Let me ask you this? Did you read the whole discussion on my thread between LW and me or are you taking her word that I called her ungodly? Because not once did I call her ungodly. I asked her a question based on a reply she made to me before that. The second quote which you quoted above was my reply to her after her reaction to the question. I was saying I couldn't validate her being godly based on her actions and words. I stand by my statement. I'm not into ear tickling TA. I can't validate something I can't see.



where did Jesus refer to all humans as children?

What did he mean when he looked at those opposing him and said "you are of your father the devil?"

NO TA, there are two fathers. One is God himself and the other is his adversary.

Do you really want answers to your questions TA? Just because you don't understand a particular thought, belief or occurrance doesn't mean it doesn't have value or that it didn't occur. Have you ever thought possibly it could be your understanding that's at fault? I don't understand a lot of things that have been proven true all the time, it doesn't make it untrue just because I don't understand it. I mean if you're going to talk logic follow thru here.

Oh, and BTW, there's nothing wrong with the translation being passed down. We have enough proof that what we have in our hands is pretty darn accurate as written thousands of years ago. I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but you might want to start checking sources.

You are missing the point entirely. It is simply not your place to validate someone else's "godliness" or "ungodliness." Whether or not we, as individuals, lead lives that are pleasing to God can only be determined by God--to think otherwise is simply presumptuous.

KFC, i really dont know how to describe the way you think.

First quote, i read "we all are children of God" several times in comments by you and by others. Where did you and them get that statement? you made it up? BTW, here it is ( i finally found it ) also from the mountain : Math 5.9 " Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called 'children of God'" I didnt make that statement up KFC. If you mean that jesus only called the peacemakers that way, my point still the same. All these peacemakers are the sons of God too? Just like Jesus?

Second quote, you making things worse here. Thers is anotehr Father? and He is adversary to God? Adversaries have similar or comparable qualities, are you saying Satan is that to God? satan is a creation of God just like other creations, he sinned and disobeyed. But adversary ?????.

that statement by Jesus, proves even more that something is surely wrong with the translation. A God's messenger (or God or Son of God according to you) tells the people that they are from the Devil? Jesus elevates Satan to the status of being the father of certain humans. the descendents of one of God's best creations? no matter how much they didnt believe in Jesus, these people were still the Creation of God not the Devil. They may be followers of the Devil but he can never be their "Father"

That cant be said by Jesus, no matter what the writers of the Bible say. The word "Father" does not belong to God or to the Devil. Father implies a spouse and a child. By definition, a true messenger and prophet of God (or even God or Son of God as you say) can never say these things. It undermines his own message. It cant be that way.

As for where i got these information, let me tell you something you refuse to accept. There are more to God than what is in the Bible KFC. the information is there for whoever want to read. I am not making things up. it is there for all to read. the fact you refuse to read it and think about it doesnt make it non-existing.

It is amazing, to me, how some scientifically-minded people forget all about science and its principles and rules of logic when it comes to God.

In all the examples you mentioned, one thing you ignored. THE LAWS and the Mathematics that we discovered. You think these laws just existed too? just by themselves? just one time for the whole universe and never to be repeated again and create more laws and another mathematics?

does anything we know NOW suggest that? isnt that the way science work? use what information you have to suggest an explanation for what you dont know?

did any scientist ever saw something and just said, well "it just existed by itself"? dont we always look for a cause and reason for everything we see?

The arguement for God's existance is a similar one.

If everything has a cause and a reason (whether we understand it or not) then the universe itself must have a cause and a reason too. why exclude the universe from that logical point?

why assume something that has no basis in what we know? just because we dont like the idea of a Creator? is that science. I dont think so. in fact i know so. that is not the science i and every one else use. True science has no bias, if it leads to GOD so be it. true scientific thinking must accept its conclusion. not oppose it or deny it because we dont like it. as i said before Einstein did that once , but as true scientists always do he came to his senses and admitted the truth of what he witnessed. "True but incomplete theory".

same thing here, God's existance is the only logical explanation for the existance of this Universe. The explanation is true but not complete of course. we really dont know much about God other than that He must exist and that He told us few things about himslef and how He like us to lead our lives. We are free to accept that or not. If we dont accept it lets not pretend we doing that based on science and logic. It is because of bias not science or logic.

others may have said it, but not me. I've never said "all are children of God." I have said all are "created by God." Perhaps that's what you're thinking?

