Re: Evidences of God

Jeremy wrote:

> <snip>
>
> The way I would like to begin this discussion, is to go through a
> logical progression -- a series of steps that we can evaluate together.
>
> The first step that I would like us to walk through is the question of a
> beginning?  Did the universe have a beginning?
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
>

A few ideas, Jeremy:

If you plan to use Kalam's argument, you might want to try something like
this:

Everything that *begins* to exist needs a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore the universe has a cause.

If you simply state that "everything that exists" needs a cause, you include
the deity that you are attempting to esbalish the existence of.  Which leads
the person questioning your argument to ask, "what caused your god?"
Your answer would be, "God has always existed."  At least, that is what I'm
assuming that your argument will be.  If I have misstated what your response
would be, I apologize in advance.

This eliminates one step in the debate process, where as the person with
whom you are debating can go about attacking your premises on other
grounds, instead of asking the almost obligatory question, "what created
god?"

Also I don't know if "laws of sciecne" is the best phrase to use.  It implies,
at
least to me,that there is something unchanging and immutable in science,
when I don'tthink that is the case.  Science can and does change as new
evidenceis observed.  You might want to tone it down to something like,
"science has observed that. . ."

Dave