So in the beginning there was nothing but God, yes?
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No, it is just that I have heard this argument 1000 times. Obviously, when he says "NOTHING" he is not including God. Tim Smith Descartes Systems Sciences, Inc.
Maybe so, but you dind't actually reply to my last reply did you. You can't keep making exceptions to your rule because otherwise you'd be f**ked. (If you'll excuse the terminology.) Otherwise, i'll still stand by my rule that there are more giraffes with five legs on earth, than their four legged counterparts. I dare you to try to prove me wrong. It just can't be done for the very reason you can't disprove the existance of God, nor anything else you want to believe in.
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
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It's taken thousands of years of theology to disguise sophistry like this. Incorrect assumptions lead to incorrect conclusions. Who says the universe was created? Theists assert the unprovable to be infinite and the provable to be finite. Steve Yates Most atheists never join atheist organizations- there's nothing to talk about.
Well i guess it all boils down to a question of "Faith". From my prespective God is a creation of Man. Created by us so that we know that there is someone who is looking over us always..i guess we realize that there is so much that is out of our control that it's somewhat comforting to know that there exists a supreme being who has control and who can bring order to the chaos of the universe. I see God as a Friend to whom i can talk to about my fears and get some comfort by knowing that there is someone looking after us. I think what is wrong in the world today is the concept of religion, As long as ur a "good human being" God will be happy i guess. If only everyone would realize that there is only one God. That all religions ultimately are talking abt. the same thing. Well perfection is a myth.Let's Hope for the best. Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else. main(_){while(_=~getchar())putchar(~_-1/(~(_|32)/13*2-11)*13);}
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I don't follow. Spiritual and physical don't enter the equasion (we discussed both at great length, I only summarised the discussion for my post). He beleived admanently that nothing - be it heaven and hell, the sun and earth, or Moses and Bruce - could exist without a creater, because nothing can cause itself to be created. The key word being nothing. Yet God just always existed? Yet God had no creater? Be God a spirit, a physical entity, or indeed John's goat - he would still have needed to be created at some point. Remember that nothing (spiritual, physical, or even imagined) can ever exist without something creating it. You thought imaging the size of the universe was difficult, try getting your head round this one without forcing a migrane!
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
I'm not exactly sure where your friend was coming from, but as far as I can tell the argument is more like this: Nothing in our universe, frame of existence, or however you want to describe the laws of physics to which we are bound can exist without a previous source of some kind. Ultimately, we have to run into something which is separate from and not bound by those laws. This "something" would by definition be self-sustaining and self-creating. In all of the arguments I have heard, nothing fits that description but the concept of God. Our biggest problem is that our brains just don't understand non time-based and non space/matter-constrained existence. No, I can't get my mind around how it could work, but I do believe that this type of conclusion is a logical and necessary one. Does that make the thought a little less impossible sounding? John
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I'm not exactly sure where your friend was coming from, but as far as I can tell the argument is more like this: Nothing in our universe, frame of existence, or however you want to describe the laws of physics to which we are bound can exist without a previous source of some kind. Ultimately, we have to run into something which is separate from and not bound by those laws. This "something" would by definition be self-sustaining and self-creating. In all of the arguments I have heard, nothing fits that description but the concept of God. Our biggest problem is that our brains just don't understand non time-based and non space/matter-constrained existence. No, I can't get my mind around how it could work, but I do believe that this type of conclusion is a logical and necessary one. Does that make the thought a little less impossible sounding? John
Not at all, and I can in fact think outside of the boundaries of time. It is a very interesting frame of mind to get into, and enables you to rationally prove the possibility of time travel - thoeretically - though the processing power to acheive it would be incomprehesible to us at the moment. That said however, they said we'd never hit 1 GHz! I would guess that faith offers a similar frame of mind, whereby you can rationalise your beliefs based on 'well' and 'ifs'.
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
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Not at all, and I can in fact think outside of the boundaries of time. It is a very interesting frame of mind to get into, and enables you to rationally prove the possibility of time travel - thoeretically - though the processing power to acheive it would be incomprehesible to us at the moment. That said however, they said we'd never hit 1 GHz! I would guess that faith offers a similar frame of mind, whereby you can rationalise your beliefs based on 'well' and 'ifs'.
