Was the universe created by God?

[pamela]

posted by infinitenow

I'm gonna go ahead and support Eclipse Now by posting something I wrote here way back in November 2006.

 

Strange wording here as if i am not in support of Eclipse? Read the posts carefully, we are not at odds

 

The point is, their truth is absolute in the eyes of a believer, yet the truths of one religion directly contradict the truth of the other religion. Ergo, one or (much more likely) both of them are flat out, undeniably, without quesiton... WRONG.

No it's not the point, it's your point

Care to prove how they are wrong? Be specific, was Jesus crucified or was he hanging out on the side lines incognito?

[Eclipse Now]

Pamella,

It's very hard to "prove" anything in the philosophical realm, and I'd suggest dropping the term in what is largely a metaphysical debate. We are in a science forum, but this conversation has just jumped outside of the realm of science and so.... I'm not sure that "prove" which has a very scientific use is of much help.

 

But I can voice my reasons for accepting one proposition of the philosophical / metaphysical nature over the other, and that's where tolerance and "being nice" really kicks in. So, I can say that for various philosophical and historical rationale I find Christianity and the New Testament records more compelling than the Koran, for one example.

 

Therefore, let each one believe as they will.

I do. However, you appear to be turning "let each believe as they will" into "Don't talk about what you believe with anyone, ever, in case someone's feelings are hurt". If I believe someone might miss out on even a chance of being friends with God and having eternal life, is it loving for me, with my belief system, to avoid telling them about this in case their feelings are temporarily hurt?

 

you don't have to accept any one's beliefs, no one is asking you to.

Funny, somehow using the terms logic and meaningless platitudes together, just doesn't quite fit. They defy each other.

I don't understand why? Logic has some very specific rules.

Logic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I was not exactly responding to something you actually said... I guess I was responding to a very common misunderstanding of the word "tolerance" which I hear in Australia... "but everything is true these days...." which is not "tolerance" but intellectual laziness.

 

 

Hi iNow,

not our usual area of correspondence so I hope I don't cause any offence! I sometimes become sarcastic if feeling defensive, so I hope I don't do that here... that would be a disaster. I value our occasional online chats.

 

I guess the real situation is even worse than you describe... it's not person A and B but all the way through to XYZ! However, some exercises have helped narrow the gap of metaphysical possibility for me... although it's been a long time since I've had to do this kind of work. (I've been busy with the oil thang. :phones:

 

I can understand strong differences of opinion over religion leading to cynicism that any of them could be right, but does that necessitate that atheism is correct and the universe just existed forever somehow, in a 'cause and effect' universe at that? What was the original cause?

 

Anyway, most ancient cultures had the cosmology of the universe wrong, and had all sorts of different ideas about that cosmology, but that didn't mean that there was no correct cosmology. :)

[pamela]

originally posted by eclipse

Pamella,

It's very hard to "prove" anything in the philosophical realm, and I'd suggest dropping the term in what is largely a metaphysical debate. We are in a science forum, but this conversation has just jumped outside of the realm of science and so.... I'm not sure that "prove" which has a very scientific use is of much help

I am fully aware of that, but infinite has stated that both Christianity and Islams statements are incorrect as far as the crucifixion. If he is to make such a claim as to being WRONG, then he has to back it up. It is the forums rules

I do. However, you appear to be turning "let each believe as they will" into "Don't talk about what you believe with anyone, ever, in case someone's feelings are hurt". If I believe someone might miss out on even a chance of being friends with God and having eternal life, is it loving for me, with my belief system, to avoid telling them about this in case their feelings are temporarily hurt?

this is your conjecture- where have i said this????? share whatever you want and with whom.

[Eclipse Now]

I apologise if I'm critiquing something you never actually said... I'll go back and check later.... only got a minute as I'm about to go to dinner....