Now going by the verse you quote here. Agree. But not all are peacemakers correct? So using logic here.....not all are called children of God...here in your quote it's peacemakers. I can give you more scripture if you'd like but Jesus made it clear that not all are following his father therefore they could not be called children of God.

I agree with what you said about Satan to a point. He's their father because they have allowed him to be. He is a created being like you said. He has always wanted God's position. He desires to have people follow him. His goal is to take people away from God. His desire is to be God. Read Isaiah Chap 14 sometime. Notice how many times he says...."I will." I will ascend he says. In the end his pride will do him in. But in the meantime he is going after all he can knowing his time is growing short. He started right in the garden and has been going ever since. Remember the temptation of Christ? He even tried to get Christ to follow him.

The universe always was and always will be. Its form will change. First Cause is an argument based on our mind's inability to get a grip on infinity.

ThinkAloud posts:

Well said, ThinkAloud. Very well said. My view is we need God to understand the universe, not vice versa. True knoweldge is only complete when it is in harmony with GOd since the source of all knowedge is God.

To clarify, you can "destroy" matter by converting it into energy, but you are right in that, on a whole, one cannot destroy or create energy. Perhaps we cannot create anything physical, but through these manipulations, one can create information, which often needs some kind of interpreting system to make itself manifest.

Even so, if there were a God, we still cannot assume that he "created" the universe instead of just manipulating some kind of "metaenergy" in a way to create this particular universe.





What is this "only once" statement coming from? Since this universe encompasses everything that there is, then everything in nature has virtually existed all along if the universe has. Besides, there's little point in trying to describe things with time before the first unit of plank time. From our current understanding of the universe, time itself is apart of the universe, so if there were no universe, there would be no time. Thus, since time is required for any kind of change to occur, if there were no universe, there would be no dimension of time to account for the change from State A :There is no universe, to State B: There is a universe.



First off, one need not wait, one could instead try to actively understand this universe to speed things along. If people simply believed that everything was done because of God and that there was no point in trying to understand this universe, since it'd be a waste of time, we wouldn't have a theory of gravity, or almost any other kind of theory, and we would most likely still be living in the stone age with a greatly diminished quality of life.

Thankfully, there were those humans that decided to investigate the universe and found that some things in the universe took care of themselves without God's everpresent direct intervention. As such, we have discovered these relationships in the universe that have brought us to where we are today.

Also, if there was a God, one would not know it's "state of mind", as there could be an infinite number of scenarios possible. If I were to meet this God, and if somehow I could be certain that it was God, and not some other extraordinary being masquerading as a God, why would I say "Ooops"? If this God were to send me to hell for not believing, which most definitely doesn't have to be the case, I would be more angry at this being rather than regretful for expecting me to go against my observations.

I choose to follow Ockham's Razor since I see nothing in this universe that will most likely need a God to be explained and it simply complicates things to a great degree by needing some kind of supernatural being that is beyond all explanation or inquiry to understand, in order to explain what's going on in this universe.

It might be easier to explain the universe with a God, but it most certainly isn't simpler. Allow me to give an example to illustrate this point. Back in highschool I took a physics class. In this class we covered Classical Physics and we went over the concepts of Modern Physics. Now, I found the Modern Physics section of the class to be substantially easier than the Classical Physics, but that was because we did not go into much detail into the material. We learned about the concepts and what they mean in general terms, and there wasn't a high degree of understanding involved here.

Now, with the Classical Physics section of the course, we had to make sure we understood the derivations of all the formulas and how they all apply to each other and be able to derive new equations for specific kinds of problems. This required a much higher degree of understanding which is why it seemed harder than the other section. Now, in college, when I took an actual corse in Quantum Mechanics, I began to seriously miss Classical.