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
The concept of Time Travel does not extend 'outside' the boundaries of time. There are many frames of reference that extrapolate the space/time continuum to higher dimensions in an effort to validate time travel assumptions due to wormholes, space/time folds, etc. However, I would like you to further extrapolate your views about things outside space/time. Not external frames of refrence that describe time, but the actual things which exist outside of space/time. One of the reasons that the God-centered party of your conversation had difficuly is that since God exists outside of time, the concept of a creator that existed 'before' God has no meaning. That is, our languange and mindset is not equiped to carry the conversation further. So you may claim victory in the area of no being able to get someone to decribe something for which there is no description. Huzzah, three cheers for the victor. Sorry for the sarcasm there. ( I used to use the same argument to people and got the same thrill of victory over the ignorant 'Christian' ) "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are disciples, if you love one another -- JOhn 13:34-45"
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The concept of Time Travel does not extend 'outside' the boundaries of time. There are many frames of reference that extrapolate the space/time continuum to higher dimensions in an effort to validate time travel assumptions due to wormholes, space/time folds, etc. However, I would like you to further extrapolate your views about things outside space/time. Not external frames of refrence that describe time, but the actual things which exist outside of space/time. One of the reasons that the God-centered party of your conversation had difficuly is that since God exists outside of time, the concept of a creator that existed 'before' God has no meaning. That is, our languange and mindset is not equiped to carry the conversation further. So you may claim victory in the area of no being able to get someone to decribe something for which there is no description. Huzzah, three cheers for the victor. Sorry for the sarcasm there. ( I used to use the same argument to people and got the same thrill of victory over the ignorant 'Christian' ) "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are disciples, if you love one another -- JOhn 13:34-45"
The concept of Time Travel does not extend 'outside' the boundaries of time No, but the ability to appraoch the subject logically, and without forcing a migrane, is. I am not talking about Physics here either, but a simpler approach that would require complete seperation from time. However, that was just one example I gave. I would like you to further extrapolate your views about things outside space/time Wow, you like your extrapolations don't you! Twice in as many paragraphs. Anyway, time is just a unit of measurement we have invented to be able to measure time. If you get what I mean. The tricky thing is getting your heard out of time mode and into the weird sticky green goo that is left. Once there however, you cna see that Time is nothing more than a random - yet completely uniform - movement of everything within out universe (yes, not anything outside). There is no actual So you may claim victory in the area ... I was not claiming victory, only inciting debate over views on the issue. Claiming vixtory when you only know one and a half sides is not a wise choice to make. Even for an omnipotent being like myself. ;) However, you explanation of God being the only thing outside of time, only goes to strengthen my view that religion is the only thing that can answer such questions "that our languange and mindset are not equiped to handle". Isn't that convienient. Anything we don't want to or can't deal with or answer, can be explained through God. Now we are starting to find answers for ourselves, religion is running scared... The rationalisations I've seen posted here over the past day have been of the same kind as you'd get in the Windows vs Linux debates (if you can call them that). Neither side really pays the slightest attention to what the other is or has said. I once started a very similar debate over on the Genesis3D Froums, but gave up as the fourten year olds I was 'fighting' with were just bashing me without any constructive arguments. I was hoping this site would be better, and so far it has, but we are starting to lose the constructive edge.
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I don't follow. Spiritual and physical don't enter the equasion (we discussed both at great length, I only summarised the discussion for my post). He beleived admanently that nothing - be it heaven and hell, the sun and earth, or Moses and Bruce - could exist without a creater, because nothing can cause itself to be created. The key word being nothing. Yet God just always existed? Yet God had no creater? Be God a spirit, a physical entity, or indeed John's goat - he would still have needed to be created at some point. Remember that nothing (spiritual, physical, or even imagined) can ever exist without something creating it. You thought imaging the size of the universe was difficult, try getting your head round this one without forcing a migrane!
