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That is some logic. Virtually every single scientist these days believe that time, matter, and space began to exist. If time was infinate then we could never get to now because it is impossible to traverse and infinate number of seconds. Eternal is not defined by the existance of time. God is independant of time. He existed even when time matter and space did not. Even if God didn't create the universe whatever did existed before time.
Not hardly. I may dissagree with some one but only God knows who is right. Our beliefs are right or wrong based on their consistency with the Bible. The fact that dissagreemnts exist about the nature of a concept has nothing to do with whether that concept exists. If you said it was hot yesterday and someone else said it was cool then by your illogic yesterday didn't exist
It's really quite simple, try to follow along.
So science and I are in full agreement.
Eternal means existing through all time. Can't be more defined by the existence of time than that.
If time doesn't exist then terms like "before" have no meaning, so saying anything existed before time is equally meaningless.
This was actually very well said. What did you do with the other guy? Objective values may be adopted by faith derived by reason and evidence but short of proof. They are assumed in general, as if they are instictual but are hard to prove.
It is more complicated than you seem to grasp. If we have an objective standard. Lets say we choose 50 degrees farenheight as the cut off. In order to have a universal understang of what is being claimed standards must be set up by which to differentiate hot and cold. That is also why standards of legnth etc are kept at the weights and measurements government laboritory. The are an absolute standard by which things are judged. I claim that God does the same thing with morality but that is faith. This is very complicated and your trivialising of the momentous and claiming it a clever paradox is not clever it is meaningless.
I didn't say it was complicated, I implied it makes no sence.
I am not so sure. They say that time matter and space began to exist and that necessarily whatever caused them to exist was outside time, matter, and space. There is no escape from this except bubble universe garbage which it would be absolutely impossible to ever have any evidence for. If you agree with that then you agree with science.
No it means this: Existing independant of time; without end or beginning. We are dealing with subjects that exhaust human language but whatever the first uncaused cause was and there must be one, existed independant of time.
Yep language breaks down in these areas. God exists (or whatever caused the universe) independant of time. Whatever it was it is impossible for this characteristic to be false.
Yeah. OK. Perhaps in the fullness of time you'll find it within yourself to gird up your loins and face me on the battlefield of reason regarding my 'clever paradox'. I deny that it's a paradox, by the way. That is your assertion.
Asking an incomplete question many times over and over does not make it a complete question. When I have time this whatever you call it will be dealt with.Yeah. OK. Perhaps in the fullness of time you'll find it within yourself to gird up your loins and face me on the battlefield of reason regarding my 'clever paradox'. I deny that it's a paradox, by the way. That is your assertion.
Anyway:To whom must a thing be proven in order for it to be proven?
Simple question. I hope that in time you're able to formulate a simple answer -- rather than the word-dancing with which you've so far trampled the pathetic corpse of my (sacred) question.
I never run. Not because I am smart but because what I defend makes it easy. It will a lot easier and require less time if you can actually ask a complete question, but either way it will be dealt with. You are asking the equivalent of: What is the fastest _______? It is meaningless unless the blank is filled in. Asking without filling in the blank is just silly and reveals a lack of knowledge.
I will get back to you in fact I encourage you to remind me about it until I do. Someone who has not shown a single reason to conclude that they have a working knowledge of history, philosophy, language, or theology and who has not answered a single challenge issued, saying someone is out of their depth because they have not addressed some incomplete question that is falsely thought to be meaningful is rediculous. It will be at least tomorrow before I can debate your thought fragment of a question.
Science can only tell us that the universe didn't exist as we know it now about 14 billion years ago. Any conjecture about what, if anything, existed before the universe, and whether or not it needed a cause, is in the realm of philosophy, not science.
If language breaks down in these areas, then anything you or I have to say about it is meaningless which makes this conversation pointless. Did it ever occur to you that maybe its our understanding of time that breaks down?
Precisely. That is why I say that science can never address the most important issues that man kind faces.
I did not say that the breakdown in language meant that nothing can be described or known. I just meant that it is difficult to adaquitely convey concepts about this issue but not impossible. Christianities supernatural claims deal in probability not absolutes. It is a fact by virtue of philisophical laws that something created the universe. It is a fact that whatever it was must be independant of time in order to create time. It is a fact that whatever this was did not have a beginning. It is a fact that whatever created the universe must have certain characteristics. It is a fact that the biblical God has these same characteristics. There fore it is highly probably that the biblical God is the uncaused first cause.
Then why do you keep falling back on science to try to make your point?
It only works if we respect the meaning of those words. Saying that something existed before time when "before" is a temporal term is not respecting the language.
You assume a lot of facts there. Why do you think time is something that was created and not just a concept invented by humans to help them make sense of the universe around them?
I am not sure what you are talking about. Science (plus a lot of educated scientific guesses) gets us from now until the big bang and philosophy and theology get us from there.
That is why I have used independant of time unless I forgot.
I didn't determine that. I am not that smart. I have just adopted a conclusion that scientists on both sides have overwhelmingly embraced. It is so concrete that it caused non-believers who didn't like the implications of the idea to invent fantastic tales of multi-verses and string theory which not only aren't proven or provable but according to them can never be proven. It was as if they were tired of everything in the universe implying God exists and so they created something that let's them off the hook that will never be shown wrong. Of course I am blowing this out of proportion but there is an element of truth in it.