Does Science Suggest the Existence of God?

[Dr Grump]

Not sure what you're arguing. If everything that exists has a cause, what is the cause of God? If not everything requires a cause, why does the existence of the universe point to a creator? Seems logical to me, am I missing something?

Indeed, you are missing something. But that's my fault. I expressed the matter poorly. Brain fart. Once again, not everything that exists has a cause of its existence. How could it be otherwise? After all, things do exist.

Thanks for the clarification. So if not everything that exists has a cause of its existence, the existence of the universe is not evidence of a creator. There may be a creator but the universe is not proof. Do I have that logic right?

What's he's saying is that it's unbelievable that everything came about by accident or due to science, therefore a 'god' of some description must have been responsible. In his case it is probably the Christian god, as opposed to the plethora of other gods. However, when you point out the fact that if you take that to its logical conclusion - ie, well, where did the god come from? - that's where the hypocrisy comes in. "Oh, he always was". To which I say, "oh, right. So when it suits you, something can come from nothing, but when it fucks up your narrative, then there had to be some supernatural being involved." No wonder religion is slowly going the way of the Dodo.

 

[Ringtone]

False. The necessity of eternalism and sufficient causation are incontrovertibly a matter of logic and science. It is their ramifications that are necessarily theological. Something has always existed, and the only sufficient cause for everything else that exists would necessarily be an eternally self-subsistent, immutable, indivisible, immaterial and timeless being of incomparable greatness. Why can't you grasp that?

You say something has always existed and I don't disagree. Where you lose me is saying that what always existed is a 'being'. Why can't it be that the universe has always existed and periodically sends out an offshoot that we see as our universe beginning with a Big Bang. We don't know what came before the BB but it seems presumptuous to fill that gap in our knowledge with a human invention.

For the moment, forget about God—i.e., the ultimate apprehension of the pertinent ramifications. Remove him from the equation of things, as it were, from your mind.

1. That which begins to exist must have a cause of its existence.

Beyond vacuum energy, one cannot scientifically ascertain what preceded the BB with any specificity relative to the origin of our universe. That has absolutely no bearing on the ultimate ramifications of logic, mathematics and science that the physical world (the material realm of being) necessarily began to exist in the finite past. Neither our universe in its current form nor the physical world at large can be past eternal. An actual infinite is an absurdity. In this case, an infinite regress of causation cannot be traversed to the present. Humans did not invent the ultimate ramifications of logic, mathematics and science any more than humans invented the principles of eternalism and sufficient causation on which they're predicated. Humans axiomatically and a prior intuit these things. This is what you keep failing to grasp.

Hence . . .

2. The physical world is an entity that began to exist and has a cause of its existence.

 

[Briss]

Actually, to sum up your position, you see a universe around you, and therefore, GOD! And you even gave it an attitude and characteristics based on someone else's imagination. So, it would appear that magic is your belief, and not mine.

False on all counts, and the only thing that's in evidence here is your lack of thought. Neither you nor I require any information beyond the ramifications of logic, mathematics and science to know that God necessarily exists and necessarily has the attributes I enumerated in the above.

So, the god exists because it is necessary that it does. I see.

And you, because of your abundance of thought and applied logic to the concept, are now qualified to describe the personality of the god that you've personified . . . all the way down to the reason for its chosen method of human fertilization.

That is the very definition of overthinking something you've read.

 

[Briss]

Ringtone: The short answer: God the Father willed it so to fulfill prophecy, to establish Jesus’ divine origin, and to confirm Christ’s sinless humanity for starters. IMO those are the chief reasons.

Something sinless about being born of a virgin? Or is there something sinful about being born of a used woman?

In the Bible, Jewish genealogy is not reckoned in terms of matriarchy, but in terms of patriarchy per the order of familial spiritual authority. Hence, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or, more to the point, Abraham the son of Terah, Isaac the son of Abraham, Jacob the son of Isaac. . . .

Jesus is the adopted son of Joseph. His actual Father is God via the Incarnation and immaculate conception; hence, Jesus the Christ is the son of God the Father. Jesus the Christ's divine origin and sinless nature are established. Mary's virginity, in and of itself, is only partially relevant to that concern, but, of course, Jesus' incontrovertible immaculate conception is a miraculous sign of God's power and authority over nature and a fulfillment of prophecy.