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
You thought imaging the size of the universe was difficult, try getting your head round this one without forcing a migrane! Not really:) There are certain things that have to exist in order for there to be a beginning. Firstly and of most importance: Time . Time is a function of entrophy. There is no entrophy without the universe ( or some type of system ). So if God existed before the development of time then he would have no beginning and if he exists after the end of time ( entrophy is stopped - energy level of the universe goes to zero) then he will have no end. If God exists he does not have to apply the laws of physics to himself. he is outside the system. Thst why these kind of arguments are futile. A better argument is this but leads to the same conclusion: Given: The universe is all there is Given: The universe is expanding Where is it expanding to? Richard f you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
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I had a really heated discussion with a guy today over the start of the universe. He argued adamently that the universe must have had a creator because there is no other way it could have started. I.e. things cannot start without some cause, and God alone could have been the cause (in the absense of everything) - the watch argument. Then I said to him:
ME: So nothing can exist without some kind of creator, somewhere down the line. HIM: Yes ME: And in the beginning there was NOTHING but God HIM: Yes ME: So who created God? HIM: No one did. God has always existed.
Now, does anybody else see the flaw in his argument? Can anybody suggest a viable condonement?
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
Maybe he had a IClassFactory interface, so that he could create himself;)
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Well i guess it all boils down to a question of "Faith". From my prespective God is a creation of Man. Created by us so that we know that there is someone who is looking over us always..i guess we realize that there is so much that is out of our control that it's somewhat comforting to know that there exists a supreme being who has control and who can bring order to the chaos of the universe. I see God as a Friend to whom i can talk to about my fears and get some comfort by knowing that there is someone looking after us. I think what is wrong in the world today is the concept of religion, As long as ur a "good human being" God will be happy i guess. If only everyone would realize that there is only one God. That all religions ultimately are talking abt. the same thing. Well perfection is a myth.Let's Hope for the best. Always remember you're unique, just like everyone else. main(_){while(_=~getchar())putchar(~_-1/(~(_|32)/13*2-11)*13);}
'Well i guess it all boils down to a question of "Faith".' Why, why, why. Why do alot of people always say that. Are you basing this on a specific religion? That is also another reason why I dont like posting about these subject, I just replied to another related thread on this forum now its a couple of pages out of date.:-D
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Not at all, and I can in fact think outside of the boundaries of time. It is a very interesting frame of mind to get into, and enables you to rationally prove the possibility of time travel - thoeretically - though the processing power to acheive it would be incomprehesible to us at the moment. That said however, they said we'd never hit 1 GHz! I would guess that faith offers a similar frame of mind, whereby you can rationalise your beliefs based on 'well' and 'ifs'.
:cool: -=:suss:=-
David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
I've always liked sci-fi. Care to give me a fun example of your outside of time thinking? I guess my problem is that we define movement, events, existence, and many other things as dependent upon time. Outside of time, how would something move? For something to be anywhere, it would have to always be there. (Or would it?) *tries not to get a headache and thinks he's succeeding* :) Anyway, I'm just saying that there must be an initial something that wasn't created and that the best description of that something is God. John P.S. Thanks for removing the message on mouse hover and putting it up just when we click on your smiley. ;P
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I've always liked sci-fi. Care to give me a fun example of your outside of time thinking? I guess my problem is that we define movement, events, existence, and many other things as dependent upon time. Outside of time, how would something move? For something to be anywhere, it would have to always be there. (Or would it?) *tries not to get a headache and thinks he's succeeding* :) Anyway, I'm just saying that there must be an initial something that wasn't created and that the best description of that something is God. John P.S. Thanks for removing the message on mouse hover and putting it up just when we click on your smiley. ;P
Care to give me a fun example of your outside of time thinking? I've actually put a lot of thought into this reply, and I still can't put my mind into words! The problem is that it is inherintly difficult for me to describe something to somebody with no prior knowledge of the subject - it always has been, and probably always will be. I suppose the easiest way of starting off would be to think long and hard about what exactly time is - both in terms of what is measures, but also what it *really is*. Once you can draw the distinction between the measurment of time and the random (yet uniform) movement of the universe we use it to measure, it is surprisingly easy to think outside of time, but more importantly, still realise that with and without time is exactly the same in terms of what is physically happening. I dunno, I probably worded all that badly. Like I said, I find it hard to explain things like this in words. Once you've got the hang of it you can switch in and out of logical thinking with time, and it, surprisingly or not, makes thinking about infinite things (be it numbers, Space, or the size of John's ego) a lot more straight forward. I know it sounds really weird, but it is a really weird thing to express in words... Dammit, why couldn't I have been gifted in English language? P.S. Thanks for removing the message on mouse hover and putting it up just when we click on your smiley Apparently it was getting on some people's nerves :rolleyes:
