Evidence of God's existence

[Squid]

2. We know , the universe is finely tuned to life

...as compared to what other universes?

[Whitney]

i know, i took high school biology. myself says yes it could have been self created.

everything , that begins to exist, has a cause. Only the universe doesnt....???
what is your base to make this claim ?

On what basis do you claim that god doesn't need a creator?  How do you know that the universe began to exist? We can only go as far back as the Big Bang with our research but don't know what might have been the situation before that.

[angelosergipe]

2. We know , the universe is finely tuned to life

...as compared to what other universes?

it doesnt need any comparison to come to this conclusion.

[angelosergipe]

On what basis do you claim that god doesn't need a creator?

Something can only begin to exist, it time exists. Time was created with the Big Bang. Prior the Big Bang no time existed. So the origin of our universe must be timeless, i.e. without a beginning, and without a end. It just existed in a timeless dimension.

How do you know that the universe began to exist? We can only go as far back as the Big Bang with our research but don't know what might have been the situation before that.

http://elshamah.heavenforum.com/astrono ... g-t199.htm

et’s say you come into a room containing me and a bunch of your other pals, and you find a steaming cup of Starbucks coffee on the table. Being the thoughtful individual that you are, you ask, “Does this belong to anyone?”
To which I reply, “It’s been there for the last month.”
Well, you’d know immediately I was wrong or lying (probably lying). Why? Because the coffee wouldn’t still be hot if it had been there for a month; it would be room temperature.
That’s the second law of thermodynamics in action. This law states that everything continually moves from a state of order to disorder and that heat and energy dissipate over time. This is a law that has been verified by proof after scientific proof and has never been shown to be wrong.
Now let’s apply this law to the universe, just as cosmologists have. If the universe were eternal, it would have gone cold and lifeless long ago. The stars would have burned out. Planets would have broken up into clouds of dust. And even the black holes would have ceased vacuuming the universe of unsightly stars and planets.
When you see flaming suns and scorching meteors, in other words, you’re looking at a steaming cup of coffee that over infinite time would have long since gone room temperature. Since the universe is still full of pockets of heat and energy, it cannot be eternal. Who would have thought heat would be such a helpful clue? And that is just the half of it.

Alexander Vilenkin is Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University. A theoretical physicist who has been working in the field of cosmology for 25 years, Vilenkin has written over 150 papers and is responsible for introducing the ideas of eternal inflation and quantum creation of the universe from nothing.

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176).

http://www.thekeyboard.org.uk/What%20is%20infinity.htm

Strictly speaking, according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, a singularity does not contain anything that is actually infinite, only things that MOVE MATHEMATICALLY TOWARDS infinity. A black hole is formed when large stars collapse and their mass has been compressed down to a very small size and the powerful gravitational field so formed prevents anything, even light, from escaping from it. A black hole therefore forms a singularity at its centre from the concentrated mass of the collapsed star itself and from the accumulated mass that is sucked into it. A singularity's mass is therefore finite, the 'infinity' refers only to the maths.

Can we have an infinite universe for example? The answer is no, the universe is finite.

[curiosityandthecat]

[LoneMateria]

Something can only begin to exist, it time exists. Time was created with the Big Bang. Prior the Big Bang no time existed. So the origin of our universe must be timeless, i.e. without a beginning, and without a end. It just existed in a timeless dimension.

 Time is a human concept.  It is no more tangible then the deity you are trying to promote.  When we start to count the age of the universe we start from the earliest point we have detected so far which is the Big Bang.  That is the arbitrary point we start from.  Saying that time began to exist and that proves god is like saying our calender starts at Jesus's birth and that proves he exists.  You are just wrong.  If we wanted to we could start counting the age of the observable universe a billion years before the big bang.  There is nothing stopping us from doing it.  We just choose not to, we have no reason to.

[SSY]

Then I bet there is going to be an ssertion that unlike every other thing in the universe, god does not need a creator, a beginning etc, because he is god. Special pleading fallacy go!

Also

It just existed in a timeless dimension.

Any evidence fo this assertion? Any proof that timless dimensions exist? Even a definition for what a timeless dimension actually is?

[SSY]

Something can only begin to exist, it time exists. Time was created with the Big Bang. Prior the Big Bang no time existed. So the origin of our universe must be timeless, i.e. without a beginning, and without a end. It just existed in a timeless dimension.