If the god actually had power and authority over nature, it would have miraculously transformed Joseph's sperm into its own magical stuff rather than open the door to accusations about Mary's unfaithfulness.

Oh, God would have, eh?

So you admit that God exists. Good. Now, in this instance, are you claiming to be God, claiming to know God's mind, or claiming to know better than God?

crickets chirping

Moving on. . . .

First, miraculous ≠ magical. Contextually, the miraculous goes to events of divine intervention, you know, to God's power and authority over nature given that God by definition is nature's Creator.

Second, had God done things the way you think he should have done them . . . how would God's power and authority over nature be demonstrated to all in this instance? And the fulfillment of prophecy? The establishment of Jesus’ divine origin? The confirmation of Christ’s sinless humanity?

crickets chirping

Ringtone: The short answer: God the Father willed it so to fulfill prophecy, to establish Jesus’ divine origin, and to confirm Christ’s sinless humanity for starters. IMO those are the chief reasons.

Something sinless about being born of a virgin? Or is there something sinful about being born of a used woman?

In the Bible, Jewish genealogy is not reckoned in terms of matriarchy, but in terms of patriarchy per the order of familial spiritual authority. Hence, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob or, more to the point, Abraham the son of Terah, Isaac the son of Abraham, Jacob the son of Isaac. . . .

Jesus is the adopted son of Joseph. His actual Father is God via the Incarnation and immaculate conception; hence, Jesus the Christ is the son of God the Father. Jesus the Christ's divine origin and sinless nature are established. Mary's virginity, in and of itself, is only partially relevant to that concern, but, of course, Jesus' incontrovertible immaculate conception is a miraculous sign of God's power and authority over nature and a fulfillment of prophecy.

If the god actually had power and authority over nature, it would have miraculously transformed Joseph's sperm into its own magical stuff rather than open the door to accusations about Mary's unfaithfulness.

Oh, God would have, eh?

So you admit that God exists. Good. Now, in this instance, are you claiming to be God, claiming to know God's mind, or claiming to know better than God?

For the sake of discussion, I'm referring to the being you believe in as "the god." That is a courtesy. If you'll take note, I did not call it your alleged god, or your invisible friend, or your security . . .

From now on, I will refer to it as your alleged god so that you don't count me among the flock.

 

[Ringtone]

. . .

By the way, in a post addressed to Hollie, in which I mention you, I write: "As for Craig and I, we do not ascribe to the indemonstrable presupposition of Ussherian hermeneutics." Obviously, what I meant to write was subscribe to. Another brain fart. Something was nagging at me about that post, but by the time I realized what it was, the time has expired to edit it. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[Hollie]

. . .

By the way, in a post addressed to Hollie, in which I mention you, I write: "As for Craig and I, we do not ascribe to the indemonstrable presupposition of Ussherian hermeneutics." Obviously, what I meant to write was subscribe to. Another brain fart. Something was nagging at me about that post, but by the time I realized what it was, the time has expired to edit it. Sorry for any confusion.

I was certain my response would leave you with no ability to present a refutation.

 

[Ringtone]

So, the god exists because it is necessary that it does. I see.

And you, because of your abundance of thought and applied logic to the concept, are now qualified to describe the personality of the god that you've personified . . . all the way down to the reason for its chosen method of human fertilization.

That is the very definition of overthinking something you've read.

For the sake of discussion, I'm referring to the being you believe in as "the god." That is a courtesy. If you'll take note, I did not call it your alleged god, or your invisible friend, or your security . . .

From now on, I will refer to it as your alleged god so that you don't count me among the flock.

Actually, you foolish person, you unwittingly presupposed the existence of the God the Bible and what he would necessarily do and why. You're the only one who assigned extra-biblical personality traits and motives to him. I merely answered your questions about the God of the Bible from the text of the Bible. You also conflated the fundamental attributes that may be known about God from the ramifications of logic, mathematics and science, and those that may only be known by means of revelation, assuming, of course, for the sake of argument, that the Bible is in fact God's inspired revelation to man. But because you're too busy making an ass of yourself as you mock what you don't understand, you can't even keep the categorical distinction between the two contexts straight in your head.