 

I am fully aware of that, but infinite has stated that both Christianity and Islams statements are incorrect as far as the crucifixion. If he is to make such a claim as to being WRONG, then he has to back it up. It is the forums rules

I don't think he said it about anything specific, just claims to absolute truth make him cynical about it because there are so many of them. That could apply to the crucifixion debate, one God / many gods / no god debate, god wants us all to be vegetarian / live in a treehouse / crawl 10 miles on our belly each year / bathe in a certain river / kill people / whatever debate, or any other debate you care to name.

[freeztar]

I can understand strong differences of opinion over religion leading to cynicism that any of them could be right, but does that necessitate that atheism is correct and the universe just existed forever somehow, in a 'cause and effect' universe at that? What was the original cause?

 

No one knows what the "original cause" was. Scientifically, it has been theorized that the universe came into being due to vacuum energy or loop quantum gravity.

 

In my personal opinion, agnosticism is the only valid approach to cosmology.

Anyway, most ancient cultures had the cosmology of the universe wrong

 

This assumes there is a "correct" cosmology. :phones:

 

that didn't mean that there was no correct cosmology. :)

 

We may never come to know the "correct" cosmology. Assuming one model over the other (regardless of which model) is still assumption. This is precisely why I love science so much, and reject the idea of a Creator.

[pamela]

originally posted by eclipse

I don't think he said it about anything specific, just claims to absolute truth make him cynical about it because there are so many of them. That could apply to the crucifixion debate, one God / many gods / no god debate, god wants us all to be vegetarian / live in a treehouse / crawl 10 miles on our belly each year / bathe in a certain river / kill people / whatever debate, or any other debate you care to name.

maybe so, but the original comment made by you was in reference to the difference in crucified or not. He of course cannot prove it either way, my point was to not just throw the word wrong out there, without having something to back it up

[Eclipse Now]

In my personal opinion, agnosticism is the only valid approach to cosmology.

Agnosticism is a philosophical & metaphysical statement about the existence of God, which by definition is not a scientific question, where cosmology is. It's like trying to speak Japanese with a German dictionary, or fix the toaster with a microwave manual.

[InfiniteNow]

maybe so, but the original comment made by you was in reference to the difference in crucified or not. He of course cannot prove it either way, my point was to not just throw the word wrong out there, without having something to back it up

 

I'm having a difficult time figuring out which part of the logic escapes you.

 

Person A: Absolute truth = X

Person B: Absolute truth = Y

 

Person C: Clearly, one or both of you is wrong.

 

 

Where are you struggling?

[pamela]

I am not struggling, I thought your reference was to the original comment of the dispute between crucified or not. Did you not read that? You were simply adding to the contradictory and not the literal crucifixion aspect.

[freeztar]

Agnosticism is a philosophical & metaphysical statement about the existence of God, which by definition is not a scientific question, where cosmology is. It's like trying to speak Japanese with a German dictionary, or fix the toaster with a microwave manual.

 

Cosmology is a study of the universe. In regards to the title of this thread, I don't understand your dispute.

 

Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), study of the Universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, and religion.

[modest]

Christianity and Islam cannot both be true because they are both mutually contradictory. This is a fact. It's not 'What's true for me..." because the universe doesn't operate that way.

 

I agree.

 

The only definition of God that passes the smell test places god entirely in the metaphysical realm. There can be no evidence for or against God.

 

So, one group of people (Muslims) have one set of metaphysical beliefs which are based on no evidence and another group of people (Christians) have another set of metaphysical beliefs based on no evidence. Logic demands that both cannot be true regardless if neither has any epistemology.

 

Where I think Eclipse Now is going wrong is assuming there must be some truth (or a truth) in the subject that these philosophies address.

 

If a person flips a coin and covers it before heads or tails can be discerned then the people watching would have no way to know if the coin landed heads or tails. Perhaps one person believes the coin has landed heads while another observer believes it landed tails. It is easy in this case for the person believing heads to be tolerant of the person believing tails as they both should realize their belief is a guess. Neither has evidence for their belief, but knowledge about the situation demands the coin is either heads-up or tails-up.

