Reasons why i am a theist

[Javan502]

The reason I find 1) unconvincing is because the implied claim that God is the FIRST cause seems arbitrary. ie; if nothing caused God, then it's not true that EVERYTHING has a cause.

Neither have i said that. Everything that begins to exist, has a cause.

2) The fact that life is very improbable isn't itself evidence of God. .

Of course it is evidence of God. Why do you believe, chance is a better explanation, faced the improbabilities ?

[panama]

Neither have i said that. Everything that begins to exist, has a cause.



Of course it is evidence of God. Why do you believe, chance is a better explanation, faced the improbabilities ?

Chance is a better explanation. Like most people you do not understand probability. Lots and lots of improbable things exist/occur every day. You are one of those improbable things.

[brianp]

Neither have i said that. Everything that begins to exist, has a cause.

Perhaps the universe has always existed.

Of course it is evidence of God. Why do you believe, chance is a better explanation, faced the improbabilities ?

No, life is evidence that, given enough tries/enough time, even the most improbable events can occur. As someone else pointed out, winning the lottery is improbable - yet almost every week someone wins. Is that evidence of God? Of magic? Of fairies? Of course not! It's just what mathematics tells us is bound to happen.

Life has had 4 billion years to get going on earth and evolve. Plenty of time for the known laws of nature (maths/physics/natural selection etc) to mindlessly produce our earth and the millions of species of plants and animals we see around us, including, of course, ourselves. You don't need to invoke your magic sky daddy.

[Javan502]

Perhaps the universe has always existed.



No, life is evidence that, given enough tries/enough time, even the most improbable events can occur. As someone else pointed out, winning the lottery is improbable - yet almost every week someone wins. Is that evidence of God? Of magic? Of fairies? Of course not! It's just what mathematics tells us is bound to happen.

Life has had 4 billion years to get going on earth and evolve. Plenty of time for the known laws of nature (maths/physics/natural selection etc) to mindlessly produce our earth and the millions of species of plants and animals we see around us, including, of course, ourselves. You don't need to invoke your magic sky daddy.

Why in first place should nature try to create life at all ?
the natural laws did not exist beyond the Universe. They had to be created as well.
And no, chance is a VERY bad explanation. Why are you so credulous, and not skeptic about chance as a good explanation ?

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astr...m-t180.htm#492

Probability Estimate for Attaining the Necessary Characteristics for a Life Support Body

less than 1 chance in 10^282(million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion) exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles.