 

[Briss]

So, the god exists because it is necessary that it does. I see.

And you, because of your abundance of thought and applied logic to the concept, are now qualified to describe the personality of the god that you've personified . . . all the way down to the reason for its chosen method of human fertilization.

That is the very definition of overthinking something you've read.

For the sake of discussion, I'm referring to the being you believe in as "the god." That is a courtesy. If you'll take note, I did not call it your alleged god, or your invisible friend, or your security . . .

From now on, I will refer to it as your alleged god so that you don't count me among the flock.

Actually, you foolish person, you unwittingly presupposed the existence of the God the Bible and what he would necessarily do and why. You're the only one who assigned extra-biblical personality traits and motives to him. I merely answered your questions about the God of the Bible from the text of the Bible. You also conflated the fundamental attributes that may be known about God from the ramifications of logic, mathematics and science, and those that may only be known by means of revelation, assuming, of course, for the sake of argument, that the Bible is in fact God's inspired revelation to man. But because you're too busy making an ass of yourself as mock what you don't understand, you can't even keep the categorical distinction between the two contexts straight in your head.

No, I'm pretty sure you are the one who was explaining what was in your alleged god's mind when it decided to have a kid. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that makes you the foolish one?

And while I've got you on the horn, what is it that this being wants from us?

 

[Ringtone]

Gospel writers only knew the Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14 and therefore did not know that it mistranslated the Hebrew word ‘almāh as virgin instead of “young woman.” On the basis of this mistranslation, Gospel writers came up with the idea that Jesus’ mother, in order to fulfill the prediction of Isaiah 7:14, needed to be a virgin—and so simply made it up. (Christians have been defending this since the time of Justin Martyr so don't feel the need to repeat their arguments, just admit it is valid to question.)

Good theology but this makes for bad history. The fulfilling of prophecy has made for some wild stories and contradictions (e.g., was there a Roman census that never got documented by the Romans themselves)

I just saw this. I missed it earlier. You're mistaken, alang. But these two issues you raise, especially the one regarding Matthew's supposed linguistic ignorance, are very complex. Let us concentrate on the ontological issue for now and come back to these later. In the meantime, understand this: the line of linguistic scholarship that holds to the view popularized in recent years, typified by Wikipedia's claim that "scholars agree that it [‘almāh] has nothing to do with virginity" is alternately false or misleading. Yes, there are scholars who agree on that alright, but theirs is the minority view, which is predicated on historical naturalism and disregards the entirety of the historical, linguistic and theological context of the term as it exclusively pertains to Rebecca and the mother of Immanuel.

 

[Ringtone]

No, I'm pretty sure you are the one who was explaining what was in your alleged god's mind when it decided to have a kid. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that makes you the foolish one?

And while I've got you on the horn, what is it that this being wants from us?

Okay, I'll correct you. You're wrong.

First, for the sake of clarity, we were not discussing the reason God the Father sent the co-eternal God the Son into the world. We were discussing the reasons he sent the Savior into the world the way he did.

Once again, I merely answered your questions about the God of the Bible from the text of the Bible. In various places of the Bible, especially in the gospels and epistles, the three reasons I listed are emphatically asserted. What I said is that in my opinion, a scholarly informed opinion, by the way, that these three, among others, are the leading (or primary) reasons. That's all.

God wants to have a loving relationship with us, which entails our loving trust and obedience.

 

[Briss]

So, the god exists because it is necessary that it does. I see.

And you, because of your abundance of thought and applied logic to the concept, are now qualified to describe the personality of the god that you've personified . . . all the way down to the reason for its chosen method of human fertilization.

That is the very definition of overthinking something you've read.

For the sake of discussion, I'm referring to the being you believe in as "the god." That is a courtesy. If you'll take note, I did not call it your alleged god, or your invisible friend, or your security . . .

From now on, I will refer to it as your alleged god so that you don't count me among the flock.