It's very easy to just say God did it, but it doesn't accomplish much in practical areas such as making predictions, or solving problems directly using God. In fact, if it were a God that did it, and this being is infinitely more complicated than the universe we are now in, we simply wouldn't have many practical areas we could use thi s "God theory" to engineer different types of things. Just like in highschool, it may have been easy for me to say that this is the way it is because of how electron clouds work, it wouldn't help me in any direct engineering application unless I know the internal workings behind such concepts.




As I mentioned above, if one simply believes God does everything (including personally having the apple fall from the tree to the ground) and it turns out there wasn't a God, would that person have lost nothing? Well, they lost the possibility of gaining insight into how the universe actually makes that apple fall to the ground.



I don't see why it's unreasonable to assume that these laws have simply existed, but yet it's perfectly reasonable to assume that God simply existed just because one claims this God to be special in this regard. What makes the plausibility of an eternal God more credible than the plausbility of an eternal universe of which we have relatively little understanding of?



Sometimes it's okay to admit that one simply doesn't know, and that more evidence needs to be uncovered to figure out the answer.

Have you ever played Clue? Well, I doubt that at the beginning of the game, without even looking at your cards, you'll assume a particular someone with a particular something in a particular somewhere to be the culprit. You'll gather more evidence and then you'll have more reason to choose.

But even in this example, you know that there are only a limited number of outcomes, but the said cannot be said with certainty about our universe.



So, why exlude the possible Creator of our universe from this logical point as well? You claim that the Creator should be excluded, so I don't see why I can't exclude this universe. This way makes fewer assumptions while still being able to possibly explain everything, so there's no need to complicate the issue.



Science seeks to explain things and how they work. I have bias against there being a creator. I just see no need of one at the moment. Besides, if one assumes a creator that is fundamentally impossible to understand or explain, then science is useless in that regard, as science is about understanding. I have no fundamental qualm with a creator, but stating that there is a creator of this universe that we will never be able to understand or attribute theories to, that's a rather bold statement that is useless in following. Why not attempt to do so anyways? It serves no one to simply state that something cannot be understood. Maybe we simply don't have the reasoning skills currently to understand it, but that is something that could change in the future, especially as our understanding of the human mind increases.



Again, stating that God's existence is the only logical explanation for the existance of this Universe is a rather bold statement to make when there's still so much about this universe that we still do not understand. Like I said, it was claimed that the only logical explanation behind the movement of celestial bodies such as the sun was from the existence of a deity that would directly guide the body itself (or in some cases, actually be the said celestial body itself).

All I'm saying is that one should not jump to conclusions. There is much for us to understand, and it doesn't do a great deal of service to trying to understand what we don't know about the universe to just saying that God is the cause of all we don't know.

I dont think you are thinking clearly or logically here. By admitting you have bias against one possibility tells it all.

you say you believe in Ochkam's Razor principle, you also say it is the simple and easy thing to say the Universe was created by a God. then against your own blief in Ochkam's you say exclude the one possibility that satisfies his principle.

You find the existance of the Universe and its Laws out of nowhere logical even if there is no one hint of any observation that forms the base for that assumption and in the meantime, reject a possibility which agrees with our observation.

you repeat the same statements i answered. what these discoveries did is show HOW it is working not how they existed. The laws that make it work is as a creation as the universe itself. when you make a computor and the software that controls it you are still the Maker of that computer. the original idea that GOd controls these heavenly bodies was not voided by the discoveries of the laws that govern their motion. it just explained how HE controls them, through the laws i.e the software that he created along with them.

and yes before the big bang there was no time. and there was no universe. There was no Quantum Mechanic's laws either. So how did that Big Bang Start

Dont say Quantum Mechanics, it didnt exist then. so dont go in a circle. of course you can assume anything. but that is far away from science as you can get. your bias is blocking your logic. and that is the way it usually happens. how unfortunate.

You bias against one possibility takes the discussion out of the realm of science
in that case. no use in the discussion. it is no longer a scientific discussion.