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
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You thought imaging the size of the universe was difficult, try getting your head round this one without forcing a migrane! Not really:) There are certain things that have to exist in order for there to be a beginning. Firstly and of most importance: Time . Time is a function of entrophy. There is no entrophy without the universe ( or some type of system ). So if God existed before the development of time then he would have no beginning and if he exists after the end of time ( entrophy is stopped - energy level of the universe goes to zero) then he will have no end. If God exists he does not have to apply the laws of physics to himself. he is outside the system. Thst why these kind of arguments are futile. A better argument is this but leads to the same conclusion: Given: The universe is all there is Given: The universe is expanding Where is it expanding to? Richard f you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Just because the H1 can not be proved does not prove the null hypothesis. We are not statisticians.
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
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Just because the H1 can not be proved does not prove the null hypothesis. We are not statisticians.
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
If the possibility of an event cannot be eliminated then the possibility remains. This is not statistics. A possible outcome, no matter how small, remains viable and must be considered in terms of probability.Probably anyway :) Richard ( That my story and I'm sticking to it ) If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
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If the possibility of an event cannot be eliminated then the possibility remains. This is not statistics. A possible outcome, no matter how small, remains viable and must be considered in terms of probability.Probably anyway :) Richard ( That my story and I'm sticking to it ) If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Er.... yeah... that is exactly what I just said. Though that is very much statistics. A hypothesis test can never prove any one hypothesis, but it can say one is more likely than the other.
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
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Maybe he had a IClassFactory interface, so that he could create himself;)
LOL, a good one. Just wondering who called the ::OleInitialize() function.. // Fazlul
Get RadVC today! Play RAD in VC++ http://www.capitolsoft.com
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Maybe he had a IClassFactory interface, so that he could create himself;)
Does this make man some form of HRESULT ?? ----------------------- Reg : "Well, what Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem."
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Does this make man some form of HRESULT ?? ----------------------- Reg : "Well, what Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem."
Does this make man some form of HRESULT ?? Of course it does ! LOL Regardz Colin J Davies
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I had a really heated discussion with a guy today over the start of the universe. He argued adamently that the universe must have had a creator because there is no other way it could have started. I.e. things cannot start without some cause, and God alone could have been the cause (in the absense of everything) - the watch argument. Then I said to him:
ME: So nothing can exist without some kind of creator, somewhere down the line. HIM: Yes ME: And in the beginning there was NOTHING but God HIM: Yes ME: So who created God? HIM: No one did. God has always existed.
Now, does anybody else see the flaw in his argument? Can anybody suggest a viable condonement?
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
David, I come from the same direction as you do, but the 'flaw' in this logic is simply that if god exists in the way that most religions portray them/him/it/her (THIH), then THIH is the exception that makes any rule. Put simply - time, logic, physics, humor (apparently) don't apply to THIH. In your simplified discussion, it should read like this if your opponent was being accurate : --------------- ME: So nothing can exist without some kind of creator, somewhere down the line. HIM: Yes, except for god This is a futile line of argument, since it all rests on whether god is (a) limited by space/time or (b) 'outside' space and/or time. Since being 'outside' space/time is physically impossible (as far as we understand such things) then god must be physically impossible. That's okay for religion, because that's exactly what religion says THIH is! You either accept that something like that 'is possible, even though it's physically impossible' - in which case you can accept god, or you don't, in which case god doesn't exist. I'd just like to add that personally, I can make a difference between my inability to explain the beginning of the universe (what does "before" the "beginning" mean?), and the conclusion that this inability means that 'god must exist'. For the average 'joe' living 200 years ago, the idea that the world was round and that the earth moved around the sun would have been impossible to grasp - no amount of explaining it would have got it through. It was simply a concept beyond comprehensions for most. Eventually some people got it, and then proved it, and then told everybody else, and showed them proof, and (despite the vehement objections of the religious faithful at the time) these things are now understood and accepted. This whole "universal beginning" thing is a lot harder than that, but I have confidence that the answer is waiting to be unlocked - I just can't get my head around it, so I won't be doing the unlocking. At that time, the religious faithful will redouble their attacks, but eventually be forced to conceed the point - as they have been on virtually every point of science they have contested over the past 2000 odd years. ----------------------- Reg : "Well, what Jesus blatantly fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem."
