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wayward1 -> RE: Atheist's Nightmare (Ravi Zacharias) (7/26/2008 12:35:15 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PromiseLander
With all due respect, you are mistaken sir for it is the pivotal question...
Since we know that there was a beginning to everything
With all due respect, you are mistaken sir, for we know no such thing, nor do any respected scientists think such a thing.
quote:
to which prior to some event there existed nothing physical, then there MUST have been a God
- We know that nothing comes from nothing. If you insist there was no God, then something would have to come from nothing which is impossible.
By our frame of reference, no physical thing has come from nothing. It's hardly worth noting but a minor point of correction is that the universe isn't a physical thing. It is the collection of all physical things, and within the universe we see physical things acting on each other regularly and through no apparent external cause.
Your choice to apply infinite regression selectively is telling of what you particularly want the answer to this question to be, but it is not convincing at all. I can assert that the universe "just is" and I will be on equal footing with you asserting that God "just is". Actually I'll be on significantly stronger footing, because the evidence all leads to the notion that the Universe "just is" and no evidence leads to the notion that God "just is".
If (as all the evidence suggests) the Universe is eternal and uncreated there need be no "why." A "why" would require an imposition of external purpose. But no external purpose is possible if there is nothing external capable of imposing it.
Theists cannot object to such an assertion without demonstrating their own profound hypocrisy, since, after all, it is the identical assertion that they make for god. And they do it for the same reason: A "why" for god would require an imposition of external purpose. But no external purpose is possible if there is nothing external to impose it on god.
We're not allowed to ask origin questions in infinite regress of one entity, and then turn around and exclude another entity from the same logical process, not without good reason anyway. You can't make logical deductions from lightening, back through static electricity and a million other natural processes and stop at god. There must be a reason for doing so, and we can conclude why many humans are doing so quite easily.
It is every bit as logical to ask "who created God" if God is meant to be our answer to "who created the Universe". Infinite regress, once begun, is a logical requirement to continue forever. Stopping it at any point in the chain makes the results suspect by default, because the point at which you stop asking "who created X" is the point at which you change the standards for the logic applied to the process. If there is no valuable conclusion to be made from asking "who created that then", then there was no valuable conclusion to be gained by asking who created the first thing.
So what do we think is going on when people decide which things they're willing to ask "who created it" about? Could it be any more obvious? Imposing the logically required external purpose or creator on god, or in other words asking "who created God" would detract from God's significance and logically imply that something knows more than God or is more powerful. Since this doesn't fit into what they want God to be, they don't do it. Imposing an external purpose on the universe adds to god's significance, so they do do it. This is nothing if it's not pure self serving hypocrisy. Don't use logic to justify your stance if you're not going to use logic properly and in an unbiased way, is all I'm saying. Oorah?
We are left again at the issue of evidence. We are presented with two entities competing for the position of "eternal and uncreated." For one of them, we have vast evidence that it really exists. For the other, we have no evidence at all.
This is why an "eternal and uncreated universe" is a vastly superior answer to the question of ultimate reality than an "eternal and uncreated god."
At least as far as the evidence is concerned.
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