 

In the case of religion, logic demands no such thing. Will a person go to heaven or hell when they die? While it logically can't be both, that says nothing of the ontology of heaven and hell in the first place. It should be even easier in this case to be tolerant of another's belief than it was in the case of the coin toss because there's now no evidence for the coin at all.

 

One person is saying there's an invisible coin for which no evidence can be found which is face-up. Another person says there's an invisible coin that's face-down. Of all the things these two people could argue about, this really should be the last one on the list.

 

~modest

[Eclipse Now]

That's assuming that God is completely outside of space/time and has never entered it. Then your analogy would be entirely appropriate, and we would have absolutely no evidence. Now the word "evidence" is of course another word we have to be careful about. Usually it revolves around things you can test and put into test tubes etc.... "and we add 5 mils of "God" into the test tube, pour in hydrochloric acid, and kaboom! The "god particle" explodes outwards at a velocity of...."

 

... and maybe not.... :hihi:

 

So when I say "evidence" I'm speaking of another discipline, namely history. There are some "natural philosophy" arguments which are fairly helpful, but not quite as convincing to me and feel like so many words piled up on so many contrived words to reach a certain outcome. But now we come to it. This is where Christianity puts its neck on the chopping block, so to speak. (As my friend Dr John Dickson from the Centre for Public Christianity likes to say). For Christianity claims that God visited our dimension in person, in the incarnate, fully-human-yet-fully-God person of Jesus, God's son.

 

So now we have a historical claim and a totally different ballgame. Our approach to history is not "repeatable, demonstrable, falsifiable, testable scientific method..." but "what was the most probable event back then." We actually have to LIVE by this kind of logic every day.

 

EG: When heading into a building we've never been in before say, to meet a potential new employer, we walk in the front door and head to the elevator. Generally, we do this without any panic. But did we speak to the engineer of that elevator? Did we analyse the elevator, and check the elevator's maintenance log? How do we know the elevator works and won't suddenly collapse to our deaths? We just made a decision that could affect our whole lives on the basis of... what exactly? "Good enough" applied experience? Is that what we'll call it? Because if we cannot get into a "new" elevator in our lives without calling up the engineer etc, they call that obsessive-compulsive disorder, and that's "As Good as it Gets". :hihi: (Go Jack Nicholson!)

 

I'm not talking about "blind faith" as in the coin example above, which was a good example if god had never visited this world. I'm talking about "good enough" evidence, and there does seem "good enough" historical evidence for Jesus existence, his claims, his actions, and the basics of the NT teachings all from non-Christian historical sources.

 

The major problem for many is a preconception that their scientific method has already disproved god, or the possibility of any evidence for god. And if they are unwilling to give up the scientific method for testing the god hypothesis, then maybe then agnosticism is the only result they can come to... but that's pulling down the shutters VERY firmly on whole other disciplines of human investigation into truth.

 

Then when one uses both the "natural philosophy" arguments of CS Lewis and friends with History, it seems "good enough" to me, at least to get into this particular elevator.

 

Try this... the "science and Christianity" section has some useful stuff, as does the History section. These are personal mates of mine, I can vouch for their integrity... as much as any one human being can do that for another. I'm also impressed that unlike many other apologists, especially the American TV evangelist styled super-hero, these guys try very hard not to OVERSTATE a claim either. They tend not to use History to make "Absolute" claims, but "most probable" claims.

 

Anyway, if you feel enticed by my info-mercial for their site let me know what you think about various articles. (Their site is pretty cool and received a glowing endorsement from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on their Institute's opening night — which was held in an Australian pub of course!)

Library

[modest]

That's assuming that God is completely outside of space/time and has never entered it. Then your analogy would be entirely appropriate, and we would have absolutely no evidence.

 

Right. Any definition of God that includes something falsifiable can then be tested. It is no longer a matter of answering metaphysical questions using logic (rationalism), but rather a matter of empiricism. As Kant rather-well proved, rationalist claims about the metaphysical don't hold water.

