God2


 * Can you tell me how Aquinas' Argument from Degree proves the existence of god? I bet you can't.

The Argument from Degree says a bachelor has a least dirty shirt in his apartment, which is a tautology, but it doesn't follow that he has a clean shirt. The being with the greatest perfection is not necessarily a being with infinite perfection.

Modern cosmology says that the universe had a beginning. The bible says so too. God is the uncaused "cause" of the universe. If the universe is not eternal, it had to have a cause.
 * Creationists believe there is a first cause that is eternal - either God, or the universe.

The concept of "eternity" depends on a discredited view of absolute time. Space-time (also known as the gravitational field) is part and parcel of the universe that had a beginning. It follows, then, that the universe is both finite in duration yet has also existed for all time.


 * I don’t even know what you mean by “Absolute Being.” Necessary Being more indicates the fact that God necessarily exists than the fact that His essence is existence.

We have discovered that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed (ie. from mass to motion). This makes the universe itself a necessary being. If you add a necessary creator being into the mix William of Ockham will "Tut tut" from on high.


 * I don’t even know what you mean by “Absolute Being.” Necessary Being more indicates the fact that God necessarily exists than the fact that His essence is existence.

Essence is the set of attributes pertaining to a thing (ie. a stone has the essence of hardness and weight). You claim that God has the necessary attribute of existence. However, existence itself is not an attribute. First you have a thing, then you may speak of its attributes.


 * Technically, the Gospels and the Epistles are corroborating accounts, but you find a way to reject it anyway. So I don’t think the number of sources has anything to do with it. And our expectations regarding what we think God would do does place a role in whether we think it...

Gospels:

"Good Master, what shall I do that I may have eternal life?"

"If thou wilt enter into life keep the commandments."

Epistles:

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law."

And that pretty much wraps it up for corroboration.


 * The Teleological Argument is actually about the per se cause of the tendency of each creature to an end. The origin of species via evolution is completely irrelevant, as evolution is a per accidens cause.

Natural selection and deep time results in the simulacrum of design. Aquatic mammals resemble fish because their form, after many reproductive iterations, is optimal for their environment. A valid argument from design must first rule out whether the design is merely apparent.


 * Uh, Paul describes Himself as an Apostle, so he does actually indicate that he at least received instruction from Jesus after His death, which is of course described in more detail in Luke.

Matthias was selected to replace Judas.

In Luke 22:30 Christ says, "That ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."

Does that mean Matthias gets to boot to make room for Paul, or does it mean Paul is not an Apostle?


 * The argument from evil against the existence of God is unsound — the force it carries is purely emotional, not reasonable.

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." - God

"The LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he doeth." - Daniel

'Nuff said.


 * I bet you don’t even know the most proper definition of God traditionally.

Traditionally the Hebrews were henotheists who believed in the existence of many gods, but were loyal to the god of Abraham. Then Yahweh was defeated by Marduk and the priests on the Babylonian Vacation reinvented the word to mean the lord of all, and deprecated the others.


 * "The English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the word agnostic in 1869, and said "It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe." Huxley is wrong on that. Is that clear now?

Q. Will you answer one simple question?

Atheist: Yes Theist: Yes Agnostic: No

Q. Do you believe in the existence of God?

Atheist: No Theist: Yes Agnostic:


 * You’ve just generated an infinite loop problem… what is your “contingent cause” contingent on?

Girl: Why is the sky blue, Daddy?

Dad: "Air molecules scatter mostly green and blue sunlight.

Girl: "Why not red and orange sunlight?"

Dad: "It goes straight in."

Girl: "Why does it do that?"

Dad (sighs): "God made it that way. End of subject!"


 * DS would never say God literally became a contingent being. But as per Brown this is exactly what the text states.

Jesus said only the Father knew the timing of the Day of the Lord, not the Son. If God the Son shared this knowledge before the incarnation, then he lost the knowledge, which only a contingent being can do. If God the Son never shared the knowledge, then the Trinity is not One.


 * The unity between the divine nature and the human nature occurs in the person. The divine nature and the human nature still remains distinct, and so the human nature is contingent, and the divine nature is noncontingent

This unity occurs in linear time. There was a moment when God the Son was not a person with two natures, and there was a subsequent moment when God the Son was a person with two natures. So the personhood of God is itself contingent, while the personhood of the Father is not.


 * Because the Woman was "touch" and infected by serpent malice, she now cannot resist the concupiscence. Do you think sexual procreation is the sin that Adam & Eve committed in the garden, a Temple of God? They defiled the Temple of God, that's why they were cast out.

I think it was because God said the fruit was fatal within 24 hours, and Satan said the fruit was, rather, brain food, so Eve carried out a scientific experiment to find out who was lying, with Adam as a control group to rule out sex-based differences. The result: brain food.


 * Yes I noticed that too...if you carefully read the verses before after like you say it says the tomb Abraham bought was in Shechem when it was really in Hebron which appears to be roughly 30 miles away I dont see any way around that being simply the author of Acts made a mistake.

Christian apologists: "Hebron was called Sechem spiritually."