 Time is a human concept.  It is no more tangible then the deity you are trying to promote.  When we start to count the age of the universe we start from the earliest point we have detected so far which is the Big Bang.  That is the arbitrary point we start from.  Saying that time began to exist and that proves god is like saying our calender starts at Jesus's birth and that proves he exists.  You are just wrong.  If we wanted to we could start counting the age of the observable universe a billion years before the big bang.  There is nothing stopping us from doing it.  We just choose not to, we have no reason to.

I am pretty sure time exists as more than a human construct, it is a quantity that separates events, in some ways like space (You can clap at one end of a room, and I the other, or you could clap, wait 10 seconds and clap again in the same place, both claps within the sets are separated by a measurable quantity). More evidence can seen by the experiment where atomic clocks were flown round the earth in planes travelling with and contra to the Earth's rotation, after the flight they had recorded different amounts of time passing, time is very much a real, physical thing in the universe.

Also, I don't think you could start measuring time before the big bang, as there would be nothing to measure. To measure time, you need to measure two events, find the time that separates them, and then define a unit from that (analogous to measuring two points, finding the distance between them, and choosing your metre or whatever from that distance). As far as we tell, there were no events before the big bang, making time impossible to measure back then, in fact, we don't have any evidence of time itself even existing before the big bang. I disagree that it is an arbitrary point to start counting from, it does not work in comparison to the Jesus argument, as there were years before Jesus, we know that, the same cannot for sure be said about the big bang.

[curiosityandthecat]

The trouble with contemplating time is the same trouble as contemplating the outside of Plato's cave: we're in it. Our entire existence is steeped in and determined by our concept of time. Try imagining the geometric angles that Lovecraft describes: obtuse angles that act like acute ones; stairs leading up that take you down; etc. Our minds are not formed to work like that.

This reminds me of the Necker cube:



There are three possible ways you can "see" the cube.

• Pointing up and to the right
• Pointing down and to the left
• As a two-dimensional object formed by connecting two squares at their corresponding vertices

We can't actually see the first two at the same time. Our minds don't work like that. The human brain is, for all its splendor, a rather mish-mash jumble of wires and connections, what engineers often call a kluge. Time, not corresponding with space but an integral aspect of space itself, cannot simply be compartmentalized and boiled down. SSY is correct in that time is only measurable when there are two distinct events by which to measure it. This is, in atomic clocks, done by measuring the rate of decay of isotopes (I believe they're isotopes, anyway; atoms, either way). If there are no events, then time as we understand it does not exist. At zero degrees Kelvin literally nothing is moving. It is absolute zero. There is no decay, there are no identifiably separate events. Thus, at zero degrees Kelvin, within that system, there is no time. This is also true for "before" the Big Bang (a misnomer to begin with and originally a term of derision) as there were no separate events or objects by which to measure time: everything was one, a singularity.

Yes, this is when creationists or evolution-deniers break out that old chestnut, "So what made the singularity change if there is no creator?" Two things come to mind: first, that's the Kalam cosmological argument and it's been proven wrong more times and in more ways than I care to list; second, I don't know, but I think it's a safe bet that it wasn't this guy:



If you honestly want to learn about the beginnings of the universe in a way that doesn't rely on superstition and stories aimed at comforting, check out Mark Whittle's lectures on Cosmology. Here's a short bit:

[youtube:4jx06qkc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tskhe760oyo[/youtube:4jx06qkc]

[LoneMateria]

I am pretty sure time exists as more than a human construct, it is a quantity that separates events, in some ways like space (You can clap at one end of a room, and I the other, or you could clap, wait 10 seconds and clap again in the same place, both claps within the sets are separated by a measurable quantity). More evidence can seen by the experiment where atomic clocks were flown round the earth in planes travelling with and contra to the Earth's rotation, after the flight they had recorded different amounts of time passing, time is very much a real, physical thing in the universe.

What we consider time is just the motion of atoms and objects.  We've understood for decades that speed and gravity has an effect of what we perceive as time.  In reality speed and gravity are just affecting the object and atoms and photons.  It's slowing them down (Except for the photons of light >.< of course) which by our perception is slowing down time.  Because time is a human concept.  We see things moving slower then we think they ought to around a black hole so it's explained that time is slowed down when what is actually happening is the forces at work for the black hole is making matter, and atoms, slow down.  I'm not really sure how else to explain this.  

