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<p>What prevents the universe itself from being eternal? What prevents this “creator” to be a completely natural force? Why does it have to be a sentient omnipotent creator?</p>
<p>What created your god in the first place? You cannot respond with “nobody, he’s eternal” because nothing prevents the universe from being just as eternal…</p>
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<p>I shall try to satisfy your request, though it will entail ignoring most of the content of the posts here.</p>
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<p>It does not. Please do some fact checking.</p>
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<p>I will say this once more: I do not meet the criteria for being a creationist.</p>
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<p>It is more than enough for me. Furthermore, according to mythology, the ocean was not created by Poseidon, so you are employing a false analogy.</p>
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<p>You may have been qualifying, but you have illustrated my basic point. All of us can’t be correct - I have stated this time and time again - but one is.</p>
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<p>Well, I do not recall making such a statement. Would you mind directing me to the post (or simply quoting it) so I can refresh my memory?</p>
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<p>panache has provided an excellent respond to your queries; I do not feel that I ought to add anything further. Do you have any questions beyond panache’s response?</p>
<p>With regards to your point on Buddhism:</p>
<p>Buddhism does not state that belief in a Creator is false; it simply does not advocate it. However, the two ideas are not contradictory; Buddhism does not state that a creator or sentient originator does not exist.</p>
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Einstein’s relativity theory? Second law of thermodynamics? Big Bang radiation echo? All of these disprove the notion the universe is eternal.</p>
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Science just prevented the universe from being eternal.</p>
<p>When the universe was created, so was time and space. Natural causes can’t really exist outside of time and space, can they? To create all of this, time, space, everything encompassed, the Creator must be all powerful and therefore omnipotent (to human understanding). He must be sentient to have created sentient life.</p>
<p>In conclusion, nobody, He’s eternal.</p>
<p>according to LOST, religion. So i’ll stick with that.</p>
<p>^ Nice.</p>
<p>The word “nice” should count as 10 characters.</p>
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<p>Yes, I do. It is terrible how many people have misinterpreted and/or outright falsified the bible over the years. But if you actually read and study it, you will see that most if not all of the objections are ungrounded, and that there is a huge amount of things in it’s favor.</p>
<p>But as I have not based my arguments here on the Bible, attacking it does nothing to answer me on the creation/naturalism issue.</p>
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<p>All the logical fallacies aside, let’s suppose that a creator did exist, why must he be called Yahweh or Allah or Krishna? If something that vaguely fits into our very flawed concept of omnipotent and all-powerful did actually exist, why must it follow that he just happens to be THE deity of THE religion to which we happen to adhere?</p>
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The general debate here is religion versus science, as well as “is religion a justified belief?”, not whether Christianity/Islam is right or wrong (also - they share the same God). I think it would be the best for this debate if we did not get side tracked. I see the point you’re trying to make, but you are digressing.</p>
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<p>But the identity of the deity and the tenets which he espouses are absolutely central to religion. To debate religion as a general concept is pointless, as each promotes certain values and certain views. Moreover, nearly all are mutually exclusive, thus, there’s no way to debate religion without focusing on certain aspects of certain religions. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the most fundamental concept of any religion – the existence of whichever deity one happens to believe – is not justified. If there is a creator, there’s no reason he’s Christian or Muslim or any other religion. As such, am I just as well off starting a new religion founded on this same vague concept? It’s still religion, isn’t it?</p>
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What logical fallacies? Please elaborate.</p>
<p>Using the logic in my earlier post (if anyone sees specific flaws, please point them out), I’m saying that the characteristics we can deduce correspond to the Christian God as represented in the Bible very closely – to a tee. Disregarding that theory, then I see no reason the creator must adhere to one of man’s deities, but I also see no rational reasoning from which to draw the conclusion of an unnamed, unknown creator other than blind faith.</p>
