Stop with the "who created God" argument it's bloody horrendous.

It's a sensible reply to the question 'Why is there something rather than nothing?' That question is often asked by people who believe that God is the origin of the universe. But the insistence that something can't come from nothing naturally begs the question of 'well where did your god come from then? It exists merely to point out both hypocrisy and the special reasoning fallacy that is often present in arguments of this nature.

Then you're talking to the wrong atheists. Even the Pope agrees that the big bang is how the universe started. He just believes god caused the big bang (which is a discussion for another topic).

You keep trying to push certain ideas without understanding what they mean: outside of time, strawmanning. You have no idea what any of these phrases mean.

You don't understand the Big Bang, clearly. But you do understand your own pseudo scientific "outside of time" malarkey?!?! I suppose it is easier to understand your own made up pseudo science than it is to understand peer reviewed science.

You people of faith have had your time. When you people were in charge we had the dark ages, burning witches, persecution of scientists.

You are of course free to believe in fairy tales but like I said, people of science will continue to advance human understanding while the old "God did it, innit" lot continue to try and hold us back.

The Big Bang theory is still the best explanation for the beginning of the universe. All you have to do is provide a repeatable, testable, valid experiment to add weight to your claims, otherwise you'll keep repeating "Um, err, god exists outside of time" and i'll repeat, "Well the big bang exists outside of the outside of time".

Big Bang 1 : god 0

Agreed.I'm willing to bet that science will cure the blind,the lame and even old age before religion ever does.

Who said religion cures the blind and the lame? No religion i can think of.

Posted from TSR Mobile

To be fair I didnt say that either.Jesus was supposed to have cured the blind and the lame.And christians preach everlasting life.The point is that science actually goes out and does stuff.We are curing the blind and have made progress on spinal injuries.And that is through science.Religion just teaches the same old stuff without doing anything real to solve problems.It says that you can have heaven and all you have to do is believe.But life isnt like that,if you want heaven then you have to actually work hard for it.Right here on earth.

Well yes but there's a difference between Jesus curing the blind and Christians healing the blind in the same way. I don't see what Christian ideas of everlasting life have to do with it? Or did you mean science will crack immortality when you said it will deal with old age?

You have been very uncharitable with that characterisation. Religion does not aim to go out and cure spinal injuries and neither does it aim for a heaven on earth either. It absolutely attempts to solve problems, regardless of whether you think they are successful or not. These tend to be ethical questions on; what counts as murder, when war is or could ever be justified (specifically attempting to solve ethical problems science often creates through the military), on topics like immigration and abortion. It attempts to address philosophical questions such as; how does a person's identity last through time? Does a person have any value? You could see how these are frequently linked as well.

I don't like using the term much, but you are simply comparing apples with oranges.

I did kind of mean that yes.At least I dont think immortality is really possible but I think we could certainly live longer than we do now.The point was that religion doesnt really offer solutions.For example take the question of creation.Religion gave us the myth of adam and eve.And it stuck to that myth for over a millenium.Science in the form of charles darwin,explained that humans came about through evolution.The church maintained that the sun went around the earth until copernicus came along to disprove that.Religion also held back medicine.The church banned dissection which meant no one could find out anything about the human body.You say religion offers solutions to moral problems but it doesn't really.Most catholics just cherrypick the parts of the bible they like.For example it condones slavery in the bible,christians ignore this.They use their conscience as a guide and that is where morals come from.We dont need religion for morals.We only need our conscience and empathy.

my argument isn't "who created god" - it's "who caused god"
if the universe has to have a cause, and that god happens to be that cause, and on top of this, we are following causal logic as a law-like entity, then logically, god *must* have been caused to cause the universe. if you're going to thep oint of assuming that the universe must have beencaused, then why not god? the universe is bold enough, right? well it seems then that god is nothing but a next step - he isn't necessary if you just take what a lot of cosmologists are saying - that the universe is essentially an uncaused phenomenon.

I mean, if there was literally no time or space before the universe, how on earth can you say something "caused" it? how can you "cause" space when you need space as the medium of causation? if there is no time to cause something within, then how can it be caused when a "cause" is an event in time? god is nothing but an unnecessary mythological joke of an explanation in 2016.

Well the evidence of a complex physical universe is higher on the hypothesis of theism than on the hypothesis of atheism. In other words, on theism, it is more probable that we should find a complex physical universe, than that the universe should exist uncaused (atheism). The choices are: an uncaused universe, or a universe caused by an uncaused God. And given that the latter is simpler, has greater explanatory power, and equal scope, and so if it is true, it is more likely we should find a physical universe than if it is false, the latter is the preferred terminus for explanation. This is how Swinburne argues at least.

complexity doesn't necessitate a creator though, or else, again, god himself, being complex enough to create a complex universe, must require a cause. and the latter certainly is not simpler - you must be joking - having a god is another factor to account for - so by definition, it is less simple when simply an uncaused universe would have been fine itself. also, the universe's complexity can actually be explained. and human beings are purely entities that came into existence by pure accident. that's not difficult to imagine, seeing as we have a certain tolerance for the conditions of this particular planet (in terms of oxygen, a certain level of gravity, etc) which happened to come around with the aid of *billions* of years of evolution. consider too the fact that the universe is only 13* billion years old, so it's not a short length of time by any means. it's just an inevitability that we exist when the conditions allowed for it. less, it's unlikely, but so what? if it wasn't meant to be, then it wasn't meant to be. but it was. so yeah. no god equation needed.