Actually, you foolish person, you unwittingly presupposed the existence of the God the Bible and what he would necessarily do and why. You're the only one who assigned extra-biblical personality traits and motives to him. I merely answered your questions about the God of the Bible from the text of the Bible. You also conflated the fundamental attributes that may be known about God from the ramifications of logic, mathematics and science, and those that may only be known by means of revelation, assuming, of course, for the sake of argument, that the Bible is in fact God's inspired revelation to man. But because you're too busy making an ass of yourself as you mock what you don't understand, you can't even keep the categorical distinction between the two contexts straight in your head.

If thinking that I've assigned extra-biblical personality traits and motives to the god is another one of your beliefs, why don't you give me an example of where I did that, and we'll see whether or not my description of the god is extra-biblical or not.

Oh, and you also claim that the god wants to have a loving relationship with us, which entails our loving trust and obedience. What you're saying is that the god will love me if I trust and obey it. It is said that you can't bargain with god, but apparently the god can, and does, bargain with its creation.

But anyway, let's get to it. What is it you believe you are trusting the god with in order to receive its love?

 

[Hollie]

No, I'm pretty sure you are the one who was explaining what was in your alleged god's mind when it decided to have a kid. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that makes you the foolish one?

And while I've got you on the horn, what is it that this being wants from us?

Okay, I'll correct you. You're wrong.

First, for the sake of clarity, we were not discussing the reason God the Father sent the co-eternal God the Son into the world. We were discussing the reasons he sent the Savior into the world the way he did.

Once again, I merely answered your questions about the God of the Bible from the text of the Bible. In various places of the Bible, especially in the gospels and epistles, the three reasons I listed are emphatically asserted. What I said is that in my opinion, a scholarly informed opinion, by the way, that these three, among others, are the leading (or primary) reasons. That's all.

God wants to have a loving relationship with us, which entails our loving trust and obedience.

We’re now on to God Sr. and God Jr. ?

Why pretend Christianity is monotheistic when your version is polytheistic?

When God Jr. gets older and has conflicts with God Sr. only policy matters, does God Jr. get sent to his room for a time out?

 

[alang1216]

False. The necessity of eternalism and sufficient causation are incontrovertibly a matter of logic and science. It is their ramifications that are necessarily theological. Something has always existed, and the only sufficient cause for everything else that exists would necessarily be an eternally self-subsistent, immutable, indivisible, immaterial and timeless being of incomparable greatness. Why can't you grasp that?

You say something has always existed and I don't disagree. Where you lose me is saying that what always existed is a 'being'. Why can't it be that the universe has always existed and periodically sends out an offshoot that we see as our universe beginning with a Big Bang. We don't know what came before the BB but it seems presumptuous to fill that gap in our knowledge with a human invention.

For the moment, forget about God—i.e., the ultimate apprehension of the pertinent ramifications. Remove him from the equation of things, as it were, from your mind.

1. That which begins to exist must have a cause of its existence.

Beyond vacuum energy, one cannot scientifically ascertain what preceded the BB with any specificity relative to the origin of our universe. That has absolutely no bearing on the ultimate ramifications of logic, mathematics and science that the physical world (the material realm of being) necessarily began to exist in the finite past. Neither our universe in its current form nor the physical world at large can be past eternal. An actual infinite is an absurdity. In this case, an infinite regress of causation cannot be traversed to the present. Humans did not invent the ultimate ramifications of logic, mathematics and science any more than humans invented the principles of eternalism and sufficient causation on which they're predicated. Humans axiomatically and a prior intuit these things. This is what you keep failing to grasp.

Hence . . .

2. The physical world is an entity that began to exist and has a cause of its existence.

Again you claim as fact things you do not know:

• the physical world (the material realm of being) necessarily began to exist in the finite past (yet you also so "one cannot scientifically ascertain what preceded the BB")
• Neither our universe in its current form nor the physical world at large can be past eternal.
• An actual infinite is an absurdity (is God infinite?)

 

[ChemEngineer]

It is incredibly ironic that atheists are so obsessed with God Whom they PRETEND "doesn't exist" that they spew their hatred in clubs, websites, books, and all over the world. There is no other parallel to atheist obsession with what they CLAIM "doesn't exist."