Also, I don't think you could start measuring time before the big bang, as there would be nothing to measure. To measure time, you need to measure two events, find the time that separates them, and then define a unit from that (analogous to measuring two points, finding the distance between them, and choosing your metre or whatever from that distance). As far as we tell, there were no events before the big bang, making time impossible to measure back then, in fact, we don't have any evidence of time itself even existing before the big bang. I disagree that it is an arbitrary point to start counting from, it does not work in comparison to the Jesus argument, as there were years before Jesus, we know that, the same cannot for sure be said about the big bang.

What is stopping me from counting backwards from the Big Bang?  We really don't know that there was nothing before it.  We know that empty space really isn't empty (matter and anti-matter are constantly being created and destroyed) how do we know this wasn't the case before the big bang?  There may not be something significant to start to measure from but say I wanted to start counting backwards from 2010 and go back to 1 billion years before the big bang?  What is to stop me?  What is to stop me from saying that I like that point as my starting point better then the generally accepted Big Bang starting point?  Yes we typically measure time from point to point starting at an event.  There may not be a big event to start from but if I want to start from that point, does not having an event really invalidate it?

[Squid]

2. We know , the universe is finely tuned to life

...as compared to what other universes?

it doesnt need any comparison to come to this conclusion.

How do you figure that?  If the processes that have led to the rise of life on this planet are simply innate properties of this universe - it's like saying water was "specifically engineered to have three states", how can you say this universe was "fine tuned" when you have nothing to compare it against?  What basal state or null do you base this conclusion against?  Otherwise the claim is baseless.

[Whitney]

2. We know , the universe is finely tuned to life

...as compared to what other universes?

it doesnt need any comparison to come to this conclusion.

It does if you want to be logical.

[Whitney]

On what basis do you claim that god doesn't need a creator?

Something can only begin to exist, it time exists. Time was created with the Big Bang. Prior the Big Bang no time existed. So the origin of our universe must be timeless, i.e. without a beginning, and without a end. It just existed in a timeless dimension.

Actually, scientists have just arbitrarily placed t=0 at the Big Bang; that doesn't necessarily mean that prior to it there wan never any time (aka movement).  Time is simply a tool of measurement used to explain how objects move in relation to another.  A unit of time is completely arbitrary too.  Time doesn't actually exist as it is not a thing...just like a mile doesn't actually exist in any tangible way; it's just something we made up to better understand the world around us.

So again, how do you claim that a god doesn't need a creator AND how do you know all that exists naturally is not eternal?

(hint, you don't know just like everyone else...no one knows how everything started.  What you are trying to do is called God of Gaps)

Now let’s apply this law to the universe, just as cosmologists have. If the universe were eternal, it would have gone cold and lifeless long ago. The stars would have burned out.

If you were thinking like a cosmologist you wouldn't be making this argument.  YOu simply don't understand the 2nd law.  Here's a explanation link that I know you won't read because you are closed-minded and don't actually care about the truth:  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/entropy.html

Can we have an infinite universe for example? The answer is no, the universe is finite.

New research has oppened up the possibility of bubble universes (a multiverse theory).  So, while nothing is conclusive yet it leaves open the possibility of infinite existence.

[angelosergipe]

Something can only begin to exist, it time exists. Time was created with the Big Bang. Prior the Big Bang no time existed. So the origin of our universe must be timeless, i.e. without a beginning, and without a end. It just existed in a timeless dimension.

 Time is a human concept.  It is no more tangible then the deity you are trying to promote.  When we start to count the age of the universe we start from the earliest point we have detected so far which is the Big Bang.  That is the arbitrary point we start from.  Saying that time began to exist and that proves god is like saying our calender starts at Jesus's birth and that proves he exists.  You are just wrong.  If we wanted to we could start counting the age of the observable universe a billion years before the big bang.  There is nothing stopping us from doing it.  We just choose not to, we have no reason to.

If you want to dismiss science, you can start to believe in fairy tailes.

[Whitney]

angelosergipe has been given a warning.

reason:

You cannot copy paste huge chunks of text as your own without putting it in quotes and providing a link to the original source.  Linking to the forum that links to the original source is not acceptable.  This is called plagiarism and is not only against HAF rules but is intellectually dishonest.


Almost everything s/he is writing is a copy paste from that forum s/he is fond of.  AND that is a copy paste from the original source.  This is probably why the discussion isn't going well...typically not using your own words indicates lack of knowledge on a subject.

Angelosergipe, from this point on every time I notice you have copy pasted from anywhere without proper citations or if all you do is copy paste quotes you will be given a warning.  Warning 3 gets you banned for a week and you are already at 1.