<p>You may very well make up your own religion with your own deity, but whether it is logically possible or probable is another matter.</p>
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<p>The point being argued here is whether religion should be thrown out from the beginning as illogical. Once that argument is decided we can argue the relative merits of different faiths.</p>
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<p>Really? Generally speaking, I think that everyone has the same basic values, even if there are certain issues on which some may disagree</p>
<p>There really is no purpose to this debate. Nobody chooses to be religious because they think they will be able to better embody the morality of that religion without believing in it in general, because the values of generosity, kindness, loyalty, and love for mankind are common to all religions, all sets of beliefs, and cognizant people, whether they acknowledge it or not.</p>
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<p>All of that shows that our concept of spacetime is not eternal, but the larger question remains: is spacetime all that comprises the universe? If so, your statement is true, but if the universe is something far more complex than the mere fabric of spacetime, then it could very well be eternal, with the creation and expansion of spacetime representing but an aspect of its existence. </p>
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<p>The fallacy here lies in the fact that we unwittingly attribute characteristics to a ‘creator’ based on our material experience of reality. We experience the world through the a priori concepts of space and time, and, as such, in order to correct for the apparent paradoxes of our creation, we attribute such characteristics as omnipotence and timelessness to something we cannot understand. But why does it necessarily follow that such characteristics of space and time apply to a creator? Just because we can’t envision reality without spacetime doesn’t necessarily mean that the same is true for the universe or the ‘creator’. Thus, our a priori concepts don’t necessarily apply to something so complex and of which we’ve little understanding. For all we know, the fabric of spacetime is but an insignificant part of the universe and something completely irrelevant to a ‘creator’.</p>
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<p>Saying that his creations must mirror his characteristics is just what you did when you claimed that the creator must necessarily be timeless and omnipotent. It’s as if we created this creator because we attributed to him characteristics with which we’re familiar, but which don’t necessarily apply to him. The same can be said for this argument. Just because something applies to the creator doesn’t necessarily mean it must apply to us. Let us indulge in your idea of eternity for a moment, IF (a very big if, at that) the ‘creator’ was eternal, why is it that life isn’t eternal as well? IF his creations mirror his characteristics, why is it that only certain aspects of his characteristics are mirrored while others are not? Who decided which aspects to bestow upon life? Why was this necessarily so? Point being, just because something applies to one entity does NOT mean it must apply to another.</p>
<p>Some threadjacking is in order here.</p>
<ol>
<li>Humans don’t know everything.</li>
<li>Non/existence of God can be neither proven nor disproven.
2a. Relative merits of different religions can be neither proven nor disproven.</li>
<li>We’re debating only semantics here.
3a. This thread is not useful.</li>
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<p>Quite well said Leafy. I suppose eventually we can nullify the validity of every debate topic in this thread, and, assuming people read it and are willing to follow our divers advises, this thread will be done for, to the general benefit of HSL</p>
<p>Thy own preferences may well differ from mine, but I am unwilling to review the diverse arguments presented in the preceding twenty-eight pages of this weighty tome.</p>
<p>YOu just taught me the word “tome” :)</p>
<p>%D let’s hijack this thread by performing Torquato Tasso’s play “Aminta”
[Amyntas</a>, A Tale of the Woods/Act I - Wikisource](<a href=“http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Amyntas,_A_Tale_of_the_Woods/Act_I]Amyntas”>Amyntas, A Tale of the Woods/Act I - Wikisource, the free online library)
They’re both female roles, so you can choose</p>
<p>Hopefully none as distasteful as Dol Common’s </p>
<p>Nerina is an actual name?!?!?!?! =O</p>
<p>Wt*? The “friend” is more of a romancer than the girl who ends up falling in love…bad choice, Deli. Didn’t any of Shakespeare’s colleagues write any action plays?</p>
<p>hahaha
Actually, I’m doing a project on alchemy right now as our post AP test project in AP Chem, and the book I’m using as a source quotes Jonson several times concerning the ridiculous nature of alchemy insofar as it was based on music, the zodiac, sulfur-mercury theory, etc.</p>
<p>I guess if you bombard enough atoms together eventually you’ll get 1 gold atom.</p>
<p>Of course, the expense…</p>