No books are written hating the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. The internet will not display crass hatred of either the Bunny or Claus. Do a search of Bunny Atheists and Claus Atheists. Non-existent.
It's obsessive God-haters who hate what they preach isn't here. No doubt they too don't know which restroom to use.

 

[Hollie]

It is incredibly ironic that atheists are so obsessed with God Whom they PRETEND "doesn't exist" that they spew their hatred in clubs, websites, books, and all over the world. There is no other parallel to atheist obsession with what they CLAIM "doesn't exist."

No books are written hating the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. The internet will not display crass hatred of either the Bunny or Claus. Do a search of Bunny Atheists and Claus Atheists. Non-existent.
It's obsessive God-haters who hate what they preach isn't here. No doubt they too don't know which restroom to use.

I think what’s ironic is the hyper-religious entering a public discussion board, hurling their gods at people and not expecting others to challenge their specious, “... because I say so” claims to a specific collection of gods.

The really, really angry thumpers are the ones who spread their hate with a passion that seems reserved for the angriest of the religious loons.

 

[james bond]

Gospel writers only knew the Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14 and therefore did not know that it mistranslated the Hebrew word ‘almāh as virgin instead of “young woman.” On the basis of this mistranslation, Gospel writers came up with the idea that Jesus’ mother, in order to fulfill the prediction of Isaiah 7:14, needed to be a virgin—and so simply made it up. (Christians have been defending this since the time of Justin Martyr so don't feel the need to repeat their arguments, just admit it is valid to question.)

Good theology but this makes for bad history. The fulfilling of prophecy has made for some wild stories and contradictions (e.g., was there a Roman census that never got documented by the Romans themselves)

Lol, you and your Bible translator are standing on shaky ground looking into the fiery pit of the Lake of Fire. Matthew describes in detail that it was a virgin birth and that Joseph did not have to divorce Mary.

 

[Briss]

It is incredibly ironic that atheists are so obsessed with God Whom they PRETEND "doesn't exist" that they spew their hatred in clubs, websites, books, and all over the world. There is no other parallel to atheist obsession with what they CLAIM "doesn't exist."

No books are written hating the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. The internet will not display crass hatred of either the Bunny or Claus. Do a search of Bunny Atheists and Claus Atheists. Non-existent.
It's obsessive God-haters who hate what they preach isn't here. No doubt they too don't know which restroom to use.

I wasn't aware that atheists have houses of worship strung out throughout the human environment.

I wouldn't worry about it, though; they'll never catch up with the religious types in that area.

 

[Ringtone]

Please reread this exchange very carefully and think, then read my response:

The necessity of eternalism and sufficient causation are incontrovertibly a matter of logic and science. It is their ramifications that are necessarily theological. Something has always existed, and the only sufficient cause for everything else that exists would necessarily be an eternally self-subsistent, immutable, indivisible, immaterial and timeless being of incomparable greatness. Why can't you grasp that?

You say something has always existed and I don't disagree. Where you lose me is saying that what always existed is a 'being'. Why can't it be that the universe has always existed and periodically sends out an offshoot that we see as our universe beginning with a Big Bang. We don't know what came before the BB but it seems presumptuous to fill that gap in our knowledge with a human invention.

For the moment, forget about God—i.e., the ultimate apprehension of the pertinent ramifications. Remove him from the equation of things, as it were, from in your mind.

1. That which begins to exist must have a cause of its existence.

Beyond vacuum energy, one cannot scientifically ascertain what preceded the BB with any specificity relative to the origin of our universe. That has absolutely no bearing on the ultimate ramifications of logic, mathematics and science that the physical world (the material realm of being) necessarily began to exist in the finite past. Neither our universe in its current form nor the physical world at large can be past eternal. An actual infinite is an absurdity. In this case, an infinite regress of causation cannot be traversed to the present. Humans did not invent the ultimate ramifications of logic, mathematics and science any more than humans invented the principles of eternalism and sufficient causation on which they're predicated.

Humans axiomatically and a prior intuit these things. This is what you keep failing to grasp.

Hence . . .

2. The physical world is an entity that began to exist and has a cause of its existence.

Again you claim as fact things you do not know:

• the physical world (the material realm of being) necessarily began to exist in the finite past (yet you also so "one cannot scientifically ascertain what preceded the BB")
• Neither our universe in its current form nor the physical world at large can be past eternal.
• An actual infinite is an absurdity (is God infinite?)