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'Well i guess it all boils down to a question of "Faith".' Why, why, why. Why do alot of people always say that. Are you basing this on a specific religion? That is also another reason why I dont like posting about these subject, I just replied to another related thread on this forum now its a couple of pages out of date.:-D
AS i said, i dont not believe in the concept of religion, perhaps i didn't come across clearly, u see what i am trying to say is that we've created God..our faith is what gives weight to the existence of an entity called God. By "Faith" i meant , what we believe, I have different views, you have different views, you know for some time i didn't believe in God at all..then i realized why we needed one, the reasons i have already given in my last post. And Personally "about the begining of the universe" as far as i am concerned everything is again a question of what we believe in for whatever we may say there is now way we can prove or disprove it..it's like the inconsistency of arithmetic :D:D it seems so logical that something as simple as arithmetic would be consistent but it is not.. and we have been able to prove that..i don't know where i am going with this so i am going to stop here.. :D:D:D:D main(a){ printf(a="main(a){printf(a=%c%s%c,34,a,34);}",34,a,34); }
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Care to give me a fun example of your outside of time thinking? I've actually put a lot of thought into this reply, and I still can't put my mind into words! The problem is that it is inherintly difficult for me to describe something to somebody with no prior knowledge of the subject - it always has been, and probably always will be. I suppose the easiest way of starting off would be to think long and hard about what exactly time is - both in terms of what is measures, but also what it *really is*. Once you can draw the distinction between the measurment of time and the random (yet uniform) movement of the universe we use it to measure, it is surprisingly easy to think outside of time, but more importantly, still realise that with and without time is exactly the same in terms of what is physically happening. I dunno, I probably worded all that badly. Like I said, I find it hard to explain things like this in words. Once you've got the hang of it you can switch in and out of logical thinking with time, and it, surprisingly or not, makes thinking about infinite things (be it numbers, Space, or the size of John's ego) a lot more straight forward. I know it sounds really weird, but it is a really weird thing to express in words... Dammit, why couldn't I have been gifted in English language? P.S. Thanks for removing the message on mouse hover and putting it up just when we click on your smiley Apparently it was getting on some people's nerves :rolleyes:
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David Wulff dwulff@battleaxesoftware.com
I get the impression that you didn't actually attempt to explain it, but wanted me to think it through on my own. Ok. To be honest, I've spent time trying to figure out what "outside of time" would be like. All I can end up picturing is a static picture in the shape of the universe (whatever that actually is), with the element of time represented as a non-physical "deepness". I.E. you could see every event and every division of time, but they would occupy the same portion of space. This concept is different from the 3D sort of space that we're used to. As an observer outside of time, travel would be non-existent and focus wouldn't be a question, since you'd see, do, and think in ways that were not effected by time. In other words, having the ability to "travel" to any desired position would become omnipresence; and the ability to see any event and any location inside of space/time would indicate something along the lines of omniscience. Those are things that are extremely difficult to imagine, since we can only focus on a very small number of things at a time. As soon as you try to "look" at something, you've run yourself back inside the bounds of time because you aren't focusing simultaneously on everything. Do you understand my difficulty a little better now? BTW, this is kind of fun, though it's probably going to do nothing but make us wonder where our sanity went... ;P John