Re: Evidences of God

Jeremy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...

> The first step that I would like us to walk through is the question of a 
> beginning?  Did the universe have a beginning?

It might be interesting to parallel this discussion with a discussion
of whether God had a beginning.  If not, where did he come from?  Does
every philosophical discussion of origins ultimately involve assuming
that *something* must have always existed?  Does calling that
something "God" really explain the evidence any better than calling it
"the universe" or "the singularity" or what have you?

> There has been and can be a lot of discussion on whether or nor there 
> was a beginning, and if you want to break out and discuss that, we can 
> and that is ok.  I feel that evidence shows us that the universe had a 
> beginning.

What exactly do you mean by "a beginning"?  Do you include all of time
and space as being that which had a beginning?  What does "beginning"
mean in the phrase "the beginning of time"?

> So if the universe had a beginning, the next question that I see to ask 
> would be was there a cause to the beginning?  I see basically two 
> options... either there was something that caused the beginning of the 
> universe, or nothing caused the beginning of the universe.

Or there was more than one cause.

> When I look at the option of it not being caused, I don't see this as a 
> logical option.  If something did not cause the universe to be created, 
> then it would have had to come from nothing.

Or it could have "condensed" or "evolved" out of some other
pre-existing condition.

> The laws of science show that matter can not come from nothing.  If I 
> accept that matter can come from nothing, that puts the rest of science 
> in an very odd position.
> 
> So I come to the conclusion that something had to cause the beginning of 
> the universe.  If you want to debate this second step further, again, 
> feel free to spin off a thread on that.

Should you not say "some thing or some things had to cause the
beginning of the universe"?  So far you have not given any reason to
limit the origin of the universe to a single cause.

> Now, if something did cause the beginning of the universe, what was the 
> cause?  Was it some mechanic of science that we know don't know about yet?
> 
> I would like to put forth a hypothesis -- That the universe was created 
> by a being that is personal, that this being created the physical world. 
>   This being was the designer of the universe.

Why do you limit it to a singular designer?

> This is how I propose we first test this hypothesis.  Other tests can be 
> applied later.
> 
> If the universe had a designer, then we should see design in the world 
> around us.

What exactly do you mean by "design"?  Do you mean "that which is
intended to achieve a particular goal"?  Don't you have to know what
the goals are in order to test whether a particular facet of the
universe is "designed" to achieve that goal?  How do you propose to
objectively and non-tautologically determine whether such goals exist
and what those goals actually are?  If you don't have objective
evidence of the goals, how can you tell whether any particular
function you observe is actually intentional or not?

> And this is where I will begin to present evidence that their is design 
> in the universe.

There is much evidence in nature of conflicting goals, compromises,
and competition.  Will you be considering the possibility that these
evidences show conflicting designs, and thus the possibility of
multiple designers?

Why do you have to go all the way back to the dim mists of cosmic
origins in order to come up with "evidence" of God?  If there really
existed a loving, personal, omnipotent and omniscient God who wanted a
personal relationship with each of His children, would you not (should
you not) have an abundance of much more immediate evidence available? 
Why would a loving, personal, self-sacrificial God hide himself from
those he allegedly loves and wants a relationship with?  Why would he
use his omnipotence to so stifle all evidence of his existence that he
can only be inferred by difficult--and highly debatable--analyses of
alleged "design" in his alleged creation?  If God were only going to
leave one type of evidence of his existence, why would it be only in
an area that requires some fairly weighty science to explore, and even
then tends to support polytheism better than monotheism?

I look forward to your discussion.

m
aa#2115