SIZE AND GRAVITY: There is a range for the size of a planet and it gravity which supports life and it is small. A planet the size of Jupiter would have gravity that would crush any life form, and any high order carbon molecules, out of existence.
WATER: Without a sufficient amount of water, life could not exist.
ATMOSPHERE: Not only must a planet have an atmosphere, it must have a certain percentage of certain gasses to permit life. On earth the air we breath is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% argon and carbon dioxide. Without the 78% nitrogen to “blanket’ the combustion of oxygen, our world would ‘burn up’ from oxidation. Nitrogen inhibits combustion and permits life to flourish. No other planet comes close to this makeup of atmosphere.
OXYGEN: The range of oxygen level in the atmosphere that permits life can be fairly broad, but oxygen is definitely necessary for life.
RARE EARTHS MINERALS: Many chemical processes necessary for life are dependent on elements we call ‘rare earth’ minerals. These only exist as ‘trace’ amounts, but without which life could not continue.
THE SUN: Our sun is an average star in both composition and size. The larger a star is the faster it burns out. It would take longer for life to develop than those larger stars would exist. Smaller stars last longer but do not develop properly to give off the heat and radiation necessary to sustain life on any planets that form. The smaller the star the less likely it will form a planetary system at all.
DISTANCE FROM THE SUN: To have a planet with a surface temperature within the bounds for life, it must be within the ‘biosphere’ of a star, a temperate zone of a given distance from the source of radiation and heat. That would depend on the size of the star. For an average star the size of our sun, that distance would be about 60 to 150 million miles.
RADIOACTIVITY: Without radioactivity, the earth would have cooled to a cold rock 3 billion years ago. Radioactivity is responsible for the volcanism, and heat generated in the interior of the earth. Volcanism is responsible for many of the rare elements we need as well as the oxygen in the air. Most rocky planets have some radioactivity.
DISTANCE AND PLACEMENT FROM THE GALACTIC CENTER: We receive very little of the x-rays and gamma rays given off from the galactic center, that would affect all life and its development on earth. We live on the outer rim of the Milky Way, in a less dense portion of the galaxy, away from the noise, dust, and dangers of the interior.
THE OZONE LAYER: Animal life on land survives because of the ozone layer which shields the ultraviolet rays from reaching the earth’s surface. The ozone layer would never have formed without oxygen reaching a given level of density in the atmosphere. A planet with less oxygen would not have an ozone layer.
VOLCANIC ACTIVITY: Volcanic activity is responsible for bringing heaver elements and gasses to the surface, as well as oxygen. Without this activity, the planet would never have sustained life in the first place.
EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD: We are bombarded daily with deadly rays from the sun, but are protected by the earth’s magnetic field.
SEASONS: Because of the earths tilt, we have seasons, and no part of the earth is extremely hot or cold. The seasons have balancing effect of the temperature on the surface and cause the winds and sea currents which we and all life depend on for a temperate climate.
THE MOON: We have the tides that are very important for some species, but the very early collision of a smaller Mars sized planet and the earth is what caused the moon. It also tilted the earth on its axis and caused seasons. The earth and moon should more accurately be called a ‘two-planet’ system, as the size of earth’s moon is greatly larger in proportion to the earth, than any other planet. The moon early in its existence also shielded the earth from bombardment by meteor showers that were devastating. The craters on the moon are the evidence of that factor. No other planet has undergone such a unique event in its history.

[ZERO]

How do you explain where guilt comes from? How do you explain why
all people in the world have this feeling called a conscience that
seems to tell them that something is wrong, such as murder. How come
people feel a heavy weight on their emotions called guilt when they do
something wrong, such as lie and steal, and the best thing to do to
take the weight off themselves is to tell the truth and/or ask for
forgiveness. If God doesn't exist, then how could you rationally
explain all that?

For animals that live in societies like humans and apes it is unsurprising that instictual behaviour beneficial to the group would evole. A group that usually works togeather rather than always in competion is likely to be better off.
Altruism, empathy and so on is found in many social animals and evoltionary factors explain it's developement quite nicely.

[Javan502]

evoltionary factors explain it's developement quite nicely.

explain it then, please. And show me, that animals can feel guilt, as well.

[ZERO]

explain it then, please. And show me, that animals can feel guilt, as well.

"A group that usually works togeather rather than always in competion is likely to be better off."
Does that not make sense?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality

There you go, just to start you off.

[Javan502]

"A group that usually works togeather rather than always in competion is likely to be better off."
Does that not make sense?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_in_animals

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality

There you go, just to start you off.

your links don't show that animals can feel guilt. Wanna try again ?

[Pebble]

The improbability argument is wonderful if followed to its logical conclusion. Any individuals existence is too improbable to calcualte - even their father produced trillions of sperm throughout their life and if any other sperm had succeeded, or if his mother had a headache that night, or if a different egg had matured, or she had met a different man at the right time etc - that individual would not exist.

Reaching any given point at a specific time in history results from a series of improbable events. If they ahd been going a little faster when a car unexpectedly crossed the road, they would have died and not been around etc.

So when a random killer happens to turn a corner that an innocent by stander happens to have also reached at the same time, this is a culmination of so many improbable events, that only a guiding hand could have led them there.

It follows first that there is no free will, since any different decisions throughout both their lives would have led to a different outcome, had they not been personally selected for existence at exactly that time. Further god has decided that x will savagly murder y on that day in that way. Guilt? Why bother knowing all that.

[Tony Williams]

Mildly entertaining, but an exercise in futility guys. When someone believes so firmly that he knows all the answers, because they were written down in the distant past by people who knew virtually nothing about the universe, then trying to ask for evidence or argue logically with him is pointless.