Again, forget about God for the moment and focus on the first two in the above.

Do not conflate the logical and mathematical apprehension that the physical world (the material realm of being) necessarily began to exist in the finite past and the scientific apprehension that one cannot scientifically ascertain what preceded the BB . . . i.e., beyond the apparent preexistence of vacuum energy.

They are categorically distinct apprehensions.

Recall, science's purview, as it were, is limited to the substances and processes of the physical world. Hence, no one can scientifically assert that our universe is the one and only to have ever existed. But whether our universe is the one and only to have ever existed, one large spacetime continuum, albeit, with localized areas of activity, one in a cyclical series of universes, or a multiverse: the cosmological configuration at large cannot be past eternal.

We cannot scientifically preclude the former potentialities in bold, but we can logically, mathematically and scientifically preclude the possibility that the latter is past eternal!

Science has recently caught up with what logic and mathematics have told us all along about entities of space, time, matter and energy. The physical world cannot be an actual infinite.

In scientific terms:

Our theorem shows that null and timelike geodesics are past-incomplete in inflationary models, whether or not energy conditions hold, provided only that the averaged expansion condition H av > 0 holds along these past-directed geodesics. This is a stronger conclusion than the one arrived at in previous work in that we have shown under reasonable assumptions that almost all causal geodesics {i.e., as distinguished from those of higher dimensions], when extended to the past of an arbitrary point, reach the boundary of the inflating region of spacetime in a finite proper time" ( Borde-Guth-Vilenkin).​

This theorem extends to cyclical inflationary models and the inflationary models of multiverse as well. The physical universe at large, regardless of the chronological or the cosmological order of its structure, cannot overcome the thermodynamics of entropy.

Joined by others, Vilenkin summarizes the matter as follows:

It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many World in One; New York: Hill and Wang, 2006, pg. 176).​

I would encourage you to read my article in which I discuss all of the potential cosmological models, so that you may have a more comprehensive understanding as to why this is so. Create a Youtube account and sign in before you click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCr5aMlaeI6J7FOrDc0kctDg/discussion . You don't have to post anything, and you can always delete the account after reading the article and asking any questions you might have

 

[Ringtone]

What's he's saying is that it's unbelievable that everything came about by accident or due to science, therefore a 'god' of some description must have been responsible. In his case it is probably the Christian god, as opposed to the plethora of other gods. However, when you point out the fact that if you take that to its logical conclusion - ie, well, where did the god come from? - that's where the hypocrisy comes in. "Oh, he always was". To which I say, "oh, right. So when it suits you, something can come from nothing, but when it fucks up your narrative, then there had to be some supernatural being involved." No wonder religion is slowly going the way of the Dodo.

What Dr Grump is apparently saying is that something has not necessarily always existed; hence, the cosmos just popped into existence from an ontological nothingness or that science(?!) caused everything to exist.

crickets chirping

By the way, what, precisely, is this science thingy that caused everything else to exist before, mind you, this science thingy existed?

You want to rewrite that mindless gibberish, sport, or are you just going to let it hang out there for God and everybody else to see just how foolish you are?

 

[Dr Grump]

What Dr Grump is apparently saying is that something has not necessarily always existed; hence, the cosmos just popped into existence from an ontological nothingness or that science(?!) caused everything to exist.
crickets chirping
By the way, what, precisely, is this science thingy that caused everything else to exist before, mind you, this science thingy existed?
You want to rewrite that mindless gibberish, sport, or are you just going to let it hang out there for God and everybody else to see just how foolish you are?

Of course, some omnipotent being, who 'has just always been' who just went abracadabra, is so much more believable...

I won't get into the fact for some reason, this god has a massive ego, and wants to be worshipped unconditionally (because??). Or that the human body, for example, is far from perfect, and in some ways is inefficient. So much for intelligence design.

Experimentation is on my side as are the histories of lore.
Sweden, circa 900AD. "Thor, the God of thunder is creating that racket".
The real world 2021: Thunder is caused by the rapid expansion of the air surrounding the path of lightning.

See how that works?