Atheists: "And the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14?"

Apologists: "Jesus was called Immanuel spiritually."

Atheists: "Wasn't Adam and Eve supposed to die the day they ate the fruit?"

Apologists: "They died spiritually."


 * "If a thing is observed to exist, that observation is evidence of the existence of that thing." Correct. "The putative cause of that thing is a deduction, and deductions are not evidence" Logical deductions are evidence for sure.

Evidence of speciation is fertility data recorded after crossing members of two populations. When the fertility of the offspring of those crosses approaches zero, this is justification for belief in speciation. But the analytic process of coming to belief is not evidence eo ispo.


 * Aquinas logic in this argument is only for bypassing an infinite regress of contingent intelligent sources and to arrive at a non-contingent intelligent source.

Time is part of space-time, and space-time is the gravitational field. That means time and the universe began together. That, in turn, means infinite regress is not a problem.


 * “Natural Law” is nothing but a euphemism for Roman Catholic dogma. It deserves all the same epistemic respect as transubstantiation, the creepy RCC belief that communion wafers magically become the literal flesh of Jesus.

Except that we had a priest who was an alcoholic, so the diocese made him use grape juice (mustum) to consecrate along with normal wine for the rest of the congregation. He assured us it still "worked", but if it really changed into Jesus' blood there wouldn't be alcohol, right?


 * Religion stunts its adherents’ moral growth. Rather than being able to apply moral reasoning, people like Val are taught to understand morality as pure obedience to church authority. Leaving them tragically unable to participate meaningfully in discourse surrounding moral values.

Christians reduce ethics to the contentless tribalism of a boo-hooray theory. Boo for the Forty-Niners, yay for the Seahawks. Boo for communism, yay for capitalism. Islam = evil, Christianity = good.


 * Well, our Lord was nailed on a wood. So, it totally makes sense why a wood-related prayer was answered that fast.

Prayer is a vestige held over from a time when men thought they could bribe their local gods to bring good weather for their crops and what-have-you. After God became "eternal" with a "perfect plan" it's downright blasphemous to ask him to change it.


 * News Flash: God is the supplier of the sense of justice that atheists employ against His existence. Anonymous

God's justice: "If a man sells his daughter as a female slave, she is not to go free as the male slaves do."

Atheists justice: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall exist within the United States."


 * It’s as bad as theodicists who claim “God didn’t intend that slavery would be forever. He knew that we’d eventually get rid of it!”

God himself commanded that female slaves must never go free (Exodus 21:7). This isn't a problem for Christians, because God also commanded male circumcision and no eating swine.


 * A true and critical review of the universe, reality, and the Bible leads to belief. Any other outcome shows a lack of understanding

Bible: Water preceded the stars by four days.

Reality: Water contains oxygen, which was cooked up from H, He, Li, and Be by Population I stars which subsequently exploded and scattered the atoms throughout space.


 * The Bible, at least from my point of view, is an amalgamation of different genres. Some we can take as pure fiction, while others not so much. I think the issue with both atheists and Biblical literalists is when they try to push it as all one way or the other.

Atheist: "Genesis says Eve listened to a talking snake."

Believer: "That was pure fiction."

Atheist: "It also says murderers must be put to death."

Believer: "That's a very important doctrine."

Atheist: "But it's the same book!"

It is guaranteed in an infinite amount of time.
 * 2nd law of thermodynamics says heat death is inevitable in a long but finite amount of time.

1st law of thermodynamics says you can't have light by just saying, "Let there be light."


 * The universe is not eternal neither is matter and energy. The reason why you believe that is because the bible says it had a beginning. If the bible says the universe was eternal you would vehemently scream it had a beginning

If "eternal" means that something has existed across the entire domain of elapsed time, then the universe is eternal. If eternal means that there is no moment without a prior moment, then the universe is not eternal, but you have other problems.


 * 3rd Nephi in The Book of Mormon another Testament of Jesus Christ, gives one of the most accurate descriptions of the character of Christ you can find in any scripture.

Sure. The "Prince of Peace" set Zarahemla on fire and sank Moroni into the sea. He made a volcano erupt inside Moronihah and killed thousands of people. In the Bible he flipped some tables and maybe called some people whited sepulchers but he never killed anyone.


 * I define nothing as nothing. I had a discussion with an Atheist, who since blocked me, and he said there's a colloquial nothing and a scientific nothing. Quantum fluctuations are a something and nothing is still nothing.

Nothing is zero field flux at all scales, which of course is impossible because as you pin down a position with greater accuracy you know less about the field flux that exists there.


 * So what was before the big bang? Quantum Foam? Lmao! You do not know? 😅 So matter and energy must have created itself? How? Some idiots on this feed claim matter and energy is eternal.


 * The word "before" did not apply prior to the initial expansion of the singularity because that is also when time became operational.


 * Of course water was created where did it come from?

Water is co-eternal with God. He divided them with a firmament he called Heaven (Genesis 1:7), then divided the waters below to create land, which he called Earth (Genesis 1:10). If you say the waters were part of the Earth he created in Genesis 1:1 then there's two Earths.