Anyone who can dismiss the overwhelming evidence from many branches of knowledge concerning the great age and slow development of life, this planet and the universe, is incapable of rational argument.

The latest issue of the New Scientist contains an item concerning a recalculation of the age of the Solar System on the basis of uranium isotope decay in meteorite inclusions, formed when gases cooled to form the sun and planets. The result: 4.5682 billion years.

[smudge]

of course. Nobody created God. He always was.
God has always existed, independent from anything he created.Since God, by definition, is the creator of the whole universe, he is the creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time God is the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity (Isaiah 57:15). Therefore He doesn't have a cause.

That is no argument and makes no sense. If you assume God always existed you just aswell say the universe did.

The question is tricky because it sneaks in the false assumption that God came from somewhere and then asks where that might be.

No. It's tricky because you don't have a sensible answer.

have you read the bible ?

Of course.

How do you explain where guilt comes from? If God doesn't exist, then how could you rationally
explain all that?

I was asking how you justified a belief, let alone worship, of a supreme all powerful creator who either allows or causes things like child rape and the floods you may have seen on the news recently.
You duck my question and ask me an irrelevant one.
Human consciousness or guilt in no way leads to conclusion; "magic man in sky".

If life ends at the grave, then it makes no difference whether one has lived as a Stalin or as a saint.

Well what a shame. The universe is not built how Javan thinks it should be. Sad for you.
We all have to come to terms with reality at some point. Don't take it too hard. There is no Santa Cause either I'm afraid.

Your biggest sin from a forum perspective - is that you have become boring.

Yes. Very boring very quickly.

Mildly entertaining, but an exercise in futility guys. When someone believes so firmly that he knows all the answers, because they were written down in the distant past by people who knew virtually nothing about the universe, then trying to ask for evidence or argue logically with him is pointless.

I think you might be right Tony.

[skbuncks]

In the words of Douglas Adams

. . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be all right, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.

...and some further reading which won't be understood.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI301.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

skb

[asthmatic camel]

Javan, you ask others if they have read the bible. Most of us will have done so at some stage.

Have you read the bible and given its contents any serious consideration? Do you honestly believe in the Genesis story? Do you really believe that Noah managed to fit two of every creature on his ark? If you do, then you're a fool. If you don't, then why do you accept the rest of it as truth?

[Harryprice]

Am I right in thinking the essential argument here is that, because not everything about the universe and its origins and evolution is currently known, it must be a god responsible by default? Why should it not be chance, by default? We know chance exists while there is no compelling evidence that any god exists (books written by many, largely unknown, people a long time ago saying there are gods does not constitute such evidence). You may say the odds are against our universe happening randomly but chance only says an event is unlikely, not that it can never happen. And if it never happened there would be no one around to say 'it's too much of a coincidence'.

And why does it have to be one of the gods in the Bible? And if so, which one - several are mentioned in it? There are lots of other holy books, all giving their own version of events. Why aren't they the 'default answer' instead? If science, in future, explains some aspect of the universe, such as why a particular constant must have the value it has, is then a deity is no longer required to explain it? How many such aspects would need to be explained before we decided it was probably not a deity (or deities) after all?

[Javan502]

Mildly entertaining, but an exercise in futility guys. When someone believes so firmly that he knows all the answers, because they were written down in the distant past by people who knew virtually nothing about the universe, then trying to ask for evidence or argue logically with him is pointless.

Anyone who can dismiss the overwhelming evidence from many branches of knowledge concerning the great age and slow development of life, this planet and the universe, is incapable of rational argument.

The latest issue of the New Scientist contains an item concerning a recalculation of the age of the Solar System on the basis of uranium isotope decay in meteorite inclusions, formed when gases cooled to form the sun and planets. The result: 4.5682 billion years.

Many creationists believe, the earth is billions of years old. That is calles old earth creationism.

Its called the day/age theory :

http://discussions.godandscience.org...71c13fd19ce786

so your argument does not constitute necessarly a argument against creationism, and Genesis