Simplicity has a specific meaning in philosophy of science, for instance, an explanation positing 1 entity than 2 is simpler than the latter. Degree of infinity is simpler than degrees of finite, hence a being of infinite power is simpler than a being of finite power etc.

That's what I mean by God being simple. And well if take hypothesis of theism, h, and the universe as evidence,e, the question is whether P(h|e and k(background knowledge)) > P(-h|e and k) then the existence of e increases the probability of h.

I can't give full justice to this baysian method in showing the existence of God to be more probable than not, but you should read 'the existence of God' by Swinburne, it's a comprehensive inductive case for theism, and worth a read for even non theist as its held in very high regard.

If the Big bang exists outside of the time, then it never happened. It is physical so you're just wasting your time because God does exist outside of time.

The definition of eternity, isn't pseudoscience, it's just physics - eternity isn't a lot of time, it's existing outside of time. But even if it isn't and it is a lot of time, that still makes sense for God but NEVER and it CAN'T make sense for the Big Bang.

You really don't understand what eternal first cause means, how can the Big bang be eternal or exist outside of time? If you're criticising someone for holding the belief, why do you think hypocrisy makes you look any better? You really just look like a fool that can't accept you got proven wrong.

You asked 'Why can't the Big Bang be the eternal first cause?' and as said, I proved you wrong

You know nothing of your own logic which simply contradicts itself. In terms of science, the Big Bang is to the beginning of the universe what evolution is to abiogenesis.

The reason why people think this can even count as an argument is because the majority of things around them, have been created - so they assume that the same must apply to The Creator. And yet this is just proof that there is an Eternal Creator as if this was the case everything you see would be created.

We know there must be an Eternal First Cause, as otherwise there would be an infinite regress, meaning that nothing at all would come to existence. Again I've explained above why the human mind might not think this could be possible.

Except christianity didn't offer the story of Adam and Eve as a scientific hypothesis for the creation of the human race (nor even the universe). This has been mainstream religious thought centuries before Darwin came along. It's demonstrably false that Christianity stuck with this myth as the literal creation story, as anyone with a brief understanding of Christian teaching on the subject through history will know.

Regarding the specific myths about Christianity and science, give this a read. It should at least give you pause that you are at best retreating caricatured and idiosyncratic history of Christianity and it's relationship with science;

http://www.strangenotions.com/gods-philosophers/

I think you are struggling when you assert that Catholics cherry pick parts of the bible, considering that Catholics can be considered rather conservative regarding things like homosexuality and divorce etc. It's also wrong that Christians simply ignore that biblical mentions of slavery, rather they argue that what was considered slavery in the societies mentioned in the bible are not what we consider slavery today. They may be wrong, but they provide arguments and exegesis on those passages to support their claims -they don't simply cherry pick.

It's also wrong to say that Christians get their morals from conscience (at least completely) when they have moral theories like divine command theory and extensive Natural law theories. Neither conscience nor empathy can establish ethical axioms like the worth of a person, a person's rights etc. it ends up falling into moral subjectivity which is hardly a solution.

sorry but that doesn't make any sense. you're saying that degrees of infinity are more simple than degrees of finity - infinity by definition is more complicated with reference to the number it constitutes. just because you can summon up the conception of infinity quicker than, say, the conception of 456,769,334,632,543,453,775,632,201, is totally irrelevant. it's like saying "this huge skyscraper is more simple than this tiny bungalow simply because I have a better idea of the dimensions of the skyscraper based on its simple design - that doesn't literally make it a more simple entity.



what on earth are you talking about? is this really necessary? you expect me to just happen to know what "e" or "k", for instance, constitute here?



if it's using your understanding of simplicity/complexity then I've already toild you how it doesn't make sense

It's not just the way I use it it's how it's used in contemporary philosophy of science. Anyway, like I said I can't give full justice to a book length treatment here, and I am not a theist either

The argument you put forth against the Big Bang is one that can be applied to god. If god exists outside of time, then he never happened.

And I never said the big bang exists outside of time, I said it exists outside of the outside of time, in a place that god can't reach. This claim has just as much validity as yours.



Stating eternity is outside of time is a contradiction in terms. Eternity is an application of the concept of time and so can't exist outside of time.

I know you can't make sense of the big bang theory and so have latched on to this 'outside of time' malarkey. It is why you hold onto the god delusion. But you don't have to concern yourself with that. The rest of scientifically literate people can make sense of it.



I (and i'm sure many other people on this thread) don't think even you understand your own thought process. I understand the imaginary concept of eternal first cause. The problem is that you think it's a real concept.




There's no hypocrisy. I will always be an advocate for truth, not belief. Belief doesn't require facts or evidence. It's something that can help justify peoples own misunderstanding of the world. And we've all seen how someone's beliefs can cause so much harm and damage (although I don't think your misguided belief have harmed anyone).



If you think what you mentioned can in any way be considered proof, then you have no chance at any academic institution. Although I do hope you'll educate yourself as education is important.

I very much know my own logic. What i've been spouting is not my logic but your logic ('outside of time' / outside of the outside of time'. I've merely reflected your own logic back at you and when I do you can see that it makes no sense. But when you look at your own exact logic it some how makes sense. We'll work on your sense of logic together.

Agreed.I'm willing to bet that science will cure the blind,the lame and even old age before religion ever does.