So the concept of God incarnating seems illogical to me.

I also do not believe that Jesus was the son of God.The attributes of bearing children is an ungodly characteristic.Why would God have a son?

Lastly,I do not believe that Jesus died for the sins of mankind because why would an innocent person have to pay the price of the crime he never ever commited?Imagine God punishing himself for the sins of his creation.That is unacceptable to me.If a person were to believe that God has already paid
the price for his sins,he would the commit more and more sins without fearing the punishment from God.Thus, whatever wrong a person does,he is not to blame for that because God has already paid the price on his behalf.Does that make sense?

Though,I am presently an atheist,I still feel that God exists and I am searching for The One True God that Jesus worshipped.