 

So, what definition are we going to give to god? Your previous post implies that the existence of a human being named Jesus has some bearing on God's existence. If there was a Jesus then there is a God—kind of thing. That is wholly illogical. I might as well say, if there was a Mohammad then there is an Allah. But we've already established that conflicting metaphysical claims can't both be correct. These are known as antinomies. It means we've gone wrong somewhere.

 

Where we've gone wrong is thinking the existence of Jesus implies the truth of Jesus' message. If our definition of God includes something non-empirical about a fella named Jesus then the definition of God remains equally metaphysical.

 

~modest

[Eclipse Now]

The existence of Jesus and the existence of his claims are historical questions. What do we do about this claims? How can we know what they really were if we don't like the NT and think it was written from a biased point of view? What do we do about the non-Christian bias in non-Christian historical sources of the same era? These are historical questions. Then we come down to it... did Jesus really claim to be God, did he really heal people, did he really rise from death? Even the Apostle Paul admits in one of this letters that if Jesus did not rise from death, that's it, we may as well "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die".

 

But how do we begin to approach this historical issue if our over-riding personal assumption is that there is no God, because we've decided that we want God to demonstrate Himself in a test-tube or "empirically" not historically?

 

What if God really has sent you a letter, but it requires history, not science, to verify it?

[freeztar]

What if God really has sent you a letter, but it requires history, not science, to verify it?

 

I'd tell God to get with the times and use email. :hihi:

 

In seriousness, history is just a recorded memory of the past. Throughout history there are claims of ufos and alien visitors. Should we accept these historical accounts as truth? Anybody with some pigment and creativity can draw images of flying saucers in a cave. It does not make it true.

 

That's the beauty of science! Science can deduce something about the cave painter by carbon dating the pigments, analyzing the geology of the cave, etc. This can give us a lot of historical data, but it doesn't prove that alien saucers have visited Earth. Fables from history do not equal truth.

[REASON]

It seems clear to me that historical claims that cannot be verified are no different than contemporary claims that cannot be verified. Each remain speculative.

 

Yet the fact remains that many people have chosen to believe the truth of these matters despite their lack of verification. I think this is only true because people feel there is something to be gained by owning these beliefs.

 

The question of this thread will remain eternally unanswerable.

 

But we can understand what people feel they are gaining with their belief in god.

[modest]

What do we do about the non-Christian bias in non-Christian historical sources of the same era?

What sources of the same era? The only other possible source regarding Jesus from the time of Jesus that I know of is from Josephus. It doesn't seem possible that's what your referring to—maybe Tacitus... but I'm not sure that would be "of the same era".

 

These are historical questions. Then we come down to it... did Jesus really claim to be God,

 

A lot of people claim to be God. A lot of people claim to be the reincarnated spirit of the dead :hihi:

 

did he really heal people, did he really rise from death? Even the Apostle Paul admits in one of this letters that if Jesus did not rise from death, that's it, we may as well "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die".

 

Did Buddha levitate? Are the well-documented miracles performed by Vespasian to be believed? Does the following historical account support the existence of the god Serapis?:

 

One of the common people of Alexandria, well known for his blindness, threw himself at the Emperor's knees, and implored him with groans to heal his infirmity. This he did by the advice of the God Serapis, whom this nation, devoted as it is to many superstitions, worships more than any other divinity... Another with a diseased hand, at the counsel of the same God, prayed that the limb might feel the print of a Caesar's foot. At first Vespasian ridiculed and repulsed them. They persisted... And so Vespasian, supposing that all things were possible to his good fortune, and that nothing was any longer past belief, with a joyful countenance, amid the intense expectation of the multitude of bystanders, accomplished what was required. The hand was instantly restored to its use, and the light of day again shone upon the blind. Persons actually present attest both facts, even now when nothing is to be gained by falsehood.

 

-

Tacitus: History Book 4 [80 AD]

 

Once again, you have introduced an antinomy stemming from illogical reasoning. Historical claims are not empirical simply for being historic. That the claim was made is not the same as the claim being true (or even falsifiable).

 

~modest