One final thing you misnderstand totally. God in fact ORDERED us to think, cotenmplate, research and investigate everytjing we see in his creation.

saying that belief in God hinders our curiousity is far from the truth. actually God requires us to be curious and discover what he created. The more we do the more he actually guides us to discover more. This by the way is not my own opinion or words. it is actually what he say. i am not interpretting or explaining here. i am just repeating what he said.

that assumption has no bases in any logic. theoritical, sure. but that is something else. now you are escaping the fact that real logic leads to His existance. nothing we see in science can explain existance without a cause. not even Quantum Mechanics. and yes our inability to understand Him completely is due to our inability to get a grip not only of infinity, there are many unknowables around us. even the things we deal with and talk about all the time. like ENERGY. what is that excatly?

we heat the water. what happened to it exactly? they say its molecules became faster, still what happened to them to get faster? they say this particle interacted with them and infused them with energy. still no explanation, what is that that the particle infused?

you see what i mean?

The existance or not of a cause for the Universe is different. It is not difficult to expalin it based on what we see and on what we know. Something caused the big bang. we call that God. If we cant define that, then it is understandable, our minds are limited. But to say it just existed all-along with no cause is mere assuption to escape from the obvious. and also will always exist? based on what? its components never last forever even the stars. So why should IT last forever? can mortal ingrediants create immortal things? by what laws? and even if the laws are there, where did they come from? they also existed all along? that is logical?

I cant see how a logical mind just jumps from logic to illogic because of bias? no one is forced to believe in anything. Just dont call that logic.

I dont like many things. logical? of course not. i just dont like them. Idont call my bias against these things logic. it is preference. that is it. no logic here.

Claiming that God has existed all along is logical? How is it more logical than a universe that has lasted for "eternity" in some form or another? Remember, you can't apply any of our current laws of the universe to it from the period of t=0 to a unit of plank time.

Also, I claimed that applying God as the cause of the universe is the easiest solution, but not the simplest. How did this universe come to be, or what happened before one plank time unit? Ready for this? I *don't* know.

Now, one may ask that if I don't know, why don't I use God as a placeholder until an explanation that has no need for a God comes up? Well, because that doesn't accomplish anything. You may say that God created the universe, and it's as simple as that. But is that really a simple explanation? Easy sure, but simple? If it's such a simple a solution, then please explain the exact mechanisms that God employed in creating this universe? Saying that God just did it is easy, but explaining exactly how God did it, is anything but simple. You complicate things a great deal when you involve entities outside our own universe, when there *could* be an explanation that needs nothing more than what the universe (and if you believe in a multiverse theory, then what the metauniverse) contains.

If you think then that it's fine to say that God created the universe, and that's what is logical, then I see myself in being as justified in saying that there existed this law of the universe, which I will call Beaz's Law which states that before plank time the universe was run by these time independent fields called Beaz Fields that maintained the universe while constructing a time dimension which led to the universe that we know of today.

I don't do this obviously, because there is no sense in just shooting a bunch of theories without specific evidence attributed to it to justify that theory being more likely than any others.

Again, stating that God has simply existed as the uncaused cause does not seem any more logical than stating that the universe has simply existed. To create a universe, one would assume that some sort of mechanism would have to be applied to accomplish this. Perhaps God Itself would have to have laws to explain its existence or deciding what this God does. Otherwise, much about this God would simply be completely random, so there has to be something explaining why this God does what It does. God receives inputs (observations, possibly prayers) and God produces outputs. Unless these outputs are just random regardless of the inputs, there has to be a system computing the respective outputs to these inputs. What was the cause of these internal workings of the system. Were they simply always there? Would you not find this to be somewhat illogical then?

SODAIHO POSTS:

I say that the iniverse is obviously created and that what is created supposes a Creator who is uncreated and GOd was not created. If He were, He would be a creature and would have a creator. His Creator would then be God, and not He Himself. God always existed. He never began and will never cease to be. He is eternal and that, Sodaiho, is what we need to get a grip on.

One of the indications for GOd's existence apart from Sacred Scripture, is from causality. The universe, limited, in all its details, could not be its own cause. It could no more come together with all its regulating laws that have been discussed on this thread so elequently than the San Francisco Harbor Bridge could just happen or a clock could assemble itself and keep perfect time without a bridge or clock-maker.

On the same principle, if there was no God, there would be no one to dispute His existence. Besides causality, a 2nd indication of God's existence is universal reasoning or natural intuition of men. God is so clearly impressed upon creation that all intuitively know that there is a God. The truth is in possession. Men do not have to persuade themselves that there is a God. Instead, they have to try to persuade themselves that there is no GOd. And those who have the idea there is no GOd haven't been able to find a valid reason for their disbelief. Men do not grow into the idea of a God, rather they endeavor to grow out of it.

Time began with the creation of the world. Once nothing existed but the Eternal God alone. "Before the mountains were made, or the earth and the world was formed, from eternity and to eternity, Thous art God." Psalm 89:2. Why doesn't the Psalmist say, Thou was God instead of Thou art God"? Becasue God is Eternal. He is not subject to the changes of time, for with GOd there is no past, no future. He is outside of time as we know it. God exists of and by Himself. Everything else is made by God.

brava Lula!! Well said.

I'd like to respond to Reuel



The world's greatest thinkers from Plato to Plantinga have wrestled with the question of God. Is there a personal being who created the universe and is the source of moral absolutes? I think so and I believe there are good reasons to think so.

You say the universe is eternal right? Surely this is unreasonable. If so, that means the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. But mathematicians recognize that the idea of an infinite number of things leads to self-contradictions.

David Hilber, perhaps the greatest mathematician of this century says: "The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought. The role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea." Infinity is just an idea in one's mind, not something that exists in reality.

Therefore, since past events are not just ideas but are real, the number of past events must be finite. Therefore, the series of past events can't go back forever; rather the universe at some point must have begun to exist.

This has been confirmed by remarkable discoveries in astronomy and astrophysics. That's what the big bang theory is all about.

This is a big problem for the atheists. From their POV the universe, if the big bang theory is true, came from nothing. That's a problem. Out of nothing....nothing comes.

It basically comes down to this:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause
The universe began to exist
Therefore, the universe has a cause.

REUELKB, I'm content to believe that Almighty God created the whole world, visible and invisible, material and spiritual out of nothing by His Almighty will. His Almighty power is manifested to us in creation everywhere we look certainly including in the cosmos. I've seen some photos and the beauty is breathtaking. By His Word, that is,by His Will, He called into existence, the earth, moon, and the whole, to us, immeasurable universe, with its millions and millions of heavenly bodies. "God spoke and they were made; He commanded and they were created." Psalm 32:9. Everything is the Handiwork of the Creator.

When we recognize a law in the universe, we do not invent it. It was there before men set foot on earth becasue God set it there.
Science is not the enemy of God becasue it has no proof whatsover to contradict the idea of God. Conversely, scientific knowledge can be used to prove the truth of God and His creation doubly so than to disprove it.

That is the problem .... right there.

You assuming a lot about things before the universe existed. these assumptions are based on our experiences in THIS universe AFTER it existed. they dont apply, do they? you cant assume anything before the big bang .... nothing. absolutely nothing at all. we have no knowledge or basis for any kind of logical assumptions before the big bang. theoritical assumptions ... sure. not logical.

Lets stick to what we KNOW. This is science ... isnt it? you dont go and assume anything you like in science .... you use what you know and make an educated assumptions based on what you KNOW. period. dont go in circles.


Whatever we discover later ... one zillion year from now is the business of the occupants of the universe at that time.

NOW, however, is something else. Saying I dont know while there is a convincing logical answer is an escape route. you like to take it, fine do that.

Saying that the universe was created is not the easy way out as you described. if it was easy, you would have accepted it. it is very difficult to accept. but it is the simplest and according to Ochkam it is the most propable.

How did God create the universe, what mechanism, what kind of input....etc are things we always look for in our universe ... sure enough. however, God is before that . not only that, even if our questions are justified, not knowing the answers does not negate HIM. does our ignorance of how the two-slit experiment works and how one particle can pass through them at the same time then interfere with itself negate the validity and existance of the experiment?

Do we know what ENERGY is? does it exist? do we know what life is? does it exist? what is the material difference between a dead person and a live one? what exactly happened to that body? do we know? we can circulate the blood and get the body to breathe but he still dead? why? do we know? does it exist?

comon now. dont ask questions about god you would not ask about any scientific topic.

that is what i see, when it comes to god and religions some scientists forget all about science